Shouldn't exist · No. 01
Plasma Globe
A palm-sized glass sphere of miniature lightning that leans toward your finger when you touch it.
Oddity 
Gift for: scientists, fidgeters, coworkers
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Recipient
Shouldn't exist
Things That Shouldn't Exist
Objects that look like a mistake in the laws of the room.
Shouldn't exist · No. 02
Jellyfish Lamp
A tabletop tank of imitation jellyfish that drift on a quiet current, with no animals to feed.
Oddity 
Gift for: partners, designers, desk dwellers
Shouldn't exist · No. 03
Glass Mushroom Lamp
A hand-blown glass toadstool with wavy stripes, dimmable, that glows like something found on a night walk.
Oddity
Gift for: designers, partners, hosts
Shouldn't exist · No. 20
Mirascope
Two parabolic mirrors that project a small object so it appears to sit on top of the dish. A finger goes through it.
Oddity
Gift for: fidgeters, designers, coworkers
Shouldn't exist · No. 23
Pythagorean Cup
A ceramic cup with a hidden siphon. Fill it to the line and it is a cup. Fill it past the line and the whole drink runs out the bottom.
Oddity
Gift for: hosts, scientists, partners
Shouldn't exist · No. 38
Wandini Glow.0
A rechargeable LED wand on a thin black string. Loop it on a finger and the light seems to float while the hand draws.
Oddity
Gift for: partners, designers, fidgeters
Has everything
Gifts for People Who Have Everything
For the person whose shelves are already full of ordinary good taste.
Has everything · No. 04
Ferrofluid Sculpture
A sealed bottle of black magnetic liquid that spikes into a tiny landscape when a magnet comes near.
Oddity
Gift for: engineers, scientists, fidgeters
Has everything · No. 05
S. (Ship of Theseus)
A novel printed as a library book, stuffed with margin notes, letters, and loose inserts you have to keep in order.
Oddity
Gift for: readers, writers, partners
Has everything · No. 06
Perplexus Original
A clear sphere with a three-dimensional maze inside. You tilt the whole world to move one small ball.
Oddity
Gift for: fidgeters, coworkers, travelers
Has everything · No. 22
Building Stories
Chris Ware's graphic novel as a box of fourteen separate pieces: books, pamphlets, a newspaper, a board, and scraps you can lose in a real apartment.
Oddity
Gift for: readers, writers, designers
Has everything · No. 26
Marble Night City
A wooden machine you build from 294 pieces, then crank. Ten steel marbles climb the gears and race a night-city track.
Oddity
Gift for: makers, engineers, fidgeters
Has everything · No. 27
Laser Chess
A two-player chess set in which the pieces are mirrors. You win by bouncing a laser onto the other player's king.
Oddity
Gift for: scientists, coworkers, fidgeters
Has everything · No. 28
Shashibo Puzzle Cube
A palm-sized magnetic cube that folds into more than seventy shapes. This one is the Solar finish, yellow and red and holographic.
Oddity
Gift for: fidgeters, designers, desk dwellers
Has everything · No. 32
Gecko Run
A marble run with flexible tracks that stick to a window, a fridge, or a door. The wall is the support.
Oddity
Gift for: makers, engineers, fidgeters
Has everything · No. 35
Speks Geode
Twelve reversible triangles with rotating magnets, transparent on one side and pink-orange on the other. They click into a pyramid, a star, or something less obedient.
Oddity
Gift for: fidgeters, designers, desk dwellers
Surprisingly useful
Surprisingly Useful Inventions
Tools that earn their keep the first time you use them.
Surprisingly useful · No. 07
Swiss Peeler
A sideways carbon-steel peeler that takes a long ribbon off a carrot instead of a fussy scrape.
Oddity
Gift for: cooks, hosts, makers
Surprisingly useful · No. 08
Herb Scissors
Five blades that turn a pile of herbs into a neat shower with one snip, plus the comb that gets the leaves back out.
Oddity
Gift for: cooks, hosts, partners
Surprisingly useful · No. 09
Fisher Space Pen
A pressurized brass bullet pen that writes upside down, in the cold, and in the conditions it was actually built for.
Oddity
Gift for: writers, engineers, travelers
Surprisingly useful · No. 24
Clocky
An alarm clock on wheels. When it goes off, it rolls off the nightstand and hides, so turning it off means getting out of bed.
Oddity
Gift for: partners, coworkers, fidgeters
Under $25
Under $25 and Actually Interesting
Small and specific. They were inexpensive when we checked. Prices change.
Under $25 · No. 10
Bagel Slicer
A small guillotine that holds a bagel still and splits it without the usual drama.
Oddity
Gift for: cooks, hosts, coworkers
Under $25 · No. 11
Fabric Shaver
A palm-sized trimmer that shaves the pills off a sweater and makes an old coat look decided-upon again.
Oddity
Gift for: partners, travelers, hosts
Under $25 · No. 12
Nature Kaleidoscope Kit
A kit for building a kaleidoscope, then filling the end with dried flowers, stones, and whatever small thing you add later.
Oddity
Gift for: makers, designers, fidgeters
Under $25 · No. 29
Color-Mixing Cube
A two-inch acrylic cube with cyan, magenta, and yellow faces. Turn it and the overlaps become red, green, and blue.
Oddity
Gift for: designers, scientists, desk dwellers
Under $25 · No. 33
Scribbling Machine
A motor, markers, a battery, and cardstock for a machine that draws by wobbling. The body is something from the recycling bin.
Oddity
Gift for: makers, designers, partners
From the future
Objects From the Future
Things that hover, float, or behave like a prototype that escaped the lab.
From the future · No. 13
Hoverpen
A pen that hangs at 23.5 degrees on a magnetic stand, the same tilt as the Earth's axis, and still writes.
Oddity
Gift for: designers, desk dwellers, partners
From the future · No. 14
Levitating Planter
A small pot that hangs in midair and turns, meant for an air plant because you cannot really water a floating pot.
Oddity
Gift for: gardeners, designers, partners
From the future · No. 15
Ferrofluid Kit
A sealed display of magnetic liquid and two magnets, so someone can pull spikes out of a black puddle without a cleanup.
Oddity
Gift for: scientists, makers, coworkers
From the future · No. 19
Crookes Radiometer
A glass bulb with black-and-white vanes that spin when light hits them, and sit still in the dark. No battery, no motor.
Oddity
Gift for: scientists, desk dwellers, coworkers
From the future · No. 25
Tensegrity Stand
A small wooden platform that hangs in the air on chains, tense enough to hold a plant, with no post underneath it.
Oddity
Gift for: designers, desk dwellers, gardeners
From the future · No. 31
MicroKits Theremin
A solderless kit for an instrument you play by moving your hands through an electric field. Breadboard, parts, batteries, and a booklet are in the box.
Oddity
Gift for: makers, scientists, fidgeters
Never search for
Things You'd Never Search For
Books and objects nobody types into a gift search, which is why they work.
Never search for · No. 16
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
John Koenig's dictionary of invented words for emotions the old words do not quite cover.
Oddity
Gift for: writers, readers, partners
Never search for · No. 17
Invisible Cities
Calvino's slim novel of impossible cities, described by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, a few pages at a time.
Oddity
Gift for: writers, readers, designers
Never search for · No. 18
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Rebecca Solnit's essays on wandering, blue distance, and the uses of not knowing where you are.
Oddity
Gift for: writers, readers, travelers
Never search for · No. 21
Codex Seraphinianus
Luigi Serafini's encyclopedia of an invented world, written in a script nobody can read, with diagrams of creatures that do not exist.
Oddity
Gift for: designers, writers, readers
Never search for · No. 30
Tim Bird
A rubber-band ornithopter with a 15.5-inch wingspan. Wind it, toss it, and the wings flap hard enough to fly.
Oddity
Gift for: makers, scientists, partners
Never search for · No. 34
Science Tarot
A 78-card tarot deck whose pictures are scientists, discoveries, and the odd habits of the physical world.
Oddity
Gift for: readers, scientists, writers
Never search for · No. 36
Spinballs
Two soft lighted poi and eight modes, including a flame look and a rainbow fade, for learning to spin light in circles.
Oddity
Gift for: fidgeters, partners, travelers
Never search for · No. 37
Otamatone
A Japanese note-shaped instrument. Slide a finger along the stem for the pitch, and squeeze the mouth for the wobble.
Oddity
Gift for: partners, makers, coworkers
Collections
Ten ways in
No. 01
Gifts for People Who Love Space
Lightning, magnetic liquid, and a pen that was built for orbit.
6 oddities
No. 02
Weird Gifts Under $20
Strange on purpose, and inexpensive the day we checked.
10 oddities
No. 03
Unusual Gifts for Writers
Pens, dictionaries of feelings, and one novel that is also an archive.
9 oddities
No. 04
Clever Desk Accessories
For the piece of furniture where a lot of people actually live.
14 oddities
No. 05
Gifts for People Who Have Everything
Showpieces for a person who does not need another sensible thing.
14 oddities
No. 06
Strange Gifts for Adults
Toys that grew up and refused to become tasteful.
21 oddities
No. 07
Science Gifts for Adults
Instruments and demos you can hand to a person, not a classroom.
19 oddities
No. 08
Surprisingly Useful Gifts
A short shelf, because most useful gifts are dull.
6 oddities
No. 09
Unique Housewarming Gifts
Objects that change a room more than a candle does.
8 oddities
No. 10
Things You'd Never Search For
Gifts that do not show up when you type the person's hobby into a box.
17 oddities
Still haven't found something weird enough?
There's always another oddity around the corner.
The Oddity Machine walks the cabinet without repeating itself during this visit. Filter by person or budget if you already know the assignment.
The Oddity Machine
Glass Mushroom Lamp
For a house that already has enough sensible lighting.
Weirdness
Gift for: designers, partners, hosts
Budget bands are editorial, not live prices. 1 is familiar. 5 is genuinely strange.
37 still unseen this sitting.
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