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Contents
Fun
and Games
Literary License
Windows Shopping
Kitchen Aid
Get Out
Gremlin-Free Gizmos
Discmen
Skintillating
Eat, Drink and
Be Merry
Gifts That Keep On Giving
Child's Play
Well-Furnished
Gimcracks and Geegaws
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JOIN THE CLUB
Safeway Card be damned, we're talking about an Oregon
Public Broadcasting Membership ($35 and up, OPB, www.opb.org,
293-1908). A $35 pledge rewards one lucky lefty with a year's
subscription to Oregon Focus, OPB's monthly program
guide, and a membership card entitling the bearer to discounts
at cultural, educational and entertainment organizations--including
the OPB Store of Knowledge. For pledges that exceed $35,
the company offers a variety of thank-you gifts with an
OPB logo or program-specific theme in addition to the subscription
and the card. A few examples are the OPB T-shirt ($60 pledge),
the collapsible umbrella ($75), the OPB-produced Oregon's
Memorable Century video ($100) and the 2 CD-set of The
Best of This American Life ($120). A gift within a gift
within a gift--this matrushka doll of generosity
will make you look so good Terry Gross might finally go
out with you. (Kate Lopresti)
YOU MUST WHIP IT
Your one-stop dom shop offers Spartacus'
Fantasy Pack ($141, Spartacus Leather and Lingerie Store,
302 SW 12th Ave., 224-2604), a starter kit with more hot
leather goods than a Phoenix rodeo reunion for the class
of '25. The fantasy pack includes a thong whip--one of those
multi-spaghetti-strapped ticklers--wrist and ankle restraints,
a slapper and blindfold. Use the restraints first just to
quicken the pulse a touch, then secure the blindfold to
get the blood pumping in the right direction. Sure it's
a bit pricey, but think how much you'll save by no longer
needing to pop those $10-a-bang Vitamin Vs.
KICK IT!
Few things engender high-voltage passion
like the thrill of twiddling tiny men connected in a line
by a metal pole. Ask the Spanish; they understand the enduring
mania that is foosball. Nearly every neighborhood bar in
Granada has a table-soccer game--five forwards, three middies,
two fullbacks and a keeper standing flip-ready at attention.
Yankees can feel the power with an Escalade Sports foosball
table ($249.99, Copeland's Sports, various locations;
call 223-5700 to find one in stock). Fit for the family
rec room, post-frat bachelor pad or any hardcore gamer,
who will make room for kinetic furnishings in even the tiniest
apartment, this edition features players painted in the
image of Bob's Big Boy, and some sweet knob action.
SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES
At the time of this writing,
the Portland women's professional basketball expansion team
had no name or logo, and coach/general manager Linda Hargrove
was using the phrase the "Portland Whatevers" when talking
about the yet-to-be-determined players. But that doesn't
mean you have to wait to buy WNBA season tickets
($80-$320, Portland's WNBA ticket office, 797-9601) for
the basketball fan in your court. After reaching the required
5,500 tickets sold by Oct. 15, sales were up to 6,500 in
early November. The team begins its first season at the
Rose Garden Arena this summer; pick a pair now to claim
that, like Adidas, you were there from the start. (Kate
Lopresti)
TAKE MANHATTAN
Feel Gotham's full-throttle thrum without having to
salute the cockroach militia. Delivering weekly doses of
New York news on politics, art, fashion, media and irresistible
New York-ness, the salmon-tinted New York Observer ($46
for a two-year subscription, www.observer.com,
212-755-2400) is a habit-inducing read. It's worth it just
for Alexandra Jacobs' events diary, "The Eight-Day Week,"
which ensnares the paper's tone at its bitchy best. For
Monday, Oct. 25, Jacobs noted a book party in this manner:
"The somewhat new thing Michael Lewis, 38, who is very pink
and who wrote about his ex-wife's magnificent rear end for
The New Republic and then abruptly dropped her for
Tabitha (Rock the Vote) Soren, with whom he now lives...and
who should get him to stop parting his hair in the middle,
has written a book called The New New Thing...which
a publicist assures us is 'much funnier' than the excerpt
in The New York Times Magazine."
POP QUIZ
With just a month left before the millennium
theme becomes so very 1999, there's a crushing abundance
of gifts with end-of-the-century motifs--martini glasses
with "2000" carved into the stems, commemorative bricks,
limited-edition nut mixes. One that combines centennial
retrospective with a space-age aesthetic is the Trivial
Pursuit Millennium Edition ($49.95, Game Keeper, Clackamas
Town Center, 12000 SE 82nd Ave., 794-1759). The questions
cover people and events of the last 1,000 years, and the
game pieces--bless those sweet wedges--come in colorful,
transparent iMac plastic. The better to survive the next
100 years, the game is stored in a collectible tin the shape
of a pie piece. The categories are all your old faves (People
& Places, Arts & Entertainment, History, Science
& Nature, Sports & Leisure), and it's still a great
way to keep holiday company entertained or demonstrate your
mental superiority to those annoying cousins from Utah.
(Kate Lopresti)
DON'T SPEAK!
There are those who are creeped out
by ventriloquists in a good way, and there are those who
are creeped out by ventriloquists in a very, very bad way.
In any case, it's always more fun to be the creepy than
the creeped. Got that? You will when you've got one of several
mouth-flapping dolls included in the Goldberger Be a
Ventriloquist line ($69.50, Callin Novelties, 1013 SW
Washington St., 223-4821) warming up your lap. The good
chap at Callin told us ventriloquy is a dying art, and that
these dolls--whether you like Willie Tyler's Lester, slickly
outfitted in African-American poetry professor gear circa
1979, complete with round specs and white turtleneck, or
Howdy Doody adorned in his traditional plaids and tangerine
freckles--make appropriate first friends. Each doll includes
a how-to booklet, the better to sneakily pull the back string
and flip the voice.
BOBA FETE
Boys heart Boba Fett. In an increasingly
virtual, destabilizing world, one can take comfort in the
fact that once the males of our society reach a certain
age (12 or so, generally), they develop an intense, unwavering
crush on Star Wars' intergalactic bounty hunter.
That will never change. It's hard to quantify pure emotion
of this sort, but probably much of this collective adoration
is a result of the cool helmet he (my God, Boba Fett is
a he, isn't he?) wears. I say, don't dream it lads, be it,
and badger Dad for the Boba Fett helmet ($35, The
Other Side, Lloyd Mall, 288-1485), an impressively detailed,
plastic rendition of the original. Note the accurate placement
of blaster burns and wookie-delivered dents. Should fit
most non-Tom Hanks-sized heads.
SIX-STRING SOIREES
It used to be--if you believe
Jonathan Richman, and I can't give you one damn reason not
to--that house parties consisted of folks balanced on oversized
cushions, sipping coffee and strumming acoustic guitars.
Help your favorite party planner reclaim this lost art with
a most unusual hostess gift, a Fender acoustic DG 7
($169, Portland Music Co., 520 SW 3rd Ave., 228-8437), and
watch how stiff get-togethers transmute into fuzzy, wine-fueled
fêtes swirling with songs about the good life. The
sandy-bodied Fender is recommended for nascent Neil Youngs
as an excellent beginner's axe. If you need a gift for a
teenage boy itching to self-express via strings, Portland
Music Co. also rents instruments for guitar lessons (rentals
are $39 for the first two months, $20 each additional month;
$20 per 45-minute lesson).
THE TITANS OF THE CLASH
For believers, this is a must; for doubters (read: fools),
prepare to be converted. The Clash on Broadway ($51.99,
Music Millennium, 801 NW 23rd Ave., 248-0163; 3158 E Burnside
St., 231-8926) three-CD set makes a hell of a case for reconsidering
the oft-noted hyperbole circulating around the time of the
four horsemen's emergence in the late '70s. This heart-scarring
sprint through 63 songs from the rocky fields of the Clash's
magnificent, mercurial career will once again have you telling
friends that when all's done and dusted, they really are
the only band that matters. Trying to shake up the world
with every number--from the stubborn blast of "Janie Jones,"
off their eponymous first full-length, to the grimly beautiful,
trembling pop of Sandinista's "Somebody Got Murdered"--the
Clash often left themselves open to reasonable criticism.
But no band since has sought brilliance with such bullet-hard
bravura.
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