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Спутники
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SpaceX
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NASA
СпутникиРНSpaceXРоскосмосNASALast year, a young man approached us with an intriguing pitch: “I have some very dull overviews of art history that I thought you might want to buy”. When we questioned why he thought we would want to buy such objectionable material he said “You know how grandparents give boring presents at Christmas? These would be perfect boring presents to sell to them! They are really very dull!” We admired the audaciousness of his salesmanship but it’s not the dullness that offended us, it’s the vagueness of the general survey. Here chez ’Hound we will happily sell your grandmother a collection of Gaelic songs of Nova Scotia, a graphic overview of pre-Colombian fashion in Mesoamerica, a “Lag’s Lexicon” of slang from British prisons circa 1950, a 1976 Winter Eaton’s catalogue, a scholarly monograph on Coast Salish gambling games or a collection of Edward Gorey’s illustrated envelopes sent to his friend Tom Fitzharris over a one-year period. All of which may be boring for a kid who was hoping for AirPods but at least they have the merit of SPECIFICITY! An underrated quality that is often flattened under the tiresome anvil of “quirkiness”. Some more specifics for grandparents and others who prefer to shop at the very last minute: we are open from 10 to 6 on December 21-23 and from 10-3:30 on Christmas Eve. We are closed Christmas and Boxing Day, then reopening with regular hours on the 27th. This will be our final communication until New Year’s Eve, as our vocabulary recedes to the cavemanlike syllables of “ho ho ho” and “fa la la”, so before the lexicon, er, lags, let us wish you very happy holidays!