Shoes, etc.

The weather has finally gotten wintry. It's perfect, according to Patrick; we've gone from 60s and 70s to 20s and 30s in just a few days, bypassing a long dreary transition. There has been a little bit of snow, and I've been wearing down jackets, scarves, and gloves.

I realized that I needed some cold-weather shoes, so I went shopping today. I made the practical choice of above-the-ankle boots made by Khombu, an official supplier of the US Olympic Ski Team, "inspired by sherpas in the Himalayas" or something like that. Great. Anyway they were cheaper than the prettier shoes, more weather-proof, totally warm, and not ugly. I would feel comfortable wearing them to work, and comfortable wearing them out for a weekend tromp in some park. However, they did nothing at all to satisfy my desire to have shoes, so I've been browsing the gigantic shoe store that is the internet in an effort not so much to find shoes I would actually buy as to find shoes that I would really, really want.

This lead me to the Fluevog website. John Fluevog makes silly shoes. They have names like "Mini: Lily Darling," "Minstrel: Vibratto," and "Lip Service: Zig." This seems suitable. But there's also a whole line called "Peacemaker," with styles such as "Dalai," "John Paul," "Mandela," and "Luther King." I find it disturbingly tasteless to have fluffy tan/beige ankle boots with a faux fur cuff and a big buckle named after MLK. "Hey, are those new shoes?" "Yeah, I got them at Fluevog. They're called Luther Kings, which is so awesome. It warms my heart to know that I have a piece of a civil rights leader warming my feet."

And how about Kellogg's Corn Flakes? We were at the co-op yesterday and they had three different sizes: the small standard box with the cartoon rooster, a slightly larger box with the Disney Cinderella, and finally a huge ass box, super family size, with sepia-toned photographs of Cesar Chavez and Celia Cruz. What is that about?? Patrick jokes that they have to market the bigger boxes to Latinos, since everyone knows that Mexicans have big families (and presumably they need more corn flakes?). The box was quite bilingual, in fact, with "Celebrate Hispanic Heritage" or something like that in both English and Spanish. Good job, Kellogg. But seriously, what is this about?? Should we embrace greater inclusion of multicultural figures in the morass of American consumerism? Decry it as sacreligious? Just laugh?

I can't wait for Chairman Mao Captain Crunch. I'm totally going to buy some of that.



C is for Communism!