Anno Domini is San Jose is an art gathering space. We first visited a few years ago when we learned about 'first friday' downtown where all the art galleries open their doors till late and serve wine and beer, etc. AD is very different from any gallery I've ever been to, and now our favorite. It is a large warehouse type work space during the day and once a year around the holidays, artists put their work up on the walls for a 'cash and carry'. It treads that fine line between snobby and too edgy to enjoy yourself. And the owners are always around and very friendly and approachable. I love to spend money on local goods! especially creative originals!

Pathelion is a bunch of local artists/musicians who always have some things at the sale. We are not big art purchasers so we like to buy little things and they always have small bags of buttons with funky little monstrous characters on them for a few bucks each bag. This year they out did themselves with radness. They were selling some of their music on sweet little wooden USB sticks with a guitar engraved on them! It was kinda hard to tell exactly what it was at first glance, but we quickly snagged one once we figured it out. We thought we had the purchase of the show until we found out they were all over the place(which doesn't make it any less cool!). Later that week they had a club show they were calling their USB release party. Sign of the times!
I am a thrifty person and I really hate to spend money at the big retailers and generally in participating in the global consumer shit storm. It's a crazy double edge sword, if we don't participate, the economy suffers. And if we do, we uphold a horribly inefficient, unjust, shoddy, local-economy-killing product chain. But when the products are locally crafted, I'm more than happy to open my wallet. Granted these are 'art' pieces and don't have significant impact on local economy, but it's a step in the right direction to support operations like AD. It doesn't matter what the product is, when I buy something that is locally made, I feel life in that product. I feel emotion and connection to that product. It isn't simply an expendable commoditized product like most everything today.
Oh, and I'm well aware of the hypocrisy of the wooden USB stick that was most likely made in Asia and bought in bulk. HA;)