shoes

A shoe tree starts with one dreamer, tossing his or her footwear-of-old high into the sky, to catch on an out-of-reach branch. It usually end there, unseen and neglected by others. But on rare occasions, that first pair of shoes triggers a shoe tossing cascade Shoe trees (via exclamation mark)

open brackets' forsaken footwear (via invisible shoebox)

Seth's Ugly Shoes (via J walk)

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Comments: shoes

There's got to be a theme in that somewhere.

What about all of the fungus infesting those roadside trees? How do the birds cope with an alien entanglement of rubber and lace? Could Nike be a nest for fledglings, or Rebok a roost for migrators?

But maybe it can all be explained in terms of superfluousness? "I've got ANOTHER one!" (screamed at the F100 driver who objected with his eyes). Or what about public adornment - pure and simple? "The porcelain cats are boxed up in the garage!" (screamed at the F100 driver who objected with his feet).

I once saw a whale composed of thongs and other bits of marine flotsam and jetsam. Does this compare? Perhaps it's too "preconceived". Who knows what a shoe tree was intended to be before the first, promiseful, sling.

Drunk people can vent a surprising amount of agression by hurling shoes. The more if it's only one shoe. There's something satisfying about the wanton asymmetry of it, and feeling a bit shorter on one side.
Posted by Jim at September 25, 2003 11:06 AM

hey jim - love the sound of this whale - and it does compare. The end cycle of forsaken sandals of summer...whale thongs... I guess thongs and such refuse are less the discarded and more the lost - unless there are people who throw rubber footwear into the ocean, skipping sandals gone wrong.
And I imagine such sport as shoe hurling would indeed vent anger - even sober anger. Wanton sports. I suspect all sports start wanton before they turn professional.
Posted by boynton at September 25, 2003 11:28 AM

Yes, I like the idea that unprofessional sport is wanton. It makes me wonder how much of the popular springtime sport of castle raiding in medieval times was wanton. Spirited highlanders charging down grassy embankments, shouting random obscenties towards random adversaries. Good, heart-warming history. Wanton history?

Posted by Jim at September 25, 2003 02:04 PM