Black Friday has come and gone, but your kids are still pining for the latest video game, your better-half still needs a new car, and your grandma just wants you to call — just one time — to say hi.
But they don’t know what they want for the holidays. Nobody does. Nobody, except The Brooklyn Paper, and we’re telling you there is only one place you need to shop this holiday season — the Gowanus Souvenir Shop, the world’s only source of novelty Gowanus Canal-themed trinkets.
We have selected five gifts to thrill and delight your loved ones this Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa — helpfully modeled by shopkeeper James Delucia and his amazing hairdo.
For the assassin aunty
The holiday season is in full swing and you’re probably asking yourself, “What can I get my crazy murderous aunt?” The Gowanus Souvenir Shop’s signature poison bottles ($12 each, four for $40) — each one labeled with one of the various harmful toxins located in Brooklyn’s Nautical Purgatory — is the perfect place for that special psychopath in your life to store their various blights and miasmas.
For the toxic teenager
So your son drank from the Gowanus. So he’s changing in ways that hormones and puberty can’t entirely account for. So he’s grown little T-rex arms out of his abdomen, weaves a cocoon to sleep in at night, and eats flies he snatches from the air with his frog tongue. He’s still your son, and, on the bright side, at least there are less flies. Celebrate the man your abnormal freak of nature will soon become, and grab him a resin Mutie action figure ($30), hand crafted by the real ultimate mutant, Weird Luke of punk band Gowanus Mutant Kommandos.
For the extreme sports fan
The Gowanus Canal is famous for being the most polluted waterway in the United States, and — in a possibly related turn of events — it is also noted for producing some unnaturally strong swimmers. The Gowanus Souvenir Shop’s Gowanus Swim Team T-shirts ($24) are a fashionable way for the extreme sporting fan in your life to show that she doesn’t just base-jump or ice-canoe like some schmuck — she is so extreme, she can swim through literal rivers of poop. Comes in all sizes, including a onesie for babies.
For the prodigal children
Kids these days are a mess. They’re lazy, disrespectful, and just not as good as kids used to be, you know, back in the day. But thanks to credit cards and frequent flier miles, they also love to travel. While you’re waiting for your kidults to return home and live on your couch, get them a 10-pack of the Gowanus Souvenir Shop’s vintage postcards ($25). At least this way they’ll write, and you will ultimately get all these creepy old photos of the canal back. So really, it is a gift to yourself.
For the fitness buff
Often times, when you’re known as the “fitness buff,” folks tend to disregard your taste in fine art. Make sure your favorite muscle-head isn’t subjected to unfounded stereotypes, and get him some tastefully artistic and vaguely weighty doorbell dumbells crafted by local artist Tony Stanzione ($70).
