My brother’s birthday is coming up soon, and I can’t sleaze by and send him the scarf I made for Christmas and forgot to include in the box, because I already told him about it, so I am looking for a good gift for him.

The best place to buy gifts for the person who has everything is, of course, “SkyMall,” that free catalogue distributed on airplanes under the assumption that brain cells function slower at high altitudes, so someone might be confused enough to call and order a talking action figure of Abraham Lincoln, or a $900 espresso machine.

SkyMall is a compilation of several companies’ catalogues, bound together, so there’s a wide range of products, appealing to everyone from the paranoid germ-o-phobe to the nouveau-riche dilettante dependent upon external approval to sustain his fragile sense of self-worth. Many of the write-ups describe a product’s appeal with a nod toward showing up the neighbors, although if there do exist people impressed by say, personalized branding irons, I can’t say I’d want to know them socially.

So, here is a list of things I think E might like for his birthday. I’ve listed each item, then the SkyMall-mandated justification of its appeal:

• Disc Brake wall clock: “…ah, the stuff of dreams!”
• King Tutankhamen’s Egyptian Throne Chair (replica): “sure to impress guests and ‘Egyptophiles’ alike.”
• “Tiki Gods”: “the Tikis help invoke the bohemian lifestyle”
• Hawaiian Hula Wahine Hanging Bamboo Screen: “looks great from any angle!”
• “Mombasa, the Garden Giraffe”: “sized to impress!”
• Ultimate Flyer sled: “So much fun on the slope, so great looking on the wall!”

I think I’m going to go with the “Mademoiselle Haute Couture” floor lamp, though. A bargain, at $395, I think this lifelike headless faux-leather mannequin will add a special, creepy note of sophisticated eeriness to my brother’s house. He’s going to be so impressed.

Star of the day. . .Xavier Cugat