REFRESHINGLY HONEST
CRATE AND BARREL
CATALOG DESCRIPTIONS.
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Athens Occasional Table
$249.00
Sharp and chic with a solid crafted base and bold clean lines. Available in both a birch and an ash veneer, this table is equally at home under simple magazines or your finest objet d'art. What is an occasional table anyway?, you might wonder. Isn't being a table pretty much a full-time job? Tables need breaks now? They get vacations? On those occasions when a table is not a table, is it drinking somewhere and dialing the phone numbers of ex-girlfriends who married lawyers and listening to them breathe before getting stoned and staring at old calendars while trying to pinpoint the exact day that its life turned to total shit? Because if so, sign me up. I can hold an objet d'art occasionally.
Mortise-and-tenon joinery. Lower display shelf. Made in Canada.
Bayside Sleeper
$5,599.00
Life in the balance: home and work, utility and style, form and function. That's the strength of this microsuede wonder with deep cushions and a relaxed attitude. It's the perfect spot to unwind after a long day of writing catalog copy about furniture and trinkets that you probably can't afford. Pull out the sleeper bed and the in-laws will have a comfy place to crash next time they're in town, assuming they stop pointing out that your apartment is too small to have a guest room long enough to get any sleep in. Park it in front of a big-screen HDTV and you'll forget all about the nagging dreams and ambitions that might haunt you on lesser seating and be filled with a harmonious numbness we call "balance." Can a sofa really do all that? It's almost six grand. It damn well better do something.
Coil-and-air mattress. Kiln-dried frame. Matching throw pillows included.
Kleiner Table Lamp
$199.00
Marbled glass with beveled edges combined with a white translucent shade to offer soft illumination to your darkest places. Well, not your darkest places. That would take one of those lights like they have in the top of the Luxor—you know, one of those lights that can be seen from space. And you'd probably want to have, like, a whole team of psychiatrists and possibly law enforcement on hand because, seriously, who knows what's buried down there. Remember when your cousin peed on you in front of Sally Metzger in, like, third grade? Thought about that lately? Wanna shine some light over in that area and see what's doin'? Maybe it's best to just make do with a minimal amount of illumination—soft light, as they say. Use it to read a self-help book or two.
Poly-cotton shade. Clear cord. Three-way switch.
Professional 600 Stand Mixer
$499.00
Commercial-grade power and style for the home. Don't let the elegant pearl metallic finish fool you: this monster is ready to work. Twenty-four-cup-capacity mixing bowl means you can knead dough for eight loaves of bread at once! Eighteen speeds allow you to do everything from whip to stir. Of course, we both know that you don't know how to cook anything that doesn't come out of the freezer and go into the microwave, that you'll just park this little number on the counter, where it will collect dust and never live up to its bread-kneading, hyper-whipping potential. No, if you want fresh bread, you eat out. Honestly, if you turned this on, you'd probably lose a finger. But you've still got to have it, because without it no one would be able to look at your counter and whisper to their friends, "Holy shit, that's one of those $500 mixers." Screw making bread. With this, you don't even have to plug it in, and your friends will be too sick with envy to eat anything anyway. Bunch of anorexic morons.
All-steel construction. Direct drive gears and transmission. Six-hundred-watt motor.
Spiral Carved Bowl
$89.95
Freeform lines and top-notch craftsmanship combine to bring you this hypnotizing item that will not only fill that empty space on the table but the one in your life, too. That's right, you probably didn't realize how unfulfilled you were until you saw this catalog and realized that your problem is not that you hate your job and are dissatisfied with your familial situation—it's just that your shit doesn't match! You just need a cohesive design scheme! What you need is this motherfucking bowl! This bowl is going to love you like your parents couldn't, like your wife no longer does, and like those ungrateful hooligans who sprang from your loins never will. This bowl doesn't want anything from you except $90, and in return it will sit on your table and it will tell people that you are not a failure who spends weekends watching E! True Hollywood Story and drinking wine from a Gatorade bottle. It will say that you have a worldly appeal and an international pedigree! It will scream that you are sophisticated and wise! It will lie for you, and it will never stop, and probably that will go a long way toward making you whole again. Isn't that worth 90 measly dollars, you cheap bastard?
Hand wash. Black stain. Food-safe.
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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
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Refreshingly Honest Crate and Barrel Catalog Descriptions By Kyle Killen
An Overheard Conversation at the Suburban Neighborhood Pool, If the Suburban Neighborhood Pool Were in Deadwood By Kari Anne Roy
Welcoming Remarks Made at a Literary Reading, 9/25/01 By John Hodgman
Three New Mac Ad Ideas By Tom Batten
Thomas Friedman Explains the Issues of the Day By Sean Carman
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