...Literary Devices You Can Still Get Today for Dear Old Dad...

My father is dead. Oh, it's ok: it will be seven years this September. It doesn't mean that I don't think what I would have bought the man for Father's Day.  Much like muscle memory, Christmas and Father's Day come up and those deep-rooted instincts kicks in. I simply give him a kind thought and visualize what I would have got him.

As a child of the Depression, Dad didn't need much. Point of fact: he actually despised if I got anything that didn't hold some intrinsic value. It would have been a 'waste'. As a discerning young child, I did get it after some years, learning to dig deep into the myelin for an answer. A Walt Whitman book. Premium steaks. A Nintendo DS. [Of all things, a Nintendo DS did the trick. It felt right getting it despite his inclinations. Hooked him up with a classic arcade cartridge and he used that thing for years.]

Anyhoo, Father's Day is coming up and men are known to like literary things. That's what the catalogs tell me as they arrive. I guess I like coin collecting, bric-a-brac, military history, soft-core porn, and literary goods. Granted, they are right - those emotionless analytical machines doing what they were designed to do.

1. Manual Typewriter - Amazon - about $140 - there's nothing like the tapping noise of a typewriter, so much different then the flat spring dullness of the modern keyboard.  Listen to your Dad type his manifesto in style.

2. Casio Calculator Watch - Amazon - about $16 - still nothing cooler than where form and function collide in some serious hardware that you wear on your risk.  He'll be a true "player", whilst at the tennis or the courtroom.

3. Vintage Book Cover Posters - All Posters - various prices - easy-peasy and oh so cheap.  All men love a good poster.

4. Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions - buy 1 get 1 at $10 - these editions are an easy buy and I have several myself.  They feel good, smell good and look awfully great next to the heaving naked body of a beautiful Swede.


5. Non Firing Historical Replica Gun - starts at $65 - follow all of your literary heroes, as most hunted for sport or killed a person or two.  No kidding, read their biographies.  Either a way, a man of a certain type will adore these absolutely non-firing historical guns.  They just look great next to the typewriter and a bottle of Jack.

6. Bottle of Jack - various - Kei$ha approved.

7. The TWSBI 580 at Goulet Pens - $70 - for those distinguishing fellows that need a solid writing instrument that uses ink...mysterious and dark.

8. Farber Nude Books - beautiful studies of the nude body, you know, the female nude body.  The one that counts.

9. Classic Cufflinks (or Tie Bars) - simply classy

10. Handwritten Chinese Calligraphy - one of a kind

11. Antique Unused Journal

12. Used Antique Journal - it is rather fascinating

13. Small Marble Statue of the Three Graces - silky silky now