Don’t judge me for buying souvenirs!  I love Americana kitsch and sending care packages and souvenirs are always so cheap that they make great components to care packages and and and… yeah, I have a problem.  To be fair, though, most of this is going to go into care packages and/or become gifts for some friends.  Okay, the stuffed buffalo is for me, and so is the mug from Wall Drug, and the socks and the shot glass but seriously everything else is for other people.

Oh, and I like to send postcards.  In fact, when I fall off the mail art wagon I tend to fall back on postcards.  They’re easy: short, funny, kind of hip, and cheap.  Really, that is what attracts me to souvenirs; they
are this perfect slice of Americana.  They say, “I was here” and you can keep them on the shelf indefinitely to remember where you’ve been.

What I loved most about SD is that they’ve raised the souvenir to an art form– Wall Drug is kind of nothing but you have to go there and you have to get something that says “Wall Drug” just because it is what you do.  The Corn Palace is kind of that way too– once you’ve seen the outside there isn’t really all that much inside except a huge gift shop full of corn related stuff (I don’t think it is junk, no sir).  I sort of feel like if Andy Warhol had become a merchant instead of an artist he’d've loved Wall Drug.