This Not That Holiday Gift Guide 2023
Greetings and welcome to the second annual This Not That Holiday Gift Guide, delivered to your inbox late Cyber Monday evening no less! It’s the most wonderful time of the year and I’m pleased to offer some exquisite and personal recommendations for you and yours. Let’s get to it!
Bohemian Lime fragrance by Goldfield & Banks
The best customer service I’ve ever experienced was in a boutique called Perfumology in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, run by the absolute friendliest parfum savant, probably in the world? This un-pretentious enthusiast will take your nose on a whirlwind excursion through the world’s fanciest scents - just give him your basic fragrance profile and he’ll take it from there - many of which are exclusively distributed in the States by this very store. Anyway, my girlfriend1 and I had a deeply fulfilling hour in there earlier this year, and we determined that Bohemian Lime by the Australian perfume-house Goldfield & Banks was the obvious standout. It’s a citrusy, nature-y unisex scent, remarkable for a pleasantly unique tartness that never overstays its welcome. Full-size bottles aren’t cheap, but travel and sample sizes are available if you wanna dip a toe, as is an appealing Goldfield & Banks sampler set, ready to run the full gauntlet on your olfaction. I’m gonna sniff “Velvet Splendour” the next time I’m in Perfumology, mark my words.
Super Console X Cube video game console
That’s right, the Super Console X Cube! If it wasn’t obvious, this is a bootleg emulator thing, and it boasts no less than SIXTY THOUSAND different video games from basically every pre-Y2K video game system that ever existed. Sixty thousand! One day I’m gonna do a durational art performance, Marina Abramović-style, where I sit there and play each of the 60,000 games in a row, but that will have to wait. Anyway, I own this, and it really is the best - every old video game you’ve (n)ever wanted to play, ready to go with controllers included; simply plug and play. I am by no means a gamer but I’ll pick this up once every few months and find something to enjoy. Most recently, I discovered a game called Hatris, an obvious/terrible Tetris knock-off where you stack outlandish hats on identical heads. See what I mean? The link above is to the Ali Express listing, which feels appropriately shady, though apparently you can get this on Amazon and most other miserable online-retail giants, too. Wish I could’ve bought it directly from the person who invented it, but I’m sure they are shrouded in secrecy.
Gorgeous compendium of unfiltered Berlin techno culture here, in English for those of us too uncultured to read German fluently. Stuffed with eye-popping photographs, images and ephemera as well as exciting first-hand reminiscences and enthusiastic writing, Tresor: True Stories might not be the full and final summation of German techno, but it’s an exceptional piece of the puzzle. Pair it with Rainald Goetz’s fantastic autofiction Rave while blasting some Planetary Assault Systems and voila, you can pretend to be a knowledgeable authority on German techno, just as I like to do.
How about a fun lil’ mirror? It’s almost like a fancy, rich-gay version of the carnival mirrors of the ‘70s and ‘80s, the ones that had KISS or Led Zeppelin logos on them and were sold for recreational snorting without tacit acknowledgement. Toiletpaper is a magazine-turned-creative-studio and I dig a lot of what they do, even if some of it carries an outdated shock value, as if they think people still blush when they see naked butt cheeks with the word “FUCK” written on them in lipstick or something. Very kitsch-y modern Italian in a way that works for me more often than not. I enjoy most of the embellished mirrors in this set (which, intriguingly, aren’t all the same dimensions), particularly the hole-punched flower one as well as the one above. These four sawing hands are fun in a way that feels lightly, innocently transgressive, like casually mentioning OnlyFans over Thanksgiving dinner.
DJ Screw ‘Out the Gate’ poster
Best bang for your buck right here, a GIANT poster of DJ Screw selling one of his legendary tapes direct from his front door for twenty-seven bucks (free shipping!). Toiletpaper mirror over the sink, DJ Screw poster behind it, now that’s a bathroom I’d gladly frequent! This is an incredible image, and though I’m a little surprised by Screw’s White Sox representation, this poster is an instant upgrade to any wall that can support a nail (or should I say “screw”??) in it. It’s sold direct from the Screwed Up Records shop too, so you know your money is going to the right people. Can’t be long until they stop printing these and they start going for annoyingly inflated prices on the secondary market, can it?
Gift certificate to Apport Used Books
Often, the Apport Used Books Instagram page makes me feel like I don’t know the first tiny little thing about the multitude of books that are out there, which of course is a wonderful feeling. This adorable shop, tucked away in the harmless burg of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, is a trove of the most out-there literary works you never knew existed: witches, UFOs, transcendentalism, weed occult, children’s horror, comedy sleaze, conspiracy theories both real and imagined… I don’t know where he gets such a consistently eccentric selection of used books (with some of the greatest covers I’ve ever seen as well - just take a look at these two, for example). You can stake out their Instagram page and snatch up something in particular, but why not do your loved ones a favor and get them gift cards so they can experience that fun for themselves? I messaged Apport and got a gift card for my dad, who will surely be treating himself to the finest volumes of “JFK’s assassination was actually a tantric-sex fluctuation in space-time” literature he can find. (He lives in the same town as Apport, as it were - I will not be explaining Instagram to him anytime soon.)
Last but not least, here’s Klask! I actually casually mentioned it in last year’s guide, and the fact that I’m full-on recommending it now is a testament to the staying power of this fabulous tabletop game. It’s like a classier, analog form of air hockey kinda, but with its own particular twists - those little white things you see in the middle of the board are a crucial, cunning element. The rules are a little too long for me to bother typing out (though easily understood in thirty seconds), so let me just tell you this thing has livened up family gatherings, New Years Eve parties, Tuesday afternoons, all sorts of moments with all sorts of people. It’s a universal and heartwarming form of fun, and while I think my household will be investing in the circular four-player version(!) this holiday season, you simply can’t go wrong with the original.
Feels a little uncouth to promote anything in this secular gift-guide that’s created by someone I love deeply, but Toska by Alina Pleskova is an incredible book of modern poetry that “explores a sense of rootlessness and a sort of anti-nationalism” with the utmost grace and vivid wordplay, and it deserves mention here. Add it to your stack before you see it on a “Best Poetry 2023” list, please!