You Know, For Kids:
Toys and Games
ISSUE #35.05 • SPECIAL SECTION •
Books And Stationery
 39. SOMEONE ELSE’S TRASH: Green Paper Company stationery |
BY KATIE GILBERT & BEN WATERHOUSE | 503-243-2122
[December 10th, 2008]
31 Wit, Sunny Side Up
Egg Press cards ($4.50-$6. Noun, 3300 SE Belmont St., 235-0078) feel so familiar you almost believe you could have made them yourself, if only you had the wit and design chops. Cheerful and unassuming, with more than a splash of vintage charm, the greeting cards are printed on antique presses in Southeast Portland and offer such greetings as “You’re Unbelievable!” over an image of the Loch Ness monster. (KG)
32 An Academic Calendar Year
Chock full (not “chalk”) of handy grammatical lessons, the Common Errors in English Usage daily desk calendar ($11.95. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651) works as well for the confused “your”/“you’re” user in your life as it does for the wrist-slapping grammarian. Why not take the first step in making 2009 the year we settle the “PIN number”/“PIN” debate and start pronouncing Iraq (ee-RAHK) correctly? (KG)
33 Gorgeous Shots
For a stately coffee-table fixture drenched in local appeal, look no further than Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957 ($75. Portland Art Museum shop, 1219 SW Park Ave., 276-42014). Published by Oregon State University Press, this weighty 1-foot-square tome features 134 photos of the big river. For a pre-purchase preview, head to the Portland Art Museum, where the photos are on display until Jan. 11. (KG)
34 Voyeuristic Tendencies
Portland-based photographer Ann Ploeger has found a quietly pointed way to comment on the importance of place in Portraits ($25. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651). Ploeger gathers 43 compositions of people in their homes and yards in West Coast and Midwestern cities. A thread of deadpan whimsy runs through the portraits, each as rich as an essay. (KG)
35 Free-Form Hilarity
In Free-Range Chickens ($17. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726), a daintily riotous collection of comic vignettes, 24-year-old Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich turns mundane musings into comedic gold. As in his imagined ill-fated trip back in time to off Hitler early (“Officer? This man just killed a baby” ), Rich wields a spot-on subtlety that will please devotees of the genre and humor-writing haters alike. (KG)
36 A Stately Read
If we are entering a time that resembles the Great Depression, the least we can do is to try to appropriate the charming aspects of that era. Start with State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America ($29.95. Twenty-Third Avenue Books, 1015 NW 23rd Ave., 224-5097), a compilation edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, who drew their inspiration from the state guides published during the Depression. They gathered 50 of the country’s best writers (Dave Eggers and Jhumpa Lahiri, among others) and asked them to “tell us a story about your state, the more personal the better.” The result: Charming indeed. (KG)
37 Oregon 101
One of the downsides of Oregon’s recent growth spurt is that no one seems to know a damn thing about the state’s history. Give a recent immigrant a crash course in Oregoniana with Dick Pintarich’s 2003 tome Great & Minor Moments in Oregon History ($29.95. Annie Bloom’s Books, 7834 SW Capitol Highway, 246-0053), newly reissued in time for the state’s sesquicentennial in 2009. Pintarich covers both the familiar and the bizarre in a congenial, frequently funny voice that’s more immediately inviting than other histories of the state. (BW)
38 Behaving Badly, Writing Well
While it may be technically targeted at chicks, and it’s certainly literary, don’t dismiss Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave ($14.95. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651) as chick lit. The essays that resulted from Ellen Sussman’s request of 25 women to write about being bad girls are far too good for that. Pieces like Joyce Maynard’s recollection of her affair with J.D. Salinger or Daphne Merkin’s rundown of all the penises she’s known don’t simply conjure a confessional, a feminist theory course, or happy hour, but overlapped pieces of each. (KG)
39 Someone Else’s Trash
Green Paper Company stationery (25-60 cents per sheet for paper, 40 cents-$1 for envelopes. Oblation, 516 NW 12th Ave., 223-1093) is trashier than most, and that’s a good thing. The whole collection is made from at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, a step up from paper that’s merely “recycled,” which can mean scraps have been reused during the manufacturing process—a less impressive claim. The paper’s smooth, sturdy finish and the radiance of its 18 shades may leave you looking to get more trash into your life. (KG)
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Coming Dec. 10!
WW EDITORIAL STAFF | Gift Guide Vol. 2 brings even more present ideas for the next-to-last-minute shopper.
WW EDITORIAL STAFF | Gift Guide Vol. 2 brings even more present ideas for the next-to-last-minute shopper.
