The Red Shoes
It’s amazing how much difference red makes. A while ago, I bought a pair of dark blue Beach Crocs. I loved them to bits, and wore them so much (including a lot of rough terrain walking Brazil) that I eventually wore the soles out. So, it being nearly winter, I retired the Beach Crocs to garden wear, and decided to buy a pair of Endeavor [sic] Crocs, which don’t have holes for the biting British winter wind to whistle though.
I also decided to get a bright red pair, because I like red. If you’re going to wear weird and ugly shoes, they might as well be brightly-coloured weird and ugly shoes. I should have guessed that a brighter colour would make them more visible, but I think my experience proves that red is an incredibly salient colour for most humans. With the dark blue Crocs, I only got a couple of comments about them in the whole time I wore them. With the red ones, I get at least a couple of people a day commenting on them.
Anyway, when it’s gloomy, grey and raining, I just look down at my Red Shoes and smile.
1
I too smiled, once again your strap-line caught me unawares, I thought immediately that you had taken up ballet, and were using the late Moira Shearer as a guiding light (colourwise, if not footwarewise). The first sight of your delicate tootsies, tidily tucked into your alliterative latter day clodhoppers, disabused me of that thought. You describe them as being red; surely you should have said RED.
by Jonathan Briggs @ 08/12/2006 8:22 pm • Permalink •
2
Jonathan Briggs: The deception was entirely deliberate on my part, hence the definite article and title case
. As well as the Powell and Pressburger film, I was thinking of Kate Bush's song The Red Shoes, which tells the same story. As you pointed out, the contrast between delicate ballet shoes twinking around and me clomping around in my Crocs was too delicious to resist. My shoes might well be demonic, though.
by bsag @ 09/12/2006 5:50 pm • Permalink •
3
Will a Merlot go with red shoes?
Occasionally my brain disengages from its surroundings and goes AWOL, it usually happens when I have an idea; at such times I suffer from tunnel vision and become functionally deaf: I of course don't notice, and it is only when my wife is standing in front of me waving a spatula and shouting "For the third time, do you want a fried egg with that?" that I snap back to the present.
I had one such episode this morning in the booze department of Sainsburys. I was lured there by the, notably nasal, siren song of "25% off on six or more bottles of red, white or Rose". Seeing that they were rather short of decent French wines, I wandered off towards the Antipodean section, where I was confronted by shelves of reds bearing some of the least romantic names imaginable, it was at that point that my mind, no doubt prompted by the aboriginal nature of what confronted me, went walkabout. I was suddenly imagining a Melbourne radio programme called "I'm sorry I haven't a clue, Sheila" which invoked the names of Australian wine growing regions, triumphantly ending with a full bodied red called Mornington Crescent. Surely a marketing opportunity for an alert Sydneyside wine bottler.
by Jonathan Briggs @ 09/12/2006 8:10 pm • Permalink •
4
Red is good, especially on grey days. I would have bought red Crocs if I could find any on sale. I bought some truly obnoxiously fluorescent orange Crocs at a gardening store for $10. Hopefully they will scare away the squirrels, who are terrorizing the birds on my feeder these days.
by Debbie Ridpath Ohi @ 10/12/2006 2:23 pm • Permalink •
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I reckon Magritte beat you to it?
by Mr.D. @ 11/12/2006 12:26 pm • Permalink •
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Oh yeah, I get the red thing.
That's why I fell for a lovely, deep red coverlet and bought it on the spot when I was on vacation.
by Andrea Dale @ 19/12/2006 1:52 am • Permalink •
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Drat... I was looking for the code to embed Elvis Costello singing 'Red Shoes' into my comment. But once again I'm brought up against the truth. I'm not clever enough. I bet two-year old Sadie could. In future, against all insults I shall employ the Sadie Riposte 'I'm not a ****, I'm a 'uman!" But serious crocquestion, don't your feet get all smelly, sweaty, cold and condesationy in them? I mean, they're closed, unventilated, foot fungus heaven, surely?
p.s. the confirmation code below the comment box: bed29... I'm scared, am I still in the asylum, is my freedom just an illusion?
by soubriquet @ 30/12/2006 3:57 pm • Permalink •
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soubriquet: No, I don't find my feet get sweaty, cold or condensationy (great word, by the way) in the Crocs, particularly while walking. Because there's quite a bit of space in them (you're supposed to get a pair on the large size), and because the back is open, air gets pumped around your foot as you walk. The summer ones (with ventilation holes) are cold in winter because they pump even more air around. I haven't noticed any more smell than with ordinary leather shoes, and the Crocs have the advantage that you can just dunk them in soapy water and give them a rinse.
by bsag @ 30/12/2006 5:21 pm • Permalink •
9
Those are nice house shoes...but i love red boots with high heels my girlfriend has a pair and when she wears them i go crazy
by producator incaltaminte @ 13/01/2008 5:45 pm • Permalink •
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