Dave Barry doesn’t just make fun of catalogs, he shops from them too.
In an interview with DIRECT Newsline after his keynote address yesterday at the Catalog Conference, the author and Miami Herald humor columnist said he buys all of his computer equipment direct, and regularly sends gifts from catalogs like Harry & David.
“I’m definitely a supporter of the catalog industry,” he said.
One of Barry’s most popular columns annually is his holiday gift guide, where he showcases some of the more unusual items available. The best items, he says, usually come from catalogs.
One year, he told DIRECT, the gift guide featured a hunting catalog’s “duck butts,” which are bottoms-up hunting decoys used by hunters.
“They sold out and had to go back into production,” he said, noting the photo accompanying the story showed the butts floating in a punch bowl.
“They had to run a disclaimer saying that if you float them in a punchbowl you shouldn’t drink the punch because the paint might come off,” he said. “You have to wonder about someone who would drink punch that had duck butts floating in it.”
After his keynote introduction Barry noted that “many of you know me better as ‘current resident’.”
Barry noted during his speech that he had learned a lot about life from catalogs, especially the Sears underwear catalog. He noted that as a curious young man, he’d look at the pages of smiling women standing around in their underwear, which were of course followed by pages of smiling men, standing around in their underwear.
“This led me to wonder…what kind of a place is Sears?” he said.
In a wide ranging hilarious keynote that for the most part was about anything but catalogs, Barry touched upon many subjects of interest, including how parents should use embarrassment as a weapon (he once picked up his teenage son at school in the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile); the difficulties of turning 50 (he received a letter from AARP — “the association of people standing in line in front of you asking if they get a discount”); and the disposal of dead whale carcasses (dynamite is not a good idea).
The Catalog Conference at McCormick Place runs through tomorrow.
