When I was a kid, I could not wait for the arrival of Sears 'Wish Book' - the huge tome that simultaneously signaled the coming of the holiday season, and satisfied my nascent love of all things paper... The pages were glossy, the photos in color, and best of all, they were a cornucopia of 'stuff' - from toys to clothes to girly sheets for the bed. I'd pour over the pages, circling potential wish-list items.... I'd read and re-read it, till dog-eared, it gave up the ghost and was tossed by my mother, gone for another year. (Needless to say, this was pre-Internet...)
Favorites included tutus with sequins (before sequins were considered every-day wear), rock tumblers that turned stones into gems before your eyes, a Barbie Dreamhouse - split-level with swimming pool - and the best Christmas gift ever - a two-tiered trolley filled with doctor's instruments, including a working stethoscope - go Mom and Dad!
Catalogs have become an iconoclast in the Internet age - they defy the conventional wisdom that tablets and HD make paper obsolete. I shop online all the time, but there is something inherently satisfying about flipping through a catalog. I love the feel of paper - the texture, the smell, the "je nes sais quoi"... which cannot be replicated by even the most bleeding-edge computer screen. (Not to mention, iPads aren't bathroom-proof!)
These days, my Sears Wish Book is replaced by the likes of Garnet Hill, The Container Store, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, The Smithsonian Museum store, and L.L. Bean. I flip through, imagining what my bedroom/kitchen/guest room/bathroom might look like if I were inclined to spend a substantial portion of my disposable income on table lines woven of eco-friendly spider silk collected from abandoned webs by a fair-trade women's co-op in the rural villages of Cambodia, or how impressed my friends would be to see me in action with my artisan-made brass asparagus scissors in the shape of a crane (the latter actually exists, thank you Williams Sonoma)!
And therein also lies the problem...
Catalogs multiple like rabbits.
Web pages proliferate even more quickly, but catalog proliferation leaves you with a conundrum: you buy something from Garnet Hill, and you automatically are on the list for The Company Store and Cuddledown too. Smithsonian Museum Store catalog produces the Signals and Wireless catalogs. Two catalogs become six! The unwanted ones automatically go into recycling, but I cannot help but be annoyed at having to unsubscribe from these unwanted solicitations... except when they're not unwanted. Which of course I can't know until it comes. Which is precisely why they send them, of course...
Recently, some purchase I made online produced a catalog from a company called Uncommon Goods. I haven't been this excited since the Sears wish book! Molecular Gastronomy starter kits! "Salts of the World" in test tubes! How cool is that?! The first catalog I've gotten in years that's truly filled with new and exciting 'stuff'. A catalog that I have read and re-read, and dog-eared for several months now... a catalog that influenced my Christmas list and gift buying, a catalog that lead me to a website with even more incredible gift ideas.
And that, in a nutshell, is my love-hate relationship with them. I love reading the ones I love. I hate receiving the ones that I don't. But there is no way to know what you love until you see it.
With a web page, if you don't like the products you never visit it again. A catalog is the inedible version of the jelly-of-the-month-club: the gift that keeps on giving. So for now, the recycling guys continue to get a workout and my conscience nags about the volume of virgin forest felled to create a fair portion of them. But I am a paper fiend at heart, and I'm still waiting for my next fix...
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