Ever wondered what your leather-bound journal thinks about you? Your menorah? The bowl you made in a pottery class? What astrological sign your keepsakes might be? How they’d like to be handled, cared for? Where they’d like to be in your home?
For most of us, the answer is probably no … to all of the above. But Elisabeth Saake has thought of all these things. And, after reading her latest book, Tchotchkes and their F*cked-Up Thoughts: The Messed-Up Minds of Your Trinkets and Treasures (Collective Book Studio), you will too. It’s a follow-up to her 2023 Houseplants and Their F*cked-Up Thoughts: PS, They Hate You, which she wrote with Carlyle Christoff.
Divided into five sections, no knickknack is spared. Saake covers the whimsical (lava lamp, rubber chicken, etc.), vintage and collectibles (antique compass, souvenir spoon, etc.), cultural and artisanal (woven tapestry, ceramic urn, etc.), spiritual and mystical (worry stone, crystal ball, etc.) and functional and decorative (novelty salt and pepper shakers, participation trophy, etc.).
About your journal, don’t worry, it thinks “your poetry is profound” and is “totally listening and deeply moved”; it only appears to be setting itself on fire.
But your menorah would like to be treated as more than a “fancy candleholder”: “Fill my branches with holy oil from trees grown on the Mount of Olives, just a day’s worth, and watch me burn for eight! Or cram in cheap candles from your big box store’s Hanukkah display. That works, too. Way to honour your ancestors, nudnik.”
And your handmade pottery is a “real bowl,” even if it “was made in a beginner’s night class at the community college”: “I’m round enough, I’m stable enough and, doggone it, people like me!” Though, it’s “a bit wobbly,” so perhaps no soup … maybe just display it on a kitchen shelf, as the “mantel is for the perfect porcelain.”
Tchotchkes and their F*cked-Up Thoughts would make a great gift to any friend (with a sense of humour) who’s a collector of things, or to any friend who has judged others’ collections of things. It’s snarky, a little dark at times, but will bring many chuckles and laughs, even if every joke doesn’t land. It’s colourful and beautifully put together. Hopefully, it will think as highly of you, its place in your home and how you care for it – and have an astrological sign that’s compatible with yours.