the white noise maker gift guide
for the last-minute gifter
Next year, we will start early. Next year, we will make woodcut print T-shirts for everyone. Next year, we will be standing on the precipice of winter with clean hair and sensible thoughts. We will be that person. We will see the train coming. We will already have the enormous bag of onions that we need for the feast. We will have thoughtfully tucked away used gift bags. We will have stored away clean jars after every pasta dinner. We will have ordered everything in advance. We will have begun the preserved lemons at the height of summer. We will spend the last few days before the solstice in sedate contemplation—like an Annie Dillard book which has attained sentience. Next year.
But this year, we are suddenly accosted by the lateness of the hour w/r/t gifts, and we are no less loving of the people in our lives for it, so let’s get moving:
an Instacart treat
The first time I had one of these deliveries, I was puzzled because the recipient seemed to have no idea what I was doing there. I was delivering two extremely expensive filet mignons (filets mignon?), two enormous russet potatoes, chives, premium sour cream, and Irish butter. It seemed fairly obvious what was going on here. So why did the man at the door seem surprised to see me? He was kind but a little baffled about answering the door. I didn’t realize what was going on until he asked me what I was delivering. “A surprise,” I said. “I think you’re going to like it.” (This must have been the right thing to say because the customer who sent him the makings of a steak dinner bumped up my tip big time the next day.)
I have many caveats—more on those in a moment—but I really love the idea of giving someone a surprise treat through the aegis of these delivery apps. (What else are they good for, after all?) It opens up a whole world of gifts and experiences. You could sent flowers and balloons along with ice cream. You could send all the ingredients for a luxurious meal (presuming that you know your giftee will enjoy cooking it.) You could send them an absurd abundance of their favorite cereal. It really blows the doors wide open.
Now my caveats: There are a lot of ways you could unwittingly annoy the fuck out of your Instacart shopper, especially if you aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of the service. First of all, you need to be flexible if the store you order from is out of some items. Either specify your desired backups or be ready to respond to questions while the order is being filled. Second of all, if the order will include perishable things, you need to be sure that your giftee will be at home when the order is delivered. The best thing to do is to specify that the driver can leave the order at the front door. Otherwise, the delivery driver has to physically hand it to someone, and if they can’t reach you, you basically forfeit your order and they get to take your food home. And tip as if the person fulfilling your order had to fight over a parking space and wait in a line halfway into the cereal aisle, because that’s probably true.
das Nagelbett (aka the Shakti mat)
I like things that hurt, that sting. I like bitter foods. I like the darkest dark chocolate. I like the black licorice. I love nettles and sumac and hops. I like zaps. I like massages where you’re right there on the edge of being able to take the pain. Roll needles over my face? Sounds great. Black sesame, Szechuan peppercorns, broccoli raab, black coffee, I love it all, etc. So it isn’t a surprise that I also like to lay out on a mat of tiny spikes every night.
But the thing is … it is so relaxing. If you can get past the first two or three minutes of sheer pain. And if you buy it today, you can still get guaranteed xmas day shipping. (Not a sponsored addition unless you want to make it interesting, Shakti …)
chia jam
This is for your friend who doesn’t eat anything. I mean, they eat things which have only been touched by the hands of Mother Nature. Your no processed sugar, no gluten, no soy or whey or ground nuts or nightshades friend. The person you know who knows about seed oils. Who is either extremely into raw milk or who would never.
That person probably eats fruit, and if they do, you can make them a very tasty jam. Here’s how:
Heat up some fruit in a saucepan. It can be frozen berries from Trader Joe’s or actual glorious fruit from your farmer’s market or beautiful persimmons that your neighbors leave out for passersby in little boxes at the edge of their lawns (if, like me, you live in actual heaven). Add some lemon juice. Unlike regular jam, it will only be as sweet as the fruit is, so you may want to add some maple syrup or coconut sugar. In my opinion, since this is a gift and everything, you might do well to add something interesting like chai spice or thyme or something. Once everything is liquidy, add some chia seeds—this is what gels the jam, so you don’t want to skimp on it. The recipe I used initially suggested 2 tablespoons, but I ended up doubling that. As it cools, it gets thicker. It will never be exactly as stiff as regular preserves, and it has to be refrigerated at all times, so don’t go expecting those things, and don’t try to mail it across the country or anything like that.
a membership to Huntington Gardens (or what you will)
When I quit smoking, I was given the excellent advice to keep tabs on how much money I was saving and treat myself to something immediately. Saved $8 on your daily pack of American Spirits? Have an $8 bar of chocolate. Tomorrow, get a fancy sandwich.
This is very good advice, in my opinion, because when you’re changing a habit, you need immediate reinforcement. Saying that you’ll use the saved money to “take a vacation” someday is kind of silly. Unless you have something very particular in mind already, it is an abstraction, and an abstraction is not that helpful when you’re up against a craving. A craving is momentary, and you need something else momentary to meet it. So why not microdose luxury to get yourself over the hump?
The funny thing is, I saved money so fast the first week of not smoking that I had to scramble to come up with treats, and that’s when I bought myself a membership to the Carnegie Museum of Art. Of course, I had visited the Carnegie dozens upon dozens of times, quite often as a child, and even more as a college student living just up the street with a student ID card that got me free admission. But as an adult, I didn’t go that often, and not for any particular reason. It just didn’t come up.
But once I got myself the museum membership, I could go there whenever I wanted. I would go to the Hall of Gems and Minerals with a book I had just bought and read, with refracting rainbows scattered across the pages. It was the first time I got into the habit of sitting in front of my favorite paintings for no particular reason. (There is a real and astonishing pleasure to entering a museum, going directly to Juan Theodore Dupas’ “Chariot of Aurora,” sitting there for 30 minutes, and then leaving without looking at anything else.) It was a wonderful thing because it opened the door to a particular kind of contemplation. The kind of person I’ve always wanted to be does that, you know?
And that’s the secret thing about gifts: They are actually invocations. When you give someone a gift, you also give them the version of themselves that has that thing. (This is why it is a BIG DEAL to give a teenager a Polaroid camera or an electric guitar.) I mean, it’s true of all objects. But there’s something that feels bigger when someone else gives you that object, because they’re also saying: I see this in you. I see the versions of you that you might want to be, and I am here for all of them.
Of course this can backfire. A gift can feel like pressure. Thinking too much about alternate future selves can evoke a sense of criticism or diminishment. Or, if your giftee is someone who frequently surfs the waves of potential selves and changes directions on a dime, you might bestow them with last month’s dream. (No fault of your own. Those of us who are ridiculous in this way are very aware of it.)
But I’m big on gifts that dwell in time. And think of it this way: It’s a year of water lilies, a year of sitting in front of one painting, a year of having somewhere to go for free and live with beauty.
And finally! Nothing makes a better last-minute (actually, immediate) gift than a substack subscription.
SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE
You could know Meaghan Garvey from your favorite Pitchfork review. (Like so.) Or your fave Lanita profile. (Like such.) But you should also know her from her substack newsletter, because it’s the best one. Every missive is hefty, with the significance of actual reporting from actual places and talking to actual people, unlike the endless millennial think-piecing that proliferates in these streets. The writing is A1, Barry Hannah-esque, deep and glittering and humane. And possibly my interests just constellate perfectly with hers (hello Vanderpump Rules, hello reveries of rural emptiness) but I’m always excited, and rightfully so, to see a SCSG in email bag.
Unsolicited Existence
Alejandra Smits is a genius poet and filmmaker, and her substack is where she shows up every fucking week to do battle with silence. I mean the specific silence that all writers look at, the thing that sits on the other side of the blank page and the winking cursor. There are so many days that I have a feeling of some kind that wants to be alive, but I tell myself that it isn’t enough, I don’t really have anything to say, it has to be bigger before I can commit to it, what have you. I let it go. I let the silence fill. But in Unsolicited Existence, Alejandra Smits finds what is there to say. Whether it’s about friendships, the lack thereof, loneliness, the shocks of becoming a parent. If you love the bravery of a writer who is willing to commit to the arena of the day and the moment, who always finds something brilliant to say, you will be amazed. I think you’ll be amazed anyway. Nobody is writing with more honesty and clarity these days, online or on paper.
Thank you for reading! I hope this has helped, and I hope you get everything you ever wished for. <3
what a delight!!! ❤️❤️❤️