Popularity

[pjthompson]

From the notebooks, September 6, 1991:



Popularity

Old shoes
I took a photograph
old shoes
discarded on the beach
old shoes
a common sight enough
old shoes
nothing too profound.

Yet
people
misty-eyed
remembering
old shoes in their life,
love the black and white,
coarse grain, and fuzzy shadows
of my photograph. Bad art, but good
old shoes

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how sentimental a pair of shoes can make someone, isn't it? I've witnessed it before, too.

Also, when we lived in Mayotte, it was almost traumatic for me to see tiny pairs of flip flops on the beaches, abandoned, not always broken. I know that they get lost, discarded, forgotten, but I always wondered if some of the pairs weren't there because of a tragedy at sea.

[pjthompson]

It's true! People have a peculiar resonance with shoes. In Medieval and Early Modern Times (and probably earlier, but we don't have records for it), people believed that once you'd gotten the last bit of wear out of a pair of shoes and couldn't repair them any more, you should never throw them away. The soles held your soul, you might say, so they commonly buried them or sealed them up in walls or other places where they couldn't be gotten by others who might do you mischief with spells, et al.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing. I love learning little tidbits like that. It's also good fodder for the imagination.

[pjthompson]

I know! That's why I flung it your way. You've got a very good imagination. :-)