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Gifts for People Who Have Everything
The hard person to shop for is rarely missing a sweater. Their shelves are full, the kitchen works, and their patience for a generic gift is gone. What they do not have is a story they have not already been told.
A pen that refuses to lie down. A novel printed as a library book and stuffed with someone else's letters. A sealed landscape of magnetic liquid. A plant pot that will not sit on the table. These are unnecessary on purpose, which is the only kind of necessity left.
Why these
- None of these resembles a registry gift.
- They can live out in a room, so the present does not vanish into a drawer.
- They suit someone who will forgive you for skipping the practical option.
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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