336: On Quantifying Abstract Qualities in Shoes.

Is my shoe art? by Charles Thomson

The other day (or, to be more specific, another day) at work I heard a customer, upon picking up and comparing two different pairs of shoes, describing one pair as being "the most shoesiest". Did you like that story? I didn't get the opportunity to quiz her about the criteria by which she judges shoesiness ; a missed opportunity to simultaneously gain deep insights into the Platonic ideal and the complexities of the female mind. Two subjects I know little about, and which may be entirely unknowable.

It's rare that such existential and philosophical puzzles are posed in the daily course of high street retail, and as such should be regarded as a fortelling of fortunes and festivals. One woman's decision to invent a whimsical new word to communicate an intangible idea in the only way she knew how, may change the world in ways we cannot comprehend. A shoe is a shoe is a shoe ; all shoes are created shoesy, but some are more shoesy than others ; two shoes good, one shoe bad. Shoe.

Laces, soles, heels ; boots, sandles, etcetera etc &c ; and now I may have cursed myself to tediously-themed dreams tonight. Which of these two is the shoesiest? The first is the world's oldest discovered sandal ; found in Oregan, USA in 1938, and thought to be up to 10,000 years old:

The second is the world's oldest known leather shoe ; found in Armenia in 2008, and about 5,500 years old. Personally I feel that the later of the two is the shoesiest. It's leather and thong (thong being a strip of leather, not a teeny tiny pair of knickers) construction feels fundamentally shoesy to me.

I hope that brief beginning of a lesson in the history of human footwear amongst the human species will inspire within you a desire to learn more about the subject in your own time. Do read up on it yourself, and do report back with your interesting discoveries. You might like to take a pen and pencil (and a weak lemon drink) and take rubbings of shoes you discover, do sketches, even watercolours, or technical drawings. We here at I Blog Every Day would love to see your creations and put them up on the gallery wall.

We would also love to hear your musing and shoesings and attempts to quantify and compare intangible concepts of perfection in inanimate objects frequently imbued with innapropriate human/animal qualities by crazed women (I have a passing desire to use the word bints, but I have refrained from doing so) with too much time and wonky priorities.

Oh and while I remember: the word "fit" as in "wide fit" is pronounced "fit" – like fit – not "feet" like you say it. Wide fit, not wide feet, you prat.

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