My younger brother’s return to New York from Boston indicates that Universities have closed. My grandmother’s unresponsiveness to my text messages and phone calls (short of a quick, “Old Man and The Sea–her husband, my grandfather–is sleeping, I’ll call you later, maybe,”) suggests she is busy locating a turkey. The stack of coupons near my mother’s bed side tell a tale about the magic of Black Friday. And the aerial mood: chipper, pleasant, inexplicably excited–like a ceaseless weekend starts tomorrow and the workforce may never resume its previous structure–point to one thing: Thanksgiving.
And I know that there are several important things to tackle in association with the holiday. On the one hand: no pants are more accurate Thanksgiving pants than Margiela x H&M’s new Jared-from-Subway jeans. On the other: If you’re considering the act of braving the lines (and my mother,) Black Friday is only as successful as the strategy you create around it.
What if you don’t need Thanksgiving pants though? Maybe this holiday bespeaks nothing but the m-assassination of birds to you. And maybe you’re keen enough to recognize that Cyber Monday equals Black Friday and can be accomplished from the comfort of your desk chair, a few days later. (Though I’m not judging if you’re not–the thrill of chase is a very real thing.)
In any case, that leaves you with little to do, which may in turn make you highly irritable at the thought of your entire family condensed to one living space for a full five days, enter the first book suggestion I will enforce to get you through it.
Sedaris: it’s what’s for breakfast. These books are kind of like Clueless in that they get better with age. I started reading this one on my way home from Vancouver last week. It’s a collection of short stories–as most his books are–that personify animals and assign them real life troubles. The first I’ve read not based on Sedaris’ own life. Sometimes they’re sinister, often somewhat silly. In one chapter, a child stork asks its mother stork where babies come from, the mother is forced to explain the child that they come from inside mouses. Aunt Stork is appalled by how stupid her sister stork is and explains that they actually come from sex.
In another chapter, an ewe travels over South America in order to discover warmer climate during migration months. Her Spanish is terrible, authentic hardships manifest.
No story caps twenty pages, the book can be picked up at effectively any point and the read is so funny, subversive, so wildly witty, my own sense of humor and the way I project it, in effect, feels emasculated.
$12 at Amazon. Let’s talk about it on Monday–want to? Or if you’ve read the book already, do share your affirmations (or consequently hesitations) in the comments below, yo.
Oh! And in case you care, the cutlery is DVF, I don’t know about that plate.
