Saturday, December 15, 2007

Gifts for Savvy Perverts

Getting desperate for ideas about what to give to that hard to please person on your Christmas list? Mark Morford has some suggestions:

No fruit baskets. No swell digital cameras and no "Sopranos" DVD sets and no noxious copies of "High School Musical 2" and no "Eat, Pray, Love" and nothing at all approved or endorsed by Oprah. No golfing figurines. No sports paraphernalia. No candleholders. No pink fleece hoodies with little glittery skulls. Not on this, my annual list, anyway. Just random delicious deeply cool things I've come across that make a statement or warm your blood or taste unreal or that serve some sort of sexy subversive purpose, all to thwart the Bush and the bleak and the dour. Because the world already has enough swell plastic bird-feeders and cheap-ass iPod cases and lavender hand-milled soap. Right? Right. Start with a teddy bear named Muhammad. Yes, even right-wing dittoheads probably think this rather obvious gimmick is funny, in a let's-hate-the-icky-Muslims, Christianity-rules sort of way. But there's actually some subversive poetry to this cuddly hunk of fluffy blasphemy, a decent enough slap at organized religion as a whole, especially if you combine it with, say, the God's Immaculate Rod dildo from divine-interventions.com and a copy of "God is Not Great" while mixing your next cocktail with Christian bottled water (yes, it's real) and/or Kabbalah bottled water, using whatever's left to rinse off your Baby Jesus Butt Plug. Hey, blasphemy is the new black. Of course, you could merely skip the gimmick and buy everyone you know a "Every time you see a rainbow, God is having gay sex" T-shirt from tshirthell.com, but that might be a bit excessive. Besides, everyone knows God is omnisexual. The Backwards Bush countdown clock. Again, obviously. Single biggest drawback of this must-have item: It doesn't count down nearly fast enough. There you are, soaking in a hot bath and sipping your newly legal absinthe and letting the toxins and anxiety and the Bush ooze and sigh out of your pores. Don't you wish you had some better background music, maybe some mellow sexy throbbing trance ambient stuff that massaged your id and licked your bones and sounded like a squad of drunken wood nymphs masturbating with a cloud? I know how it is. I've got you covered. Try these: "Dusker," by Kiln. "Love or Die," by Susumu Yokota. Gorgeous ambient washes via "Plume," by Loscil, "Nautica," by Krill.Minima or "Dropsonde," by Biosphere. Also: "Driftwood," by Rena Jones, "From Here We Go Sublime" by The Field, "Pop Ambient 2008" (compilation) from Kompakt, or anything at all from Ultimae or Interchill Records (check Beatport.com for all listings). And oh my God yes, this: "Untrue," by Burial, a wicked dark hybrid of dubstep and minimal and trip-hop, like nothing else on the planet. What, never heard of any of them? That's the point. Now go and sip and ooze. ...You need a sign of the divine feminine's true reemergence in modern culture? Another indicator that the religious right is doomed and the Grand Shift is nigh? Behold, the flourishing world of high-end vibrators. From Sweden's Lelo to beautifully overpriced JimmyJane, these are vibrators as sculpture, as art pieces, as mandatory accessory. Yes, the Hitachi Magic Wand rules, now and forever, but if you need something more elegant and portable, head over to babeland.com, goodvibes.com or blowfish.com and look up these names: Womolia, Jasmine, Tuyo (it's a ball!), Form 6, Gigi, Leopard, the Cone (big pink mountable vibrating cone yes yes yes), the Je Joue programmable, Laya Spot. Boyfriends and husbands, take notes now. (Oh yes. For men, one word: Aneros). E-mail me with photos of your successes.
Sick. This isn't just an assault on Christmas, or Christians, or conservatives. It's an assault on decency.

2 comments:

August Danowski said...

If you find the subject matter so distasteful, then why on earth are you reprinting it in full for all the world to see? You could have said, "Wow, the San Francisco Chronicle has a disgusting article pitching perverted gifts, which is terribly indecent." Usually, when I see something that offends me, I stop reading, or change the channel. I certainly would not devote much time to spreading the word and encouraging other people to read it.

To quote Shakespeare: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Mary said...

First, I obviously didn't reprint the article in full.

Second, I think people should be aware of what passes for a supposedly appropriate column from a mainstream news outlet in Nancy Pelosi's city.

There's a difference between commentary that serves as an endorsement and commentary that's meant to be a condemnation.

Come on. You must know that. Am I giving you too much credit?

Shakespeare might say: "The 'august26' doth stretch too much, methinks."