A Critical Analysis of my Shoes

No. 1: I only really care about brown shoes. I would call them “lit­tle brown shoes,” almost one word, because it is how I think of them, as mod­est cov­ers for shy feet. But my feet are not lit­tle, they are size 12. If you have large feet, then you know this dis­ap­point­ment: the floor model is a size nine and looks per­fect in every way. Asked for a go with it, the sales­men brings back a 12 and it is a canoe. Its shape is dis­tended as though through care­less Pho­to­shop­ping. This par­tic­u­lar pair is about as fine as a mod­est pair of shoes gets. Extremely but­tery leather (“but­tery,” accord­ing to a horse girl, who knows about leather from doing horse things and what­not, it is not a term I knew to use, myself), very tidy stitch­ing, very few mov­ing parts. But still, a lit­tle brown shoe. I was not in dire need when I bought these, but I was hav­ing back trou­ble, and I sus­pected that new shoes might alle­vi­ate the pain. New shoes did not.

No. 2: Also in the cat­e­gory of “lit­tle brown shoes,” but these are the show vari­ant. Eye-catching touches, minor curiosi­ties. A square toe, more seams than I imag­ine a shoe requires. Things like that. I got these for the first friend-wedding of my life, the sort of affair where one is sup­posed to look good, but not great, where one is still prop­erly get­ting on one’s feet, sort­ing one’s shit out. There is no one at such a wed­ding that you haven’t seen in for­ever. You, in fact, saw every­one there dur­ing the week­end prior, and under not espe­cially dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances, really. But here is some fam­ily, and here are some high school friends of the bride, and here is your beardy friend in a tie. Showy shoes, sure, but the show is a regional quarterfinal.

No. 3: Was with my dear and long­time friend Kat, was in the early days of our friend­ship, when I sug­gested we go to the Sal­va­tion Army in down­town Oak­land (or, more prop­erly, Oakland’s Chi­na­town, though neigh­bor­hoods in such a city are not too strictly defined). I am sure that I bought some bull­shit VHS tapes, as was my wont back then, but Kat’s eyes went right to these shoes. She more or less insisted I get them. They were $3.99, kindly, although a half-size too snug, but who was I to jeop­ar­dize a ges­tat­ing friend­ship? I pur­chased them, to her delight, and promptly neglected to wear them for two years straight. What got them on my feet was a week­long mem­ber­ship at the local Gold’s Gym, won by way of raf­fle that some snick­er­ing friends had entered me into. These were the clos­est things I had to ath­letic shoes, and remained the clos­est things I had to ath­letic shoes for years to come.

No. 4: Even­tu­ally, it became clear that I would need proper ath­letic shoes. Mostly for social calls, of all things. So-and-so wants to play ten­nis (will loan me a racket, he says), What’s-his-face has sug­gested kick­ball (which is, appar­ently, a ridicule-worthy hipster-thing, say today’s social observers). I trudged through such oblig­a­tions with shoes No. 3 for far longer than I should have, what with that pair’s ques­tion­able arch sup­port and ludi­crously over­wrought ankle tabs. What finally prompted this pur­chase was an impul­sive deci­sion to join the local YMCA. The YMCA in San Fran­cisco is ter­ri­bly beau­ti­ful, by the way. It is sit­u­ated on the water­front and the locker rooms — the locker rooms! — face the bay and its bridge. Stun­ning and weirdly quiet, too. Why did I join the Y? Because I felt like swim­ming, and it seemed like the eas­ier way to accom­plish a swim. As of yet, I have only swam, still, and never worked out in a way that required gym shoes. But hey, should I wish to, I can. These were the cheap­est cross-trainers I could find.

No. 5: These are flip flops. I bought them at what is called, in Oak­land, “Big Long’s.” It is a Long’s Drug­store that is, for no clear rea­son, the size of a Wal-Mart. It is shock­ing and won­der­ful. It is the only Long’s in the nation that has a fab­ric depart­ment. You can pur­chase a bicy­cle there, a futon, a fish­ing pole, a raft. Such a vari­ety is, I know, unre­mark­able in today’s retail envi­ron­ment, but there is some­thing about hav­ing what is basi­cally a drug­store at the nut of it all that shifts the expe­ri­ence into some­thing nutty and won­der­ful. I am sure I was on my way to the lake or some shit, and flip-flops seemed sen­si­ble, and drug­stores are the most sen­si­ble place to buy flip-flops, and Big Long’s is the best drug­store in Amer­ica. These shoes are a pleas­ing blue.

No. 1: Almost all of this is scuff­ing. I am care­less with my toes, and so the tip of the shoe is tak­ing quite a beat­ing. I had them shined to rem­edy this, but the leather is so soft that is absorbs a bit more color than it ought to, and now is a shade darker than orig­i­nally intended. Ah well. Also, the leather is rapidly dis­col­or­ing around the laces, where the laces abrade the leather, but not in an unhand­some way. Rather in the man­ner of blue­jeans — a soft fade, no gash­ing. Finally, one of the fea­tures that sold me on this shoe was the gum sole, some­thing I had been explic­itly look­ing for and some­thing which gives one’s walk a very dreamy, nearly drunken feel. The gum soles are a mag­net for street grime, and also are flak­ing away, slowly, in the man­ner of an eraser.

No. 2: More toe dam­age. How does one rem­edy their care­less walk? Light stress at the lac­ings. Also, care­less oper­a­tion and the eschew­ing of a shoe­horn has resulted in some dam­age to the heel tab. “Heel tab.” I am tak­ing a stab at that being the proper word for the upper-rear part of shoe, the part right at the open­ing, the part that one slides their fin­ger into while try­ing to free their stuck foot. Per­haps if I knew the name I would respect that part of the shoe more than I do, and I would not have dam­aged that part so badly.

No. 3: These shoes, I have lit­tle con­cern for them. I use them for all sort of inclemen­cies. It is not because they are suited to inclemency — quite the oppo­site — it is that I care not a whit about what the ele­ments do them. The high­lighted parts here are only some­what warped (mostly from occa­sions where I have indif­fer­ently buried them under harder, heav­ier objects) but they are quite seri­ously dis­col­ored, dirt-filled, and gen­er­ally nasty.

No. 4: These shoes are fresh and clean. I am only barely ath­letic, and so these shoes have barely been used. On two bike rides and on a trip to the coun­try. A wiping-off with a paper towel would restore them to their con­di­tion at the time of purchase.

No. 5: It is a flip-flop. It is made of foam, It was, in fact, punched right out from a thick, flat sheet of the stuff. My feet have mashed them into some­thing rel­a­tively foot-shaped. I do not know if that makes these bet­ter shoes or worse ones. The point remains: one can­not expect too much from foam. Also, flip-flops, like umbrel­las, are cre­ated to be mis­placed. Even an egre­giously worn-out flip-flop is remark­able sim­ply for being where you can remem­ber it to be.

No. 1a: Tiny stitch­ing, in two pretty lines, like a high­way of stars, like the Milky Way, I guess. I just feel very roman­ti­cally towards this dotty yel­low thread.

No. 1b: What is this called? An out­sole? What­ever it is, it has a sub­tle kick­i­ness to it that for the most part lays quiet, but oh man, when I notice the shape of it, it just sends me.

No. 1c: Same thing, here, just the slight­est bit of pinch, like a dough in mid-knead, gives the toe here a sneaky bit of life.

No. 1d: The gum sole. I do not know if soles so soft are good for you or bad for you, but man, for the moment, it feels like what I quite lit­er­ally imag­ine heaven to feel like: cumu­lous clouds under winged sandals.

No. 2a: More lovely stitches. For all I know, they are orna­men­tal, but that seems fine, or hell, that seems smart. Why not dec­o­rate with what you’ve already got on hand? Any­way, this sewing here really mag­ni­fies the lines of the shoe, and the lines of the shoe are gor­geous. So thanks, lit­tle fel­las, for sharp­en­ing things by 300%.

No. 2b: This heel is mas­sive. There are times that I absolutely hate that, but really, the imp­ish­ness that a tall heel puts into one step is invalu­able. A snicker with every lift-off.

No. 2c/d: The squared toe and upturned sides of this shoe are the showy parts, as men­tioned else­where. Just a smart bit of dress­ing on sim­ple bed of mixed greens. Some­thing just tart enough to make a beholder squeal.

No. 3a: Here, the armor-like side­plates of the shoe ter­mi­nate in tabs where one can per­form addi­tional lac­ing, above and beyond what is pos­si­ble along the actual throat of the shoe. What a gas. Allows one to make a com­mand­ing fly­trap of scrib­bles atop one’s foot. Also: secures the ankle.

No. 3b: Groovy, the way red inter­sects with red here, then leans down into the trade­mark swoosh. A big, smart inter­lock, this.

No. 3c: That the toe is capped in red, rather that ced­ing to white, is bold and remark­able. A bit like the rub­ber skin of a sports Walk­man, the most sweetly dopey way for an object to holler its ath­letic intent.

No. 4a: This shoe is repul­sive. I own it only because it is the least embar­rass­ing gym shoe I could find (at its price point). These dark stripes some­what alle­vi­ate the prob­lem, giv­ing some bones, at least, to the gruesomeness.

No. 4b: This tab is grippy and nice! It gives one’s ankle the same gen­tle hug that a scarf gives to one’s neck.

No. 5a: Such a pretty blue color. Tells its wearer to head straight for the pool already.

No. 5b: And the tan back­ing, here, on the straps, is a cheap classy way to make that sweet blue all the bluer. Wonderful.

No. 1a: One of the nice things about this shoe is the lightly-colored stitch­ing, which shows off some off the geom­e­try of the shoe, since it is so brown that light just sinks right into it. This yel­low thread along the sole, how­ever, turned within one week into a black­top of filth. I sup­pose it is to be expected, and per­haps it can be cleaned, but I think, per­haps, that the thread ought to have been brown to begin with.

No. 1b: This cor­ner is begin­ning to turn up and away from the shoe. Note how throughly this bit is rein­forced in shoe No. 2. Need­less to say, this over­sight is dis­ap­point­ing. Or: per­haps I expect too much from this shoe.

No. 1c: Well, I do love these gum soles, I could go on and on about it, but good lord, the impact scuffs on them are alarm­ing. These bits are being chewed way too, too fast. Per­haps it is my stride. Per­haps I ought to march, heels lifted high, rather than lope, as I cur­rently do.

No. 2a: The tongue is a lit­tle steep on these shoes, and there is a nasty bit of a gap between them and my feet. The wig­gle room can make for painful days. My shoe shine man sug­gested I buy under-the-tongue inserts, avail­able at any drug­store, but I have so far not heeded his advice. Dumb, right? But you know how it goes. The drug­store is right next to the pizza place. Do you really want under-the-tongue inserts, which you totally don’t even need right now because your feet don’t even hurt, or are your going to spend your last three dol­lars on an awe­some slice of pizza?

No. 2b: These heels are so high. For a man, I mean. High and hard, sort of unfor­giv­ing. These shoes are poor for climb­ing lad­ders. Some­times the high heel makes my arches want to just fall already and get this mess over with.

No. 3a: This red part, here, is not attached to the leather below it. It flaps freely (well, it would if I did not employ the delight­ful eye­lets at its tip) and it col­lects much in the way of dirt (fine, okay) and mois­ture (awful, dis­gust­ing) beneath it. One’s sneak­ers should not be prone to mildew. These are.

No. 3b: This wavy line is clown­ish and embarrassing.

No. 3c: And, as if to rein­force the big-top aspect of these shoes, this mas­sive patch of red places these shoes wholly within the realm of “cir­cus.” Peo­ple actu­ally call them clown shoes, they really do, and this is the bit that prompts that. It is ter­ri­ble to be ashamed, you know?

No. 3d: Are sneak­ers sup­posed to have a heel? There is sup­posed to be some­thing, right? Some kind of inter­rup­tion on the way from toe to heel? Look at shoe No. 4. It’s got a wee notch down there. This seems right. The sole of shoe No. 3. is flood-plain flat and that trou­bles me.

No. 4a: Why are ath­letic shoes so, so ter­ri­ble to look at? I under­stand that cer­tain fea­tures are made nec­es­sary by the pun­ish­ing treat­ment these shoes are expected to take, but good lord, must they all look like sharks? Must ath­letic shoes have such cruel inten­tions? I under­stand that this webby busi­ness is prob­a­bly good and nec­es­sary for the “breath­ing” of one’s foot, but must there be so much of it? Must the tongue look like the inside of a maxi pad? Repug­nant, all this.

No. 4b: I don’t have words for how hor­ri­ble this part of the shoe makes me feel.

No. 4c: This rub­bery dead-whale gray, so wretched. Really, actu­ally sickening.

No. 4d: This is some kind of…bouncing mech­a­nism? Hide it. It is like watch­ing liposuction.

No. 4e: I don’t even know. I have no rea­son to abhor this part, and that is why I’m high­light­ing it only the light­est of blues, but it upsets me, too, upsets me greatly. Why is it so dif­fi­cult to find rea­son­ably well-constructed cross-trainers that aren’t hideous and wrong-looking? I am told by friends that I must sim­ply accept it, that it is the way of the gym­na­sium, but hon­estly: really? Didn’t the early ‘80s look both sporty and nice? Does not an old ten-speed have a won­der­ful and mod­esty zip to it, whereas a con­tem­po­rary road bike is span­gled with gim­crack and shaped like a bar­racuda? Do not old Pumas looks, well, great? Please, shoe­mak­ers, there are many of us who want to look like not-assholes. Help us.

No. 5a: Why doesn’t this lit­tle leech of a rac­ing stripe match the tan of the straps? Why is a cool gray, instead of a warm yel­low? A mis­take, it just seems like a mistake.

No. 5b: This bit of plas­tic. It is the sort of heavy tub­ing that one finds attached to the mask of an oxy­gen tank. It’s just a touch sickly-seeming for that association.