Slate eBook Club Editions
November 2002
Hoppy New Year
David Edelstein
Xmas Fir Trapping Laurie Snyder
Attack of the Mega-Ornaments Alison Cook
Bots Till You Drop Bruce Gottlieb
Toy With Me Sian Gibby
Packin' It In Maureen Cosgrove
Paper Swoon Cynthia Kling
Hoppy New Year
Swilling the best of the holiday beers.
By David Edelstein
Posted Thursday, December 21, 2000, at 12:00 AM PT
As a Democrat, I fear I'm going to be crying into my beer a lot this holiday
season, so I want the beer into which I cry to be good and strong and
life-affirming: Hoppy, but with a cushion of warming, toasted malt—and perhaps,
for extra lift, a jovial dash of spices. I'm pleased to report that the beer is
out there. Since the renaissance of "craft" brewing in the last two
decades, brewers in the United States and other parts of the world have
dedicated themselves to concocting strapping, assertive, and deeply
idiosyncratic holiday seasonals: "wassails" with mulling spices for
mistletoe merriment; roasty, chestnut-hued brown ales for fireside sipping; and
hop Godzillas to demonstrate the revivifying powers of bitterness. These are
not beers to be stewed over in solitude but to share with lovers, friends,
co-workers—even Republicans.
Because so many holiday brews can overwhelm both the palate and the liver, I
decided it would be a good idea to spread my tasting over several evenings.
Then I thought: nahhhh. And so my colleagues and I gathered one stormy December
night to savor 40 seasonal beers from the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast,
California, the Mid-Atlantic, Belgium, England—anywhere we could track them
down. (We left out the superheavy brews known as "barleywines" to
keep from re-enacting the climax of The Lost Weekend.) The informal
panel included Jim Leff, passionate pooh-bah of chowhound.com;
Rolling Stone contributor and esteemed rock historian Fred Goodman;
architect Mark Pennell; and Slate associate editor Jodi Kantor.
Leff played Santa Claus and brought barbecue from Pearson's, maybe the
Northeast's best rib shack. It was one of the few meals that could hold its own
against so many brontosaurian brews.
Our methodology was a tad whimsical, which is to say that it wouldn't be
sanctioned in official beer-judging circles. (But who wants to move in official
beer-judging circles?) Professional tasters set up troughs into which they
deliver the contents of their glasses and, on occasion, their mouths, but I've
never really fathomed how beer judges can confine themselves to a few sissy
sips and throw the rest away. A beer reveals itself in progressive tastes, as
the finish of the last gulp mingles on the palate with the aroma of the next,
and the brew can be savored at once in its coming and going. This is a lyrical
way of saying that I didn't do a lot of pouring out, which might be why my
notes on the last few beers are difficult to make sense of but seem to revolve
around Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Before I disclose the results, it would be useful to establish some unofficial
categories of holiday or winter beers, a few of which overlap:
Hop Monsters. These are the beers with a brawny, roaring bitterness—an
amplified version of an already loud style that has flourished in the West and
Pacific Northwest.
Wassails. Think mulling spices: nutmeg, clove, allspice, cinnamon, and
even weirder stuff like juniper berries or pine needles.
Enhanced Brown Ales. These are ales in which the grain has been
roasted, imparting a nutty, sometimes chocolaty, occasionally burnt-caramelly
aroma and flavor. Enhanced Browns might also be well-hopped and feature spices.
Mighty Stouts. Some breweries make stouts only in the winter months
and put a lot of character (and alcohol) into them. The alcohol—6 percent, 7
percent, even 10 percent—is in contrast to, say, Guinness, which actually has
less kick than Miller Lite.
English Winter Warmers. Much maltier than their American counterparts
and with different, more subtle varieties of hop. (Think "pear-shaped
diction" and "pearlike hops.")
Belgian Ales. Belgians use candy sugar and funky but felicitous yeasts
to produce fat, near-barleywine-style winter beers that can send you spiraling
into nirvana (or oblivion).
The surprise of our tasting was how quaffable almost all these beers were. A
few had too much this or that, but only one was aggressively unpleasant: Pete's
Winter Brew (Tumwater, Wash., and Eden, N.C.), a gruesome dark ale with
raspberry extract and nutmeg—Robitussin Fizz. (You drink it and wonder,
"What's it supposed to cure?")
We recommend virtually everything else we tasted. Beers that we highly
recommend are in bold-face type.
I give away my hophead bias at the outset in saying my favorite winter beer—my
favorite beer, period—is Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale from
Chico, Calif. It's Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and King Kong in one. Miraculously,
it also has finesse, not to mention a plot. It opens with a floral, spicy aroma
followed by a big (near-Burgundian) body and a lingering hawthorn-grapefruit
bitterness that makes the roof of your mouth seem to levitate. The hops by
themselves are intoxicating, but it's the evolution that's the marvel. Fresh
from the tap, with the hop oils coating my mouth, Celebration has made me
higher than any other legal substance. (Hops, by the way, are members of the
cannabis family.)
In the same hop-monster arena, Fish Tale Winterfish, from Fish
Brewing in Olympia, Wash., is lighter than Celebration (what isn't?) and has a
clean, drying finish that makes you want another sip, and another, and … Santa's
Private Reserve, from Oregon's marvelous Rogue Ales, is the brewery's
delicious, fruity Red Ale with double the hops—a great pint to swill
with a big, greasy meal when you want something to cut through the fat on your
palate. (It added a lot to our ribs—in all senses.) On the hop-spice border
sits Rogue's second seasonal, Yellow Snow Ale, which is not
like any yellow snow I've seen (whatever stained it was seriously
dehydrated)—but it's a lovely saffron all the same, its juniper berry aroma
conjuring up evergreens on a winter's day. The ale fakes sweet, then the bitter
Northwest hops flood in: I love it, but non-hopheads might find it lopsided.
The daddy of modern American wassails is San Francisco's Anchor Our
Special Ale, which in its current incarnation (the top-secret recipe
varies from year to year) is just sensational. It's a deep, reddish brown with
an aroma I found gingery but Leff insisted was cumin. (We opened a bottle of
ground cumin and passed it around. We also sniffed bottles of ginger,
coriander, allspice, clove, nutmeg, and mace. Hard to say. Maybe cumin plus
ginger. Plus nutmeg. Plus anise.) The spices are right there in the foretaste,
but the ale goes out on a flying carpet of dark chocolate and licorice.
That's a hard act to follow, but other spiced beers had their charms. From
Bellingham, Wash., Orchard Street Jingle Ale had the sparest, most
elegant, all-type label and the slogan "sprinkled with seasonal
cheer." More than sprinkled, actually: My fellow tasters reacted grimly to
its velvety suffusion of cinnamon and cloves. But I thought the spicing, while
bold, made the ale taste like fruitcake is supposed to. I liked it. The others
preferred Harpoon Winter Warmer (from Boston), which reminds
me of cinnamon toast but might go well with pumpkin pie. (It's a Thanksgiving
beer.) From Norwalk, Conn., New England Holiday Ale is fizzy and
cola-colored, with a jolt of nutmeg and … cardamom?—Break out the spice
bottles, guys—and a rudely abrupt bitterness. Hale's Wee Heavy Winter Ale
(from Seattle) is a wee heavy on the allspice. "Or is it Old Spice?"
asked Leff. "Maybe English Leather," said Goodman. "No—Hai
Karate."
The label of Deschute's Jubelale (from Bend, Ore.) depicts a
young woman with largish breasts spinning on skates around a frozen lake, a
snow-capped peak in the distance. One hand is thrown in triumph above her head,
the other holds a bottle of Jubelale. She has reason to be exultant. This
reddish brown "festive" ale is uniquely great. What's that aroma?
Nutmeg? Pine cone? Maple? Campari? Whatever: This is the most convivial spiced
brown ale imaginable, with just enough resiny hop to keep it from finishing
syrupy. Portland (Oregon) Brewery's BobbyDazzler is a dazzler,
all right—a fat, red, malty monster of an ale in which the hops seem to bloom
out of the spices.
Moving into malt: It's not from England, but the classic Geary's
Hampshire Special Ale from Portland, Maine, is the best big-malt
holiday ale I've ever tasted—a synthesis of great American and English brewing.
The aroma hints at butterscotch and caramel; the body is rich and smooth, with
lightly toasted malt (but no burnt edges—this toast is buttered); the finish is
luxuriously long, malty but never sweet, rounded off with virile but respectful
hops—a big bear rug of a beer.
This time of year, you can drown in brownish ale. From Seattle, Pacific Maritime's
Jolly Roger Christmas Ale ("Yo-Ho-Ho!" reads the
label, which bears a skull-and-crossbones with a Santa cap) is a Northwest
version of a toasted-malt brew, which means a bit more chocolate and a ton more
hops: It's good, but a real buccaneer would take a more dramatic stand. Widmer
Brothers' Winternacht (Portland, Ore.) is a sweeter, roastier version
of the brewery's fine alt beer. Roastier yet is Snow Cap Ale
from Widmers' just-over-the-Washington-border neighbor, Pyramid. Brown with
auburn highlights, it has a sweetish nose and deep—but not terribly
profound—hopping. Red Hook's Winterhook (Seattle) always tastes to me
like the brewery's ESB with the volume turned up: some grain, some fruity
esters, but a body that's too undeveloped for its bitterness. This baby needs
to fill out.
The browns get weirder in the east. Clipper City Reserve Winter from
Baltimore has its roastiness swamped by an agreeably sweetish, strawberryish
bouquet. Otter Creek's A Winter's Ale, from Middlebury, Vt., is
broadly in the Scottish style but without the sweetness: It's deep, caressive,
with hints of toasted caramel, burnt chocolate, and smoke. Snow Goose,
from Maryland's Wild Goose Brewery, is just as roasty but has a
butterscotchlike sweetness and a conclusive (rather brusque) flurry of
grapefruit-rind hops. Weirdest of all—but wonderful—is Weyerbacher's
Winter Ale from Easton, Pa., with its hint of malt syrup and its
toasted-poppy-seed-bagel breadiness. "Tastes Jewish," said Leff.
"Like my grandfather's breath."
Jim's grandfather would probably have liked Ramstein Winter Wheat,
a lovely, lightish quaff from a great wheat-beer brewer in northeast New
Jersey. The beer has notes of roasty carob and chocolate, but the wheat
lightens the body and adds a fragrant note of clove and banana. This is the
only holiday beer that's actually quenching. Samuel Adams Winter
Lager is also made with wheat and a touch of spice, but its body is a
little fuller and its flavor monochromatic: It's nothing to turn cartwheels
over, but it's a fine "starter" winter beer for the faint of
palate—and it's widely available. Another lager, Seattle's Thomas Kemper
Winterbräu, is darker and toastier, with a hint of the brewery's famous
blueberry ester—odd but rather pleasant.
The Mighty Stouts were a study in contrasts. We were thrilled by Magic Hat's Heart
of Darkness, a seasonal beer from a playful brewery in
Burlington, Vt. The body is deceptively light, but the ashy-chocolate finish
stays and stays—not like an unwelcome guest but a girl (or guy) who you thought
at first was sort of nice-looking but gradually realized was deeply, meltingly
beautiful. From Victory, a young, already-legendary brewery in Downingtown,
Pa., comes Heart of Darkness' antithesis, Storm King Stout.
This is a fat, mouth-coatingly roasty, feel-the-burn, big-alcohol imperial
whopper, with a go-for-broke flamboyance that is dazzling to behold. It gambles
and wins, whereas the more original Brooklyn (N.Y.) Black Chocolate Stout
craps out. The airplane-glue nose warns you not to light a match in its
vicinity, and all that alcohol combined with layers of creamy chocolate malt
(and maybe real chocolate) is the clumsiest kind of overkill. This stout is
like one of those overmuscled lifeguards who can't even gesture without being
distracted by his own biceps.
By the time we got to the foreign beers, we were pretty well blotto, but not
enough to miss the fact that our bottle of Aas Yuleol (from Norway)
was skunked so badly that its subtle charms (and it has some) were overwhelmed.
From England came the "Winter Warmers": Samuel Smith's Winter
Welcome was the lightest, with a bit of sticky, wet-cardboard caramel
(this beer doesn't travel too well in those clear bottles) and a good, pearlike
hoppiness. Young's tasty Winter Warmer was a darker brown with deep
red highlights and a nose of bark and candy cane: pinecone soda. Darker yet is Harvey's
Christmas Ale (from Sussex), with burnt molasses and cooked pear in
the nose and on the palate. This baby is formidable—smooth, little fizz, sweet
and slightly sticky but well on the right side of cloying thanks to roasted
malt and a powerful hop undercurrent. It's a masterpiece of its type, for
sipping in lieu of sherry. One American ale dares to call itself a "Winter
Warmer": Portland, Oregon's Bridgeport Ebenezer Ale, which the
label assures us will "stand up to figgy pudding." We didn't have any
figgy pudding handy, but its sweet-and-sour, passion-fruit flavor did stand up
to our corn chips.
We shouldn't have saved the Belgians for last. An American Belgian-style ale, Allagash
Grand Cru, from Maine, was a wonderful reminder of a slightly
candied, sweet-aromatic type of ale that the Belgians don't make during the
holidays. What they do make put us under the table: Scaldis Noel,
like a superb cognac plus candy sugar; Corsendonk Christmas,
with a peppermint nose; a soft, sweet body; and a nutmeggy finish. The Speciale
Noel Ale from the great Abbaye des Rocs was a disappointment—a little
flat, composed but not orchestrated. We finished, appropriately enough, with Delirium
Noel, 10 percent alcohol in a white porcelain bottle featuring a
(drunken?) Santa being pulled in his sleigh by pink elephants. Where could one
possibly go from here?
To bed.
Xmas Fir Trapping
How to bag the balsam, Fraser, or noble that's just right
for your living room.
By Laurie Snyder
Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2000, at 8:30 PM PT
You've survived another Thanksgiving dinner, the dishes are done and the
relatives sent packing, but there's no rest for the weary. Now is the time to shift
your focus from feast to foliage and join millions of other folks in that
perennial search for the perfect Christmas tree. But is there such a thing as
the perfect Christmas tree? Should you choose fir, spruce, or pine? And what
about all the subspecies? After talking with tree aficionados and conducting my
own census of the woods, one thing's clear—there are bum seeds in every
Christmas tree lot.
But before you plunk down $30, $60—even $150—you should know a tree's
reputation. How long before its needles drop? Before its color pales and its
scent dies? How will it look decorated? How do you spot a stale, must-avoid
tree? Should you buy from a lot, cut your own, or order over the Web? And last,
should you buy the same old Scotch pine that you grew up with, or is the tree
of your dreams something a little more exotic?
The top-selling Christmas trees are balsam fir, Douglas fir, Fraser fir, noble
fir, Scotch pine, Virginia pine, and white pine, according to the National
Christmas Tree Association. Blue spruce and Norway spruce also garner loyal
followers. (See pictures of all these trees here.) About 98 percent of the $1.2 billion
annual crop is cultivated like corn on some 15,000 Christmas tree farms.
Although Christmas trees grow in all 50 states, Oregon, North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Washington, and Wisconsin harvest the most.
Tree types vary from region to region. But with improvements in cultivation and
genetic engineering, in some cases, the ranges of these trees have expanded
somewhat to give consumers greater choices of locally grown trees. That is,
unless you live south of Disney World, as Russ Whited, a tree seller in Fort
Myers who trucks in trees from the far-away Pacific Northwest, says, "You
can't grow any decent trees in Florida. Down here we grow bushes."
It's impossible to discuss prices with much accuracy since they fluctuate by
region too. Generally, choose-and-cut farms sell trees for a flat rate, ranging
from $20-$60. Expect to pay $20 to $50 more for trees sold by the foot on
retail lots, with prices topping out at $200 for premium trees in big urban
areas. If you're lucky enough to live near an evergreen-rich National Forest,
you can cut down a tree for a nominal fee. (In this article, the prices are for
6- to 7-foot trees.)
So, what's it to going to be?
Spiked Popularity
Growing up in Iowa, I opened my presents under a Scotch pine.
It ranks as perhaps the most popular Christmas tree nationally because it can
be cultivated cheaply over a broad region. At Pleasant Valley Farms in
Wisconsin, you can pick up a precut tree for just $16.
Though a bargain, the tree's popularity is starting to wane. For one thing, the
Scotch isn't a beaut. For another, its bright green needles are 1- to 3-inches
long and stingingly sharp. After weeks in the house, the dried needles turn
even more aggressive. Please, don gloves before de-decorating, or this
porcupine will leave you bloodied. (On the plus side, Scotch pine needles cling
to the branches for several weeks, unlike some other evergreens.) Because pines
tend to turn yellowish in the fall, farmers often spray them with a kelly green
colorant to make them look more Christmassy. Inspect the needles on interior
branches for telltale flecks of colorant.
The bushy density of pine trees also makes them hard to decorate: If tree
farmers didn't prune and shear pines into a conical shape once or twice a year,
they'd look as wild and woolly as Don King's hair!
The Cadillacs of the Lot
Tree farmers may laugh at us behind our backs for our Christmas tree choices,
but nobody laughs at purchasers of noble and Fraser firs. Folks love the way
their open-branch structures show off all those ornaments from Mom. These trees
smell great and retain their needles for weeks. You can't go wrong with either
tree. One caveat: When these trees aren't pruned during cultivation, they can
look sparse, especially toward the top.
The rarer of the two, noble firs, grow in the Pacific
Northwest. They have soft, 1-inch needles, green with a hint of blue, and a
sort of a peppery fragrance. When city folks visit Rusty Elliott's
choose-and-cut farm north of Seattle, they ask for nobles by name. Outside
their growing region, nobles bring top dollar. The noble that costs $60 retail
in Oregon will command $150 in California, says tree-broker Sherry Lantz of
E-Trees Inc. Because farmers underestimated the demand 10 years ago, there's
now a shortage. If you want a noble in your living room, prepare to pay even
more and consider buying the first one you see. That includes you,
Northwesterners!
The elegant Fraser firs are native to the chilly, high
elevations of the Appalachians, but today farmers in cool climates grow them
too. North Carolinian Fred Wagoner says his Frasers bring $35-$45 retail in the
Greensboro area. Fraser needles are soft, deep-green with silver undersides, a
bit shorter than the nobles', and gently taper shorter toward the branch tips.
Frasers also ship well, and with the high demand for them outside of conifer
country, they rank as one of the Web's top-sellers.
Don't worry about buying a tree unseen. Rocks Christmas Tree Farm in New
Hampshire selects the prettiest 300 Fraser and balsam firs for its mail-order
and Web customers, who tend to be fussier than lot buyers. But the convenience
will cost you. For instance, a Fraser fir from Rocks shipped to Seattle costs
$80; a similar tree from the farm's choose-and-cut lot sells for half that.
Shipping size restrictions mean you'll have to settle for a 6- to 7-footer.
Last year, out of the 33 million trees sold, 330,000 were bought over the Web.
Besides needle length and sharpness, another way to tell pine from fir is to
examine how the needles are attached to the branches. Pine needles grow in bundles
of two to five held together at their base, like little needle bouquets, along
the branch. Fir needles grow in single file rows up the twigs. (Spruce needles
are similar to fir needles.)
Closer to Camrys
The other top-selling firs—the balsam, grand, and Douglas—share the
characteristic soft needles with good staying power, deep green color of
varying shades, and nice scent of their classier cousins. All three tend also
to have slightly longer needles than the luxury firs.
The stalwart of the New England farms, the balsam fir looks
like a slightly shaggy Fraser, but this tree's big selling point is its
sinus-clearing fragrance. So strong, the boughs of trees are often used to
scent aromatic, decorative pillows. The L.L. Bean catalog sells balsams for
$75, plus shipping. If you trek to New Hampshire, you can cut one down for
around $35.
Folks in Idaho and Montana like their native grand fir, with
shiny, dark-green needles that jet out in two rows on each side of the branch
and give off a citrusy scent when crushed. When pruned and sheared, as most of
these less expensive firs are, it's a thick-foliaged tree.
The old reliable Douglas firs sparked the Christmas tree
industry on the West Coast in the 1920s. They grow with weedlike tenacity in
the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, as well as in the cool
Midwestern states and the Northeast. While not a true fir, the Doug fir has
good needle retention, piney scent, and branches that sweep out in all
directions. Californians buy these trees by the truckload, and this year a
Pennsylvanian Doug fir beat out the competition to grace the White House's Blue
Room for the Clintons' last Christmas at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
The Clintons' tree will be cut, shipped, put up, and decorated in a matter of
days, which brings us to the first law of Christmas tree buying: Avoid
geriatric trees. The needles drop faster on old trees, the scent's weaker, and
the color fades. When buying from a lot, ask when the trees were cut, since
retail trees can be harvested as early as September and kept on ice. Since
these early harvest trees won't hold their needles as long, you're better off
buying one cut later in the season, say, early November. Test for freshness by
giving the tree a good bump on the ground. If a pile of green needles drops,
move on. Or grab a branch near the trunk and pull your hand toward you. A
handful of needles indicates an old tree.
Spruced Up
The bluish-green needles and long, splayed out arms give the blue
spruce a formal, majestic look. Also called the Colorado blue spruce,
this tree takes 10 years to reach a sellable height, compared with some pines
and firs that can hit that mark in seven or eight. This means the blues can be
pricey in many parts of the country. At Captain Jack's farm, a big operation in
central Iowa, blues sell for $10 per foot, while the Fraser firs he brings in
from Wisconsin sell for $7 per foot. This tree is heavy; you'll need a
village to wrestle it into its stand.
The lovely Norway spruce, the tree of choice in Europe, cuts
the most delicate profile of all the evergreens discussed in this article; tall
and thin, with 1/2-inch, dark-green needles and pretty cinnamon-red branches.
Tree-grower Rusty Elliott says its fragrance fills a warm room like
"something cooking," and its razor-sharp needles keep her cats away
from the ornaments. Big downside to spruces: They're even more prickly than the
pines. So glove up! Make sure to have plenty of vacuum bags on hand, especially
if you choose Norway, for all the needles that will surely drop.
Which Brings Us Back to Pines
If you live in the hot, flat areas of the South and want a locally grown
tree, you'll probably buy a Virginia pine and pay in the
neighborhood of $23. Like the Scotch, it has long (2 to 3 inches),
bright-green, sharp-as-tacks needles that stay on the branches through
Christmas. Bill Dixon of Big Bill's Christmas Trees in Texas says parents are
to blame for narrowing a consumer's mind when it comes to holiday tree options,
since most folks are going to buy "what Mama and Daddy bought."
The white pine is the friendly cousin of Virginia and Scotch.
It has long needles, a broad growing range, and a low price tag (choose-and-cut
farms often sell them for around $25), with a crucial difference: Its needles
are feathery soft. Since it puts off almost no scent, it's a good choice for
people with allergies. It's a light tree, perfect for the bachelor with weak
upper body strength. The downside: Its branches are strong enough to hold up
lights and bows here and there but too weak for heavy ornaments.
Remember …
A fir or pine cut in mid- to late November can stay needle-thick and
fragrant through the end of the first week in January. Spruces are an OK choice
if a couple of weeks with a holiday tree is time enough. Remember the shape of
a tightly sheared tree may look nice leaning against the snow fence, but its
densely packed branches won't show off your investment in antique glass balls
(which is exactly why I'm going with the Fraser this year).
When you bring your tree home, saw an inch off from the trunk, plop it butt-end
into a bucket of water, and store it in an unheated room until you're ready to
bring it in the house. Watch the water level closely, especially in the first
six to eight hours because your thirsty tree can easily swallow a gallon in
that time. After it's inside, be nice by keeping the stand's water reservoir
full and the tree away from radiators, fireplaces, or sun-filled windows. When
Christmastime's over your tree's not junk: Throw it out in the yard with suet
and bread stuck in its branches. The birds will love the treat and the extra
shelter from the winter winds. If yardless, then poor Tannenbaum, it's off to
the chipper.
Attack of the Mega-Ornaments
Christopher Radko, the man who super-sized Christmas.
By Alison Cook
Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001, at 9:54 AM PT
Deck the halls with boughs of folly! The American Christmas tree 2001 has
morphed into a swollen, status-laden monstrosity, and it's all Christopher
Radko's fault.
Or mostly. Radko, a dapper Manhattan Polish boy who built a lordly empire out
of mouth-blown glass ornaments, has in the last few years grown inescapable. He
and his ferociously expensive "Christmas home furnishings" (that's
decorations to you) are the darlings of the nation's lifestyle pages, the
staples of tony department stores, the talk of the network morning shows, the
toast of the monied classes. And I do mean monied: Your average Radko baubles
fetch 40, 50, 60 bucks; the biggest and most elaborate go for a daunting $70 to
$90 each. Celebrities like Elton John and Barbra Streisand can afford to
collect Radko. So, apparently, can a growing cult of fanatics whose "Radko trees"
are monuments to conspicuous consumption. A modest Radko tree might sport 250
ornaments, and it is not unknown for a blow-out-the-lights version to be
encrusted with 1,000 of these highly perishable adornments. Go ahead, do the
math. We're talking an investment level that demands a Lloyd's of London
policy.
So it's hard not to snicker when Radko tells USA Today that this
post-9/11 Christmas is "not about traveling to faraway places or buying
that fur coat anymore. It's about gathering around the Christmas tree with
family and friends." Yeah, right. What could be cozier than Christmas on
the home front of a Houston socialite of my acquaintance who rarely appears in
public without the interlocking Chanel C's displayed on her person, and who
proudly brags that her young sons will only allow the Radko brand on the family
tree?
The weird thing is the utter charmlessness of Radko's creations. Oh, the
workmanship's there: the intricate detail, the careful interior silvering that
imparts such a lush gleam. But those hand-painted faces often smirk or wink or
leer alarmingly, gazing out of cartoonishly popped eyes. Radko's foppish,
red-faced, slightly louche Santas—a multitudinous tribe—do not look like
the kind of fellows you'd want to leave the kiddies with. Indeed, it must take
a Radko Santa so long to get dressed that it's a wonder the fourscore-and-seven
gifts he's invariably toting ever get distributed. And what's with those scary snowmen? They look demonic enough (in the
unsettling manner of clowns) to give Stephen King the willies. The blecherous
names bestowed on each ornament only compound the horror: "Frozy Cozy," "Warm 'n' Woolly Mitten," "Chirpy & Chilly,"
"Merry Meows," "Rootin' Tootin Nick."
Worse still, these suckers are big. In fact, with every new collection, they
seem to get bigger, more self-important, more purely expressive of Radko's
too-much-is-never-enough aesthetic. What engages at the traditional, Old-World
glass-ornament size of 3 inches, engages considerably less at the in-yer-face
Radko scale of 6, 7, or even 8 inches, which is uncomfortably close to a foot
long. Mammon has something to do with the phenomenon I have come to think of as
"Radko Bloat." Quite simply, Radko can charge a lot for an
ermine-robed St. Nicholas as bulky as a quart of malt liquor.
But Freud may have even more to do with the thrusting verticals of the
ever-expanding Radko repertoire. Radko stacks up his ornaments in tiers;
bolsters them with pedestals and assorted conveyances (sleighs, motorcycles, spaceships);
lifts them skyward with towers, steeples, lampposts, pointy finials; endows
them with explosions and wild cornucopias of brightly wrapped Christmas
packages. So you get an onerously topical "Made in Manhattan"
Empire State Building, or a superfluous "Stack o' Raccoons",
or a redundant confection like this year's rococo "Snowtem Pole," which
doesn't stop at one snowman when three will do. "Snowtem" is
everything Radko. It's scary and tall and over-the-top. It's also sold out at
my local "Starlight Store," which is Mr. Radko's cutesy-poo
designation for the favored retail outlets that stock hundreds of his designs.
The practical problem with the grandiosity of Radko ornaments is one of scale.
Buy just one, and it throws your tree seriously out of whack. It's the
insidious wedge that demands more and more big Radkos to balance out.
Ultimately, you'll require at least a 12-foot tree (and ceiling to match) to
support the enormity.
Which syndrome would be tolerable if it stopped at the doorstep of Radko
cultists. But it doesn't. This December, it's crashingly obvious that the
pernicious Radko influence has trickled down even unto Kmart level. Radko Bloat
is now a national curse. The savvy Chinese have smelled the coffee, which means
your local Pier 1 and Cost Plus and mega-craft-emporium is now chockablock with
humongous, Radko-scale ornaments. Some are blatant Radko imitations at reduced
cost, like the three-for-$10 gift-laden drugstore Santas, or the hippie VW van
the size of a particularly unwieldy cell phone. You can hardly find a nice
little 3-inch glass ornament anymore.
Everywhere, the Radko homages are as blatant as the worrisome foot-long
blown-glass pine cones I saw in Lake Placid last month, or the 7-inch leaping
trout. Demo trees in your local retail outlets tend to be clad (am I right
about this?) in bolt-wide swaths of netting and gargantuan beaded fruits and
towering sprongs of dried weeds, all at regulation Radko scale. Even
garden-variety Christmas balls and drops no longer get precious shelf space
unless they are the size of bowling balls, or at least grapefruits. Last week,
at a Houston Kmart, I watched a man and his young daughter pawing a selection
of enormous, shatterproof glass balls. The man passed an 8-inch specimen to his
wonderstruck kid and joked, "Afterward, you can use it as a
basketball." Later, I drove past Houston's city hall, where, to my dismay,
the civic Christmas tree overlooking the reflecting pool has been super-sized
with humongous, shiny globes that must be a foot in diameter.
I imagined Mr. Radko perched on my shoulder, whispering, "Say Uncle."
Bots
Till You Drop
Comparison-shopping search engines are good for consumers,
bad for monopolists.
By Bruce Gottlieb
Posted Thursday, August 17, 2000, at 12:00 AM PT
One of the most promising developments in e-commerce is the proliferation of
so-called "shopping bots." The Jetsons it's not, but these
"bots" are very good at what they do: find the lowest price on the
Web for a particular item. In fact, there's really no good reason to buy
something online without using a bot to see if it's being offered somewhere
else for less. Here's how they work.
Suppose you want to buy a Palm V. A leading shopping-bot Web site such as
mySimon.com (Yahoo!, AOL, and most portals offer similar services) can troll
the Web to provide, almost instantly, an up-to-date list of price and
availability of that item at dozens of e-tailers. For instance, you'd find that
the Palm V is available for $275 at Amazon.com, $300 at Egghead.com, and $375
at BestBuy.com. Aren't you glad you asked?
Of course, as the people who bring you the Yellow Pages have pointed out—Let
Your Fingers Do the Walking!—the idea of finding a good price was not unknown
in the pre-Web era. But shopping bots are better because they take only two or
three minutes to deliver a low price vs. the time-intensive exercise of phoning
a bunch of merchants.
But shopping bots have another, greater potential in that they may force
conventional retailers to offer lower prices. That is, even if consumers had
all the time in the world to find the lowest price at a local retailer, they'd
still be likely to find an even better price using a service such as mySimon.
Here's why.
An ordinary retailer sells just to the people who live within driving distance
of his store. If he thinks up a clever idea to reduce overhead (meaning that he
can offer lower prices), his reward is that people will drive a little farther
to his store, and he may slightly increase his business volume. But if the
manager of a Web store cooks up a clever way to reduce overhead and lower his
prices, he captures the entire national market—assuming that everyone is using
mySimon or something like it. In other words, services such as mySimon give
businessmen a much bigger incentive to be more efficient.
Even more important, the Web's shopping-bot services free people from the trap
of patronizing the relatively small number of stores that happen to be located
in their immediate neighborhood. You can think of every physical store as
possessing a type of quasi-monopoly that benefits retailers and hurts
consumers. That is, suppose it's possible for a local store to sell a VCR at
$150 and still turn a respectable profit. Suppose I own a similar store in the
next town and price the VCR at $155. I'll get away with the higher price,
because residents of my town will probably conclude that driving a long way to
save $5 isn't worth it.
The owners of the lower-priced store will probably reach the same conclusion
and price the VCR at $155 as well. That's because if they sell at the higher
price, residents of that town have no option but to pay the premium. In fact,
every local store will go through the same reasoning and will charge the
premium, meaning that the prevailing price at bricks-and-mortar stores will be
$155. Of course, this monopoly power isn't unlimited. Suppose I got greedy and
priced the VCR at $160. In that case, a savvy businessman might decide to open
a slightly cheaper electronics store in my town to steal my customers. But so
long as local retailers don't get too greedy, they can get away with charging
just a few dollars more than the minimum price needed to cover overhead and get
a small profit. No competitors will appear because it's quite expensive to set
up a new shop in a location where a similar shop exists—even if the existing
shop is charging slightly inflated prices. (This is a slight simplification,
since discount stores will spring up in the far suburbs, where land prices are
lower, but the basic idea is sound: The hassle of driving means that local
merchants have a limited monopoly over residents.)
The Web and shopping bots, which allow people to pick the lowest price from a
national market, change the equation. On the Web, it's not very expensive to
set up a new business—at least compared with setting up enough
bricks-and-mortar stores to credibly challenge a big chain such as Circuit City
or Best Buy. And the payoff for setting up a Web store with rock-bottom prices,
if everyone is using mySimon, is now huge. A retailer who manages to offer a
lower price, even if this means a lower per-item profit, can make it up on
volume. Instead of winning the business of a single town, this businessman can
win the business, in theory, of the entire country. In short, a
"winner-takes-all" market translates into lower prices for customers.
In fact, the comparison-shopping engines are especially good news for smaller
operations lacking the deep pockets required to mount a large-scale, old-media
advertising campaign. If a service such as mySimon.com will cough up
side-by-side prices for barnesandnoble.com—which buys all sorts of expensive
advertising space—and Nobody.com, it makes sense that Nobody.com, with lower
expenses, will win the price war. (This leads to the delightful possibility
that all the mom-and-pop booksellers bankrupted by Barnes & Noble
superstores can go online and bankrupt barnesandnoble.com.)
It's not surprising, therefore, that deep-pocketed online booksellers such as
barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com have reason to fear bots. This points to a
troublesome question. What's to stop a big company from paying mySimon or
Yahoo! to block out smaller firms? Nothing, actually. Both AOL and the Go
network's shopping bots list only merchants who pay to be included. mySimon
does not require payment, but they do admit to giving preferential treatment to
paid advertisers. If these shopping bots list only companies with large
marketing budgets, of course, then a lot of cost savings associated with the
technology won't materialize.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether the most successful
comparison-shopping search engines will continue to give preferential treatment
to firms that are willing to pay. It seems possible that a Web site that relies
only on ordinary advertising could make enough to pay the bills, and it would
certainly have more credibility among consumers. After all, the shopping-bot
sites are just specialized search engines—once you've developed the technology,
it's relatively cheap to operate. And it's now received wisdom that a search
engine can be successfully supported by advertising, or at least that's what
Wall Street seems to be saying when it values Yahoo! at around $73 billion.
Toy
With Me
Want to get a jump on holiday shopping? Here’s where to
start.
By Sian Gibby
Updated Thursday, November 1, 2001, at 11:21 AM PT
How on-the-ball are you about holiday gifts? Are you one of those
hyperorganized people who goes right out and buys next-year’s Christmas cards
on Dec. 26? Well, then you might want to get started holiday toy shopping for
your children early. Like now.
Why so soon? Well, to get it over with. And besides, pouring money into our
shell-shocked economy could potentially produce the same result we get when we
feed our kids ice cream before bedtime—an upsurge in activity with no sign of a
slowdown.
Some toy stores have not yet opened their secret coffers to reveal this
winter’s toy crazes. But hip and entertaining toys there are aplenty out there
already, so why not get your shopping done early and then sit around drinking
eggnog lattes later while all your friends are pulling their hair out and
wondering if razor scooters are hopelessly passé and which is the right Barbie?
To make shopping easier for you, we broke the ginormous category of “toys” down
into five Duplo-simple blocks: infant and toddler toys; dolls and action
figures; stuffed toys; electronic games; and miscellany.
Infant and toddler toys: Babies are wonderfully predictable.
The same things we played with and loved when we were drooling and pooping in
our pants are just as popular with our crawling and waddling progeny today.
Babies like colors and buttons and lights, so get anything that has these
features and you will pretty much be in like Flynt. Fisher-Price stuff always charms, and they offer
an endless variety of playthings; from the stackable doughnuts (if you don’t
have these, by some freakish accident, get them) to this Sparkling Symphony
selection. Playing-grown-up toys like toy phones and lawn mowers enjoy a limitless popularity.
Also big this holiday season will be electronic music toys like Music Blocks,
which uses plastic removable sound cards that allow youngsters to rearrange
melodies by Bach, Mozart, and others ($75). This is a sure bet (a hipster dad I
know swears by the one they got for their daughter). If you have a nostalgic
turn, equip your mobile tyke with the timeless Radio Flyer tricycle ($49.99) or their
de rigueur red wagon ($89.99). And you’ll
be pleased to know that See ’n Say’s Barnyard Bring-Along
is still educating little folks in how to moo and baa for a mere $10.99.
Dolls and action figures: You can buy Barbie
dolls in a staggering array of incarnations. Barbie can do anything.
She is a dentist, safari photographer, gymnast, fashion designer, and star
ballerina in The Nutcracker. There even exists a Barbie who pops out of a giant cake.
(“Bachelor-party Barbie”? Not even going there.)
African-American, Latina, and So-Cal blond ‘n’ bronzed, Barbie comes from every
country on earth—she has mutated so many times, she is all but unrecognizable.
Recently Barbie, already flawlessly lovely, has become … younger. A line of
dolls called Generation Girls features
Barbie-sized teens living hip “realistic” lives. We have Mari, a goofy
techno-geek; the Diana-Ross-as-Mahogany-esque Nichelle; and even a
rocker dude, Blaine, who has his own badass guitar and DJ turntable. For those
seeking something more pedestrian, you can buy the McDonald’s employee Barbie.
Cheering fact: The Mickey-D uniform looks as bad on her as it does on everyone
else.
Barbie prices are all over the map: Wal-Mart features selected Barbies for
about $14; but some of the deluxe models can cost $100 plus no matter where you
buy them (one 5-year-old friend of mine was intensely distressed when Mom said
that the ravishing, $300 Bob Mackie-designed mermaid Barbie was simply out of
the question). My choice would be the Fashion Model Barbie (around $40 for the
pared-down, underwear-clad-only version) with her retro 1950s sidelong glance;
she is the most stylish and the most versatile.
Virtually every kids-themed or fantasy movie now boasts its own line of action
figures—last year we saw X-Men and Austin Powers dolls—and
this year will be no different. It’s a safe bet that the Harry Potter figures will
be hot this season. You can get doll versions of most of the books’ characters,
and Mattel has had the good sense to make them small and reasonably inexpensive.
(Gund makes more costly, larger, slightly softer figures with more detail for
$28.) Also in evidence are Sully and Mike figures from Monsters, Inc.;
these cuddly guys talk in John Goodman and Billy Crystal’s voices, but are they
worth $89.99? The movie isn’t even out yet!
Stuffed toys: Most kids possess tons of stuffed toys,
but do they ever really play with them? Howsoever it be, there is no
shortage of plush animals out there.
Elmo was the sine qua non for the holidays a few years back, and he’s still
going strong: Tickle Me Elmo Surprise is
ticklish in more places now, and he spouts a number of cheerful remarks (when
you squeeze his paw—or whatever it is—he bursts forth with a stream of jolly
but shrill phrases: “Elmo not very ticklish there!”). His “most ticklish place”
is designed to change, keeping little kids guessing. When they get it right,
Elmo erupts into spasms of delight.
There is also the more pricey Sing ’n Strum Barney
($39.99). My thoughts? Save your money and buy your kid some sneakers instead.
She may not thank you for it now, but your household will be much happier. It
is the most annoying thing on God’s green earth.
For the slightly older child, there’s a selection of Pokémon stuffed toys so menacing as to make one
wonder what kind of kid would request, let alone cuddle, them ($5.99 apiece).
Ditto the more deluxe Furbys ($29.99).
FAO Schwarz has a line of exclusive stuffed toys,
many of them charming. These Gund bears are my
faves. They are soft and comforting, plus they appear to be smirking.
Electric and video games: It’s hard for someone my age to get
a handle on which of these games is hip. I had to get help from canny experts:
my 12-year-old nephew, Noah, and his tres-cool buddies Logan and Conor. They
told me (in laconic preteen tones) that StarCraft by Blizzard was happening. Bike and skateboard
games, like Dave Mirra Freestyle ($49.99), were accorded elaborately blasé
kudos, as were John Madden Football games by Electronic
Arts, GameBoy Advance (around $150), Nintendo’s GameCube ($399), and
Xbox ($299).
Miscellany: Probably the most enduring toy fun can be had with
LEGOs. I have watched 16-year-olds make fantastically sophisticated
contraptions using the little plastic brainchildren of Danish toy designer Ole
Kirk Christiansen. A basic set of 1,200 pieces costs $26. For younger kids,
Duplo starter sets run only $20. LEGOs now has Harry Potter ensembles costing
as little as $6.99. You cannot lose if you buy LEGOs.
Back to Basics Toys features a mouthwatering choice of games and toys that are
such classics, chances are both you and your parents enjoyed them as
small people. A prime example: wooden block sets with pillars, arches, and
columns (a complete 102-piece set going for around $300. Yikes! Did Mom and Dad
shell out that kind of dough for us?).
The same company offers the old spring rocking horse ($96.99), BRIO’s marble
labyrinth game ($64.99—remember trying to get the marble through the tipping
maze?); Magic 8 Balls ($7.99); Slinky (also $7.99); as well as an impressive
group of scooters, wind-surf scooters, and gas-powered scooters (much pricier;
the gas one costs $799, the TerraSailor windsurf scooter is a jaw-dropping
$1,199.99). I have it on good authority (Noah, Logan, and Conor) that Rupp
minibikes are all the rage—cute-as-hell little scooters, they are also favored
by portly Shriners on parade. (These are hard to find online; check out eBay or
minibike clubs like this one for more info.)
Other good bets include remote-control cars (like the super-sized R/C
Volkswagen Beetle for $149.99), Foosball ($229.99), pogo sticks ($27.99),
adjustable stilts ($56.99), and dollhouses (most of the Back to Basics sets
cost around $200 apiece). Bright-yellow Tonka dump trucks cost $45. If you love
bumpin’ little rides, don’t forget Hot Wheels; you can stocking-stuff a HW gift
pack with five bitchin’ cars for just $8.99. I say, go for these: Everyone
loves Hot Wheels.
If you’re thinking that those Aibo robotic dogs from last year have to
be cheaper this season, you’re right, but they still cost a paralyzing $1,500.
If your tots simply must have a robot animal in 2001, try the less expensive
Otto Bot or Dino-Chi ($34.99 or $29.99 at FAO).
So, grab your checkbooks and go get toyed up. You’ll be glad you avoided the
crowds and still scored some awesome treasures for your beloved spawn.
Then relax and let the holidays roll on.
Packin' It In
Picking the best packing for your holiday shipping.
By Maureen Cosgrove
Posted Friday, December 14, 2001, at 12:42 PM PT
On the day I shipped all my belongings across the country to go back to school,
I had an eerie feeling things were going a little too smoothly. Of the 30-odd
boxes I was shipping via UPS Ground, the woman taking my packages needed only
to glance at the first few before the other shoe dropped. When she asked me
what was in the first few boxes (lots of glass and picture frames) and how I
wrapped them (in newspaper), I learned that shipping isn't as easy as flirting
with the UPS guy in the cute brown shorts. I spent the next four hours camped
out at a table in the UPS station, with rolls and rolls of bubble wrap
purchased at an extreme markup, repacking at least half of my life's
possessions so that they were up to snuff for the exacting shipping
requirements of UPS.
With hazy memories of this, and with lines growing ever longer at the post
office as the holidays approach (do you really want to stand in those lines
twice?), I thought the question merited revisiting: What exactly is the best
way to ship breakables so they'll arrive intact?
To find out, I sought some of the more shipping-challenged items you might send
to a pal for the holidays or to a friend who's about to gallop down the aisle.
(Engagements are on the rise after Sept. 11.) I went to Crate & Barrel and
purchased the cheapest hand-blown wine glasses I could find. (Hand-blown, it
was explained to me, are much more fragile than those made by machine.) I
picked up some tiny fragile glass Christmas tree ornaments, too. Then, to round
out the breakable ensemble, I went home and hard-boiled a dozen eggs.
I chose the most common and accessible packing accoutrements: peanuts, aka
loose fill, those annoying little Styrofoam puffs that inevitably end up all
over your floor; bubble wrap, everyone's favorite popping pastime; newspaper (I
wanted to prove UPS wrong); and, at the recommendation of the U.S.
Postal Service, popped popcorn ("it's inexpensive and environmentally
friendly").
I decided to ship two boxes for each packing material. Each box got an egg, a
wine glass, and an ornament. In one box I put the items free-floating in the
packing itself. The other box, while filled with the same packing, had the
extra protection of individually wrapped items (some in newspaper, some in
bubble wrap) per the FedEx Web site, which recommends
wrapping items separately if you're shipping several in one box.
Because most of us are used to doing these sorts of things at the last minute,
I shipped them all overnight to see how they'd fare with a little extra
knocking around via airmail. No one at any of the shipping counters—Mail Boxes
Etc. for the UPS packages and FedEx—seemed to notice that I was overnighting
things to myself, and at exorbitant rates. (But then, maybe lots of people ship
themselves hard-boiled eggs for Christmas.) The prices were indeed painful
(approximately $22 per box for UPS Next Day Air Saver service, and $15 per box
for FedEx's Standard Overnight delivery, both guaranteed for the next business
afternoon), but I got what I paid for: I had all my packages the next day
before noon. (To compare prices for shipping methods, check out the chart at
the bottom of the page.)
Findings
The results were fairly straightforward: If you want breakable things to
arrive whole, wrap them individually before putting them in any packing
materials. Not one of my items that were wrapped up and protected with
packing broke. As for the glasses and ornaments thrown naked into the packing
material, all of those survived, too. The eggs were a different story.
As industry experts will attest, the items in bubble wrap had the least amount
of damage—the egg floating free in bubble wrap had just a hairline crack.
Though not dirt-cheap ($4.25 for a roll of large-bubbled wrap that filled two
boxes, 12 by 10 by 8 inches each), the bubble wrap was worth the investment.
Plus it provided hours of bubble-popping entertainment.
Styrofoam peanuts, surprisingly, were not infallible either. The egg that had
traveled rakishly in loose fill was pretty well cracked. At $6 for a bag
(enough to fill two boxes with a little left over), and considering how tedious
they are to clean up, peanuts didn't seem to pull their weight in protecting
valuables.
The worst protection, though, came from the newspaper. The fantasy of this
being the perfect packing material because it happens to be conveniently lying
around your house is just that: a fantasy. The egg packaged with newspaper was
completely smashed in on one side and not in great shape around the others. So,
while newsprint is extremely cheap to use, shipping is not the best way to
recycle your daily paper.
The surprise winner in this horse race was the packing material least used (or
least thought of for packing)—popped popcorn. At an economical $1.15 per bag
(we're talking the raw kernels here, not microwavable), which filled two boxes,
popcorn was the only medium that provided such good insulation that the egg it
carried didn't even have a crack. Moreover, it provided me with a tasty treat
while I made out all those address slips.
Dum Dum Da Dum
But could I really rely on just eggs? That felt a little too easy, so I
decided to ask some package-receiving experts: recent newlyweds.
The brides I talked to confirmed my findings, generally: Tissue paper and
newspaper were not so good, and if they had anything that arrived broken, it
had been packed in one or the other. As one of these ladies put it,
"newspaper-wrapped items could well have been sent via wood chipper."
Peanuts, while they work, seemed to be universally loathed because of the mess
they make. One bride suggested registering first for a vacuum cleaner to clean
up after all the gifts you've received packed with peanuts since they fly
everywhere and splinter and split when you try to catch them.
The two favorite wrappings among brides were foam wrap (just regular sheets of
white foam, usually stuck between plates or dishes) and the air pillow, which
was described by the newlyweds I polled as "the best filler out
there." You've probably seen this inflatable air cushion—which looks
something like a plastic sandwich bag inflated with air—if you've ordered books
recently from Amazon.com. While not in as high a circulation as peanuts or
bubble wrap yet (a spokeswoman at UPS told me they'd just received their first
massive shipment of them), their popularity lies in their easy cleanup—just pop
the air bags and throw them away.
So if you're worried about how much time you have left to ship for the
holidays—and UPS says its deadline to ship something cross-country via ground
service, which is much cheaper than air, and get it there before Christmas is
Monday, Dec. 17—or if you're running up against that one-year-after deadline by
which you need to send a wedding gift, just remember this: If you want your
packages to arrive alive, keep the newspaper for reading or lighting your fire,
and pack with something that goes snap (bubble wrap), crackle (peanuts), or pop
(corn).
Paper Swoon
In the age of e-mail, fine stationery has become the
ultimate signifier.
By Cynthia Kling
Posted Thursday, March 11, 1999, at 12:30 AM PT
As a striving free-lancer, I believe in the three note theory of success: i.e.,
send three flattering missives to the right people each day, and you'll be at
the top in no time. It doesn't really matter what you write--but what you write
on does matter. Stationery has always been important, but paper's
cachet as a cultural signifier has increased dramatically in the age of e-mail.
While friends don't care if you send them letters on recycled grocery bags,
those who don't know you will scrutinize the note--the paper, the
letterhead--and judge you.
Cognizant of the perils of purchasing stationery, I start at the top,
Cartier--arguably the snootiest stationer around. At the desk of the 52nd
Street store in Manhattan, I find a stern saleswoman at the desk taking an
order from "Mr. Ambassador" on the phone. She hangs up, looks at her
watch, and says she can give me about 10 minutes--until the next ambassador, I
guess. The first stationery she shows me is 32 pound (meaning that 500 stacked
sheets of it will weigh that much). The sheet is thick enough to choke a
Hewlett-Packard, which is the point, of course. It's the preferred weight for
writing paper, the maximum recommended for laser printers is 28 pound.
Before we discuss paper price, she informs me that the name and address die to
engrave the stationery will cost $130. A little steep, I suggest. A die that
includes a family crest is closer to $1,000, she says crisply, "and people
enjoy leaving their address dies to others in their wills."
We whip through some options--envelopes lined with tissue, beveling or
indenting the sheet around the edge to create a border, stamping the family
crest in gold--before we return to paper prices: Fifty ecru, note-sized sheets
and matching envelopes go for $254, engraving included. (That's about $5 a
note.) The price for 50 business-sized sheets and envelopes is $259.50, and 50
6 inch by 4 inch note cards and envelopes cost $256.
My fingers glide across the soft paper like skates on a pond. And then the
saleswoman lets it slip: Cartier's paper is actually Crane's 32 pound paper.
Stephen Crane made the paper for the first colonial bank notes back in 1776;
Paul Revere did the engraving. Those new 20s in your wallet with the Andrew
Jackson watermark are Crane & Co.'s handiwork. In addition to the U.S. Mint
and the treasuries of 40 other countries, Crane supplies paper for about 3,000
retail stationers in the United States. The locations of Crane & Co.'s 13
outlets can be found on the firm's Web site, and
another page lets you search by ZIP code or international region for
other retailers. (A Greenwich, Conn., calligrapher tells me that Tiffany &
Co. also repackages Crane's paper.)
"Most of our social stationery is 32 pound, 100 percent cotton rag,"
says Leslie Reed, Crane's manager of personal products. Cotton's long fibers
are what make paper soft. In the old days, all paper was made of cotton rags,
hence the name. Today, most writing paper is made of 25 percent cotton and 75
percent wood pulp. The problem with wood pulp is that paper makers have to use
acid to break it down--and the chemical never quits working. This explains why
recently printed, cheaply made books are self-immolating in the Library of
Congress, while 500-year-old Gutenberg Bibles are OK.
Some paperphiles buy foreign stationery made by Smythson of Bond Street,
London, or by Pineider of Florence, Italy. Smythsons outlets can be traced via
a toll-free number, (800) 345-6839. The saleswoman at Blacker and Kooby, on 87th
and Madison, shows me some Smythson sheets and envelopes, offering that it is
the paper of choice of the British royal family. Beautiful and very
"U," as Nancy Mitford would say, but almost U in that hounds and
blood sausage way. A little rumply--the cards don't quite match the envelopes.
Then she opens a green leather case, revealing Pineider samples. It made me
believe, as some scientists contend, that the beauty response is hard-wired.
The paper is both languid and luminous, and it feels denser than Crane's. But
the 225-year-old Italian stationers don't bother with weight standards, used
for currency and book paper, because this stuff is strictly for letter writing.
It is, they say, the smoothest possible writing surface you can find. It would
be a crime to use anything other than a good fountain pen on it. But which pen?
That's a research project unto itself.
The sheets are creamy white and the tissue lining in the envelope a bluer
white. The saleswoman didn't have to drop names (the pope and Stevie Wonder) to
justify the price of 75 note-sized sheets and envelopes. At $144 ($1.92 per
note), this stationery is a steal. But the engraving cost is a steep $175 and
$42 for the die plate. You can find Pineider outlets by calling (800) 616-9111.
I stop by Kanter's Printers on 23rd Street, an address generated by
the Crane Web site. Kanter's price for 100 note-sized sheets and envelopes on
Crane's paper is $166 ($1.66 a note!), about $100 if I use Strathmore, a
competing paper, which is only 25 percent cotton rag.
To get the stationery engraved, the die plate will cost $56, about average. It
is a onetime charge, and Kanter's--and most other stores--let you keep the
plates. But if I forego the luxury of engraving, the clerk will sell me 500 24
pound Strathmore sheets and envelopes, flat printed, for $167. (That's 33 cents
a note. Now we're really talking.) Turnaround time for printing is 10 days,
about a month faster than either Smythson or Pineider.
If you're not going Europaper, the mom and pop operations are definitely the
best value. Is engraved paper really worth it? I ask the printer. "Some
people want a Caddy and others want a Chevy," he shrugs. "Does anyone
use colored paper?" "Hairdressers and discos."
After choosing paper, you must pick a size. Business-sized sheets are a mistake
for two reasons: 1) it's difficult to write enough to fill that much space; and
2) that much flattery might be misinterpreted as stalking. The note-sized
sheets look insubstantial and girlie. The 6 by 4 cards are best because they
make a few scribbles look weighty and dignified.
Luckily, there are only three sizes of fine stationery, because there are
hundreds of typefaces from which to compose your letterhead. At stationery
shops you see people agonizing over whether they're really more Helvetica than
Old Roman. The sample books don't help much because you want to see how it
looks in your name on the size sheet you've chosen. Some Crane & Co.
outlets let you test drive a sample of typefaces on a computer. The Levenger Web site, which
sells Crane's, limits you to four sensible choices, so you can't go too far
wrong. Most professional printers will do a proof of your letterhead for
$12-$25.
Let me offer one piece of advice: Avoid monograms. Those three initials may
look aristocratic, but that's because they were first used by drunken, illiterate
royals who couldn't write their whole names. I wonder if Tom Wolfe knows that?
His writing paper has a large blue, diamond shaped monogram at the top. But
then, he doesn't need to observe the three note theory anymore.