Every year, for six weeks or so, I get a taste of what it\u2019s like to be a superstar.<\/p>\n
From late October to early December, I am accosted daily by an aggressive mob of stalkers who know where I live. Their urgent need for my attention seems to be their only reason for being. No, they\u2019re not paparazzi or obsessed fans. I\u2019m talking about Christmas catalogs. Every day brings a new swarm\u2014they burst out of my mailbox, entreating me to behold them in all their holiday finery.<\/p>\n
Well, even a six-week celebrity has an obligation to his public. I checked out every last one. None was turned away. Here, then, is my Christmas catalog review.<\/p>\n
For big spenders there is the stately Gump\u2019s catalog, so tasteful you want to take a nap; or Neiman Marcus, with its sullen, stubbly, pasty pretty boys modeling $390 sneakers; or the gaudy Hammacher Schlemmer, for taste-challenged high-rollers: I\u2019ve got to have that animatronic singing and talking Elvis, or more accurately, Elvis\u2019 head and shoulders\u2014the King has been mutilated, I guess, to spare the embarrassment of pelvic thrusts in mixed company. How about spoiling your child rotten with Hammacher\u2019s \u201c6\u00bd-foot teddy bear\u201d for $500. If that\u2019s too sissified, the NFL Shop will warp the values of your little tough guy with a personalized 12-minute CD of a football game in which the announcer says the kid\u2019s name 30 times. It\u2019s never too early to learn that it\u2019s all about you.<\/p>\n
Frontgate offers a machine that enriches your oxygen as it plays music. An up-and-comer called X-treme Geek has caffeinated soap, a talking toilet-tissue holder, and, for the guy whose girlfriend doesn\u2019t hate him enough already, a Wild West revolver-shaped TV remote, which makes a loud gunshot as it changes channels. It comes with a \u201csuper-cool official-looking sheriff\u2019s badge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Signals company tempts pet lovers with the \u201cI kiss my dog on the lips\u201d T-shirt, but I have my eye on the coat rack with three duck tails for hangers. Not to be outdone, What on Earth offers a \u201ccat butt magnet set,\u201d to go with its flatulent toy puppy (\u201csqueeze his belly\u201d) and a Bill Clinton figurine with a corkscrew coming out of his pants.<\/p>\n
Wolferman\u2019s offers 44 pages of \u2026 muffins?! Fahrney\u2019s offers 56 pages of \u2026 pens!? Don\u2019t miss the Marlene Dietrich model (\u201csensuous curves in all the right places\u201d), a bargain at $880, or the $3,000 \u201cpen of the year\u201d (who voted?).<\/p>\n
From high-end catalogs on down, the one constant is the writing, which is excellent across the board. (Is this what good writers have to do to eat these days?) Oh, some are better than others. Fahrney\u2019s thinks the plural of entry<\/em> is \u201centrys\u201d\u2014a store devoted to writing can\u2019t make such a dumb mistake. National Geographic\u2019s otherwise classy mailer misfires with the awkward \u201cspiders are one of the creepiest crawlers out there.\u201d Spiders, plural, are \u201cone\u201d? Why not \u201ca spider is\u201d? Sahalie\u2019s writes \u201ccompletely waterproof.\u201d How is that different from just \u201cwaterproof\u201d? Orvis Men\u2019s Clothing says, \u201cCrafted in New England, you\u2019ll appreciate the comfort.\u201d This sentence, taken literally, means \u201cyou\u201d were crafted in New England. Herrington\u2019s high-spirited but sloppy catalog spells minuscule<\/em> \u201cminiscule.\u201d Herrington is also one of many catalogs that can\u2019t get the subject to agree with the verb: \u201cEvery one of our vintage Ferraris are parked \u2026\u201d No, every one is<\/em> parked. Subject-verb agreement is a big problem nowadays, and reflects the carelessness and short attention spans this era will be remembered for.<\/p>\n When you read as many of these things as I did, you come to realize that catalogs have their own language, rules, and customs. Numbers are almost never spelled out, not even leading off a sentence. That\u2019s against all civilized rules of writing, but merchants want to be direct, not correct. They\u2019re targeting our eyes, not our brains. Capitals are thrown around extravagantly because anything capitalized looks Important and Impressive. Hyphens are avoided wherever possible because advertisers will always choose two simple words with a clean space between them over one long, confusing word with an ungainly bar right in the middle.<\/p>\n Many companies sell jewelry made with \u201cSwarovski crystals,\u201d a fancy term for rhinestones, which is in turn a euphemism for phony gemstones. And countless catalogs feature \u201cnutcrackers,\u201d so called because they were inspired by the popular Tchaikovsky Christmastime ballet. The 21st-century versions look to be useless, charmless statuettes, tackier than tin soldiers. You can get them wearing uniforms of your favorite pro sports team or branch of the military. Despite the name, I doubt they could even crack a moldy peanut. Their heads don\u2019t even bobble.<\/p>\n Finally, see if you can figure out what this list of words culled from several catalogs refers to: chianti, chili, dirt, dragonfly, dusk, espresso, grasshopper, mineral, nutmeg, ocean, persimmon, raisin, root beer, sesame, spa, sweet pea, sweet potato, toast<\/em>.<\/p>\n You might as well give up, because you\u2019ll never guess. They\u2019re \u2026 colors?! \u201cOh, sweetheart, you look fabulous in that root beer muumuu!\u201d \u201cThank you, darling, and that dragonfly-and-dirt sweater goes so well with your spa-and-dusk striped tie and those toast trousers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014Tom Stern<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every year, for six weeks or so, I get a taste of what it\u2019s like to be a superstar. From late October to early December, I am accosted daily by an aggressive mob of stalkers who know where I live. Their urgent need for my attention seems to be their only reason for being. No, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,12,25,35,19,26,37,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalization","category-effective-writing","category-humor","category-hyphens","category-numbers","category-singular-vs-plural","category-spelling","category-subject-and-verb-agreement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}