Surgically enhanced Pink Flamingos from Miami Beach. What every lawn needs!

What is it about traveling that causes people, even those with good taste, to submit to their tacky side and buy the ugliest, oddest trinkets from some unabashed tourist trap, like a shot glass made from a cow’s hoof found in Colombia?

Colombia’s not the only guilty party. Traveling through Italy? Be sure to pick up a key chain with a small bust of the Pope dangling from it. On a road trip through Florida? Don’t forget the alligator-claw business card holder. In Berlin? Be sure to buy a box of the Brandenburg Gate-shaped pasta.

Who would buy these, you ask? Me, for one. And, obviously, a host of others, because all of the above can be found in the new book Crap Souvenirs: The Ultimate Kitsch Collection (Perigee) by Doug Lansky. This fun collection of global kitsch run amok will leave you thinking, “I, too, need a stuffed rabbit smoking a hookah from Libya!”