there are two sorts of shoe in my life: the loud, complicated ones i buy on sale or impulse and wear a handful of times season after season, and the little black flats i wear almost every day until they fall apart (magical things, those little flats: they make almost any outfit juuust businesslike enough for the office). it takes me four to six months to destroy said flats; as i walk two miles a day just scooting to and from work, i feel like i'm getting a pretty square deal. i was getting a square deal, that is, until - somewhere early in month two -
this happened. what the hell? do i pirouette on my left foot unconsciously? is there some sort of twelve dancing princesses thing going down after i fall asleep? does steve madden booby trap his flats?* then i realized i'd seen that shape before. oh, yes.
my shoe has sprouted a kraken's eye. when i said a few days ago that the end was nigh, i thought i was talking about kitten pictures - but as tennyson wrote,
There hath he lain for ages, and will stewprepare for the last battle, internets.
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and fuck up Lauren's shoe.
on sightings, i can also report that mentioning pretty in pink last week actually summoned james spader.
celebrities v. giant inflatable rats:** steff edition
he swept past me on fifty-seventh street wearing an indiana jones fedora and walking a fluffy white dog, so it wasn't exactly a brat pack moment, but in a six-degrees-of-kevin-bacon way it brought me closer to both molly ringwald and william shatner than i have any right to be.
rats: 4.5
star: 13
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 what the hell happened to my shoe?
02 were you aware of canada's postal excellence? (check out the whole cryptozoological quartet. where's our ogopogo stamp?)
03 on a totally unrelated note, paul auster readers, is the book of illusions acceptable as an entry point? a copy materialized, kraken-like, at my office, and i'm thinking of auditioning it as a subway book.
*a designer willing to knock off the balenciaga lego heels is capable of anything.
**an ongoing tally of the famous people and union-displeasure-indicating balloons i see in the city.
7 comments:
01 well, see here: http://walking.about.com/od/shoechoice/ig/Worn-Out-Walking-Shoes/shoewearsole.htm. Indicates it's a fairly normal wear pattern, though the wear seems in the photo seems a bit further toward the front than your shoe.
02 what, now that the olympics are over you think we can start saying nice things about canada?
03 haven't read auster, though i did see james wood absolutely brutalize him in the new yorker a few months ago (not that i think that means anything one way or the other, just thought it was somewhat bizarre).
Bizarre. Only on the left foot? Hmmmmm.... can't figure out what might be going on there.
I must have some kind of weird walking pattern of my own, because I regularly end up disconnecting the toe of my left shoe from the base, thus ending up with a flapping, mouth like shoe on one foot. I shove some glue in there and just try to forget about it.
a) I thought you were against KNOCK-OFFS?
b) The Canadian postal service sucks. I don't care if you like their stamps.
i'm totally against knockoffs; i also think those balenciagas are a hot mess. that's what i mean: a man who'd bother to knock those off clearly has nothing to lose. he's dangerous.
01: Perchance a prayer tossed to St. Crispin is apropos and he’ll get on that.
02: Unaware but contiguously confirmed. They also have great television programming like the malapropism-crazed Trailer Park Boys (also laudatorily pushes the syntactical boundaries of the word *shit*).
03: Auster sux. (In lieu of huge vehement condemnation, a non sequitur about the difference between the Big Mac and McDowell’s Big Mick: “They both contain two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions. But they use a sesame seed bun. My buns have no seeds.” I love McDowell’s.)
on auster...sadly, have only read "new york trilogy," and i confess, only the first story in the trilogy! it was meta and comic and i hunger for more. i dug through 4 boxes of books hoping to find it the other night, but it looks like i'm going to have to repurchase it. in the meantime, my point is that the first book i read is instrumental in forming my opinion of an author, and i respect your query for opinions. my pick of "new york trilogy" as a first read is...under-informed. how 'bout you send it to me and i'll let you know if it's passable ;)
dude, you're already two degrees away from shatner. i met him at a horse show when i was 8. that counts! molly ringwald apparently never went through a saddlebred phase, though, so i can't help you there.
i've just noticed that my black flats are looking a little raggedy, which puts me at around 4 months. being patent, though, i need some springtime shoes, it seems. DSW was all sandals'r'us the other day, and i'm not quite ready for that yet.
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