Aimless and orange...

Shoe dreams are getting fewer and more far between nowadays. I blame the internet, of course. How? I am not sure, but I know it is the root cause of my lack of focus. In any case...

I would have forgotten this dream immediately if my boyfriend hadn't said something uncannily reminiscent when we woke up. In a flash like a shard of mirror catching light from behind, I remembered.

The dress in this drawing is not accurate. It actually fit about 100x too large, so it wore like a bell around the body. Too hard to draw.

Of course, the shoes had something of the '70s about them. Ugly, bound to crack and peel, they were functional and their decorative aspect was not in tune with their form. They looked like vinyl dinette chairs.

I found them in this weird hole-in-the-wall general store in the semi-country, like the ones you find in the Niagara region when you're going for an aimless drive.

What is with the way I'm writing today? It's terrible.

Mudflaps

Yesterday evening, in real life, I participated in the Ride of Silence, a slow, silent bike ride to Toronto City Hall, in memory of cyclists who have died on our streets. I was in a tender, pensive mood when I got home. I'm not at all surprised that last night, I dreamt about my recent and semi-recent travels, as if scrolling back through an album of photographs to relive being elsewhere. The scenes I imagined in my dreams were Argentinas and New Yorks I'd never actually visited.

In my false New York, I made a friend, and we walked together through all sorts of landscapes, until we paused to talk about our shoes. I was wearing serviceable Dansko clogs--identical to the pair I'd actually bought, in New York, in real life, only two weeks ago. She was wearing clogs of a different sort. They had high heels made of wood that were oddly shaped, sort of like chisels. They were made of leather the colour of the soil in P.E.I., and they featured strange mudflap on the outer side. She let me put them on and they were uber-comfortable.

After the shoe episode, we went to a cafe for pastries. And why not!

That is all.

Walking On The Moon...

Last night I dreamt that I was a space traveller, and visiting many far-away places, in different galaxies. I had a ship, and apparently I had friends in many distant locales. Of course, dangers did abound and I had to overcome lots of challenges, such as making it down the double-wound staircase I've tried to draw in this sketch. Not only was this staircase shaped like an S, but the treads were extremely narrow, and the staircase was nearly vertical. For the record, I chose to slide down the bannister rather than risk falling on the stairs.

There's no need to analyze this vigorously; it's obviously about my house, my newly inherited car, job stress and active social life. Ho-hum!

What were not so ho-hum were the shoes, which played a leading role in the staircase scene. As I was daintily making my way down the first and second sawtoothed stairs, I was looking at my feet. I noticed that I was wearing boots--moon boots, of course! One was bright orange and the other was bright pink. However by the time I made it (with help of the bannister) to the marble floor of the landing below, a layer not unlike Saran Wrap had peeled off in places on each boot. Blast. I had ripped boots and no time to save them, because there were giant airships, that looked like fantasy cargo boats, parading through the sky.

Was this a choice between beauty and utility? It's a choice I feel I need to make every day...

Found!

Who Needs Dreams?

The shoes in the photo above were made for a girl by Chicco Ruiz, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They bear tiny pennants in metallic fabric. This photo was taken late at night as my boyfriend and I were wandering the streets Palermo, a neighbourhood there.

I haven't been having any shoe dreams lately; this could be because life is sort of like a dream. Vacation was like a dream. And the shoes I encountered in Bs As were accordingly dreamlike. Now I can only think of real shoes, living on in a place where I am no longer!

Chicco Ruiz's shop (Thames 1780) was but one example of the simple gorgeousness that seems to be part of daily life in Buenos Aires. A living wall replete with plants on one side and decked out with antiques on the other, it was like a chic, enchanted cabin. The window display was of children's shoes--including the smallest pair of brown leather sandals the world has seen--in bird cages, set on top of aluminum that reflected all the lights outside...dim streetlamps and headlights of cars whooshing past. Drivers in Bs As aren't so much assertive (as we say here) as courageous and in a hurry.

On another street in the same barrio was Mishka. Here were the shoes I needed on my feet. Peeking into the window at night, I decided to return the next day and buy at least two pairs. I did, and brought them home in pink flocked shoe boxes. I've never seen shoes like these before: inventive, unusual, practical and pretty all at once. (This happy customer knows what I'm talking about.) Viva Industria Argentina!

In total I bought four pairs of shoes, if you don't count the slippers. The other two pairs are amazing: electric blue oxfords with a woven toe-box, and golden flats with a sparkly, crackled finish. These I got at Bottana, which is on a beautiful street parallel to the zoo in Palermo, or near Recoleta. Honestly, I wasn't quite sure where I was for 10 days. Right now, I can't find Bottana's website, but I can tell you that I just got lost again gazing for 10 minutes at a Google map of Buenos Aires.

Since I got back I've just been retracing my footsteps. Before you get the wrong idea, shoes were but a tiny fraction of everything that is charming there, and were certainly not a big priority for me. But, it is shoe central.

And for one million reasons, I now have a tiny, gleaming pennant waving in my heart from being there.

A Patent Heaven...

Yesterday I awoke before my alarm from a dream wherein a co-worker was showing me the most amazing shoes, at a store in an underground mall. There had been mirrors on all of the walls. Almost everything was in patent leather. The colours were sublime. Strangest of all were two pairs of patent leather boots, almost without definition, just blobby and puffy and shiny and yet wrinkled--like moon boots out of slick, mid-brown patent.

The colours! Out of this world. I hope to colour this image for you sometime soonish.

When a Pair is Not a Pair

Here are two pairs of shoes--one good-looking and one ugly, in my point of view--that I could barely scribble before I forgot them. The blue blotch represents the only image I can otherwise remember from what I know was a vivid shoe dream, which vanished right when I woke up.

The Shock of Toes

It's spring (officially, unofficially, and groundhogially), and my mind has turned to sandals. This recent shoe dream was inspired no doubt by my trying on of all my sandals and shoes last week. You know that feeling, when you put on your summer shoes, and you can't believe that you are able to walk around with your tootsies thus exposed for half of the year? Seems incredible.

But lo, sandal weather is on its way.

Above you will see three pairs of shoes that I found in my dream at a drastically reduced sale price. Obviously my dreams are being affected by the recession, too. (Everywhere you look, there are sales! Last week in waking life I bought a pair of boots at 76% off. I wonder if/how goods will ever return to their formerly inflated prices. But they will.)

The sandals in the dream were magical and strange. They had a black footbed and very, very, very skinny staps made of elasticated leather. The toe-cover featured tiny bands of coloured plastic as decoration, coloured red, black, green and white. The heel bed also featured these plastic cords (uncomfortable, I thought). Two wooden buttons, very rustic looking, dangled at the ends of long strings that attached to the toe-pin. Unwearable, but fantastic.

Then there were some hideous, white, round-toe flats with brogue detailing at the toe and two strips of metallic silver leather too. Absolutely horrifying--they looked like Sketchers.

Maybe my boyfriend is making an impression on my shoe dreams too, because I don't usually dream about men's shoes. This time, however, I dreamt of these beautifully simple, russet suede boots...they were notable only for their unusual colour and their perfect proportions.

And that is all. Let Spring begin.

1960s Silver, 1970s Brown

Here you are, a drawing that tells you a story. Details I can add to the written notes:

• The San Francisco I was in was vintage 1960s, like daytime Hitchcock,
• The fellow who picked up the lady from Berlin on his motoscoot was also wearing a very sparkly, giant, bulbous silver helmet,
• A fight between me and Monique is hardly a fight at all. We negotiated quite amicably for the el-cheapo Chanel pumps.
• In real life, I stay the heck away from shoes that have a "pin-up" vibe.
  

This was essentially a dream pitting the sixties and the seventies against each other, style-wise. I chose the sixties, determinedly, but I admit that I felt seduced by the wispy women exemplifying the stray, brown, sharper image of the 1970s in the dream.

There was much more to this dream (such as a sub-plot taking place in a log cabin) but I can tell you nothing more. Subject matter not fit for public consumption.

What I Did Last Summer

Quite obviously, I have been ignoring this blog. I have had this drawing to post since July 16, 2008.

I no longer remember the dream that surrounded these shoes, I mean, I don't remember who was in it, where I was or why I was dreaming about these shoes. I am trying to reconstruct the memory, but I think the storage facility for dreams in one's brain is more like an antechamber than the ballroom where all lived memories gather. (I like thinking of my memories at a raucous shin-dig, with music blasting.)

One aspect of these shoes that I notice is their openness. Each one has a part missing--how Foucaultian! (Funny word...like "Mancunian" for someone from Manchester.) They display a particular absence, either in the heel, the toe or the vamp. Curious that the cut-away parts are at the start, middle and end of each shoe.

I don't think it means anything.

It was summer.

My feet were probably too hot.

Hence the crinkly, distressed gold foil leather.

Soft Shoeing

I was really happy to have another shoe dream recently, this one after I'd been on a canoe trip (and not worn real shoes for days) and flown to Vancouver. I scrawled this drawing in haste over breakfast with E-- before we set off for a Southern Gulf island. (Question: Does this gulf off the coast of Vancouver really have no name? Why is it known only as "the Gulf"?)

My head was full of stars because I'd had the chance to stare up into the night sky the previous 2 nights. (Total bliss.) Maybe that's why I dreamt these particular shoes, which were extremely light and soft and pliable. They seem to me the perfect footwear for brushing around in light sand while breathing "ta ta da ta da..." and listening to a little glockenspiel. Do you know the song "A Little Bit Independent" by Fats Waller? It is perfect for these pairs.

I cannot explain to you the meaning of the pink seersucker trousers that I tucked into the high-top sneakers. In real life I wouldn't be caught dead in pink seersucker, yet in my dream, it seemed to me pretty fly.

Addled Brain Produces Many Diors...

...or would the plural of Dior be Dior? Hm.

So addled am I of brain that I had a cacophonic and byzantine shoe dream last night, unable to be drawn. All I really remember is that I was in a store and completely surrounded by ugly, baggy dresses (the cheap sort now meant to "drape" but meanwhile look like so much sack clinging to a load of groceries), glittery handbags and high-heeled shoes jumbled in big piles. There were many pairs of Dior sandals, that much I remember. There were polka dots, wedge heels, broad ankle straps, heels the shape of yams, and absolutely nothing in basic black. It was a parliament of shoes.

And the weirdest thing about the dream is that I had a friend's dog with me--a little terrier. Help me! What is going on?

Acid Green Piping on Smooth Brown Leather...

I was just reading The Sartorialist and garance doré and am in a bubble, dreaming about men's style...my ultimate French counterpart will be wearing these shoes: http://www.corthay.fr/. Unbelievable, beauty.

Keeper of sheep

Last weekend I visited my new, one-month-old nephew in Calgary, and he is a joy. An adorable joy. My trip is the reason I am now posting these shoes from dreams quite late after the fact of imagining them. It is now nearly a week after I dreamt the first couple of pairs (top). All I remember from the dream was that the butterlfly detail on the sandal was dazzling and actually, alive. But jewellery. In any case, it fluttered realistically. I remember thinking (dreamingly) that the butterfly represented a recent kiss.

The second dream, had one night later, offered several pairs of dazzling espadrilles. In real life, I can't stand espadrilles, unless Penelope Cruz is standing in them. However these were knockout espadrilles, beyond compare. Oh how I wish I could draw.

The entire experience of dreaming about perfect footwear makes me feel the same way as when I read this poem by Fernando Pessoa:

I'm a keeper of sheep

I'm a keeper of sheep.
The sheep are my thoughts
And my thoughts are all sensations.
I think with my hands and feet
And with my nose and mouth

To think a flower is to see it and smell it
And to eat a fruit is to taste its meaning.

That's why on a hot day
When I ache from enjoying it so much,
And stretch out on the grass,
Closing my warm eyes,
I feel my whole body lying full length in reality,
I know the truth and I am happy.

Fragmentariness...

I haven't posted in a long, long time....

Today is definitely a "mashup" day; I've got about 5 songs playing in my head at the same time and I can't seem to focus. I'm amazed that I recalled having a shoe dream last night at all.

But hooray that I did (recall and dream).

What I remember about the dream context was that I was on a group voyage--a tour of sorts, though I'm not sure where we were headed. One evening, our group stopped at a way-station, where we would be spending the night. We weren't being held captive, but I felt that none of us was too pleased about the way things were going. That's probably why I decided to go on the lam for a while.

Next to our hostel, across the street, was an outdoor shoe market, but it was closed, or closing soon. I stopped in--but was told I could not buy anything--and found it to be the most marvelous shoe emporium I'd ever seen. I started dashing around on its gravelly station, gathering up shoes like a child in an egg hunt. Everywhere I turned there was a better pair. I snatched as many as I could in my size and hastily jammed them beneath a cabinet where I hoped they wouldn't be found before I could return and purchase them. All the while, my chaperones were calling for me, beckoning me to our lodgings.

The idea in the dream was that I was then going to lay down to rest and dream about the shoes I had stashed.

Dreams are so incredibly fragmentary.

Forensic Investigation...

Today is a beautiful, sparkling, wintry day with clear blue skies. It's a perfect day for packing up all my things to move into my new house (which is what I'm doing). As I've been going through all my old and forgotten effects, I've been finding interesting archival material from my past. It's so easy to forget about things and experiences! This drawing--previously languishing in the bottom of a desk drawer--proves that my shoe dreaming mind was active as of January 2005. The note paper it's on is from the journals division of University of Toronto Press, where I worked as a typesetter until December of 2004. Man, was I grumpy when I was working there! This drawing reminds me of my awful pre-dawn daily commute to Downsview station. I remember wanting to write a poem (jokingly) called "Sunrise Over Downsview." Now, even if I wanted to write the poem, I couldn't. The experience of travelling the TTC with other sleepwalking Torontonians is now erased. And I am moving on, into a new environment. Thank goodness for cell regeneration, forgetting and drawings that remind of the enjoyable fragments of grumpy days.

Crustaceans...

Last night I dreamt that while I was walking through a moor, a crustacean shaped a lot like a scorpion pierced the sole of my foot. The wound was about an inch deep and the creature started burrowing and filling the hole up with sand, saltwater and air. It was very painful and I had to rip the creature out, leaving a curved beak embedded in my foot. This would not have happened had I been wearing shoes.

Newspaper Makeovers...

Dear Readers (if you exist),

Greetings during these lazy, hazy long days of summer. It has been a long time since I had a decent shoe dream. I don't know about you, but I get quite bored waiting for these to occur to me. I've been reading a lot of fashion magazines to try and prompt my imagination, but all I keep dreaming about are places in Greece, places in Spain and all the spas in Budapest. Humbug!

So I've decided to start a new, and more guaranteed regular, feature of my blog: our weekly makeover doodles on Globe and Mail columnist Warren Clements' portrait.

Every Saturday, I get together with a group of friends (also pictured; B-- missing because she is away on a bicycle in Jutland) to do the Fraser Simpson cryptic crossword in the newspaper. Before we begin, we always give neighbouring columnist Warren Clements, of word nerd fame, a new 'do.

Viz above.

The Schizophrenic Future: Excessive and Minimal

We are entering an age of purple suede; I can sense it coming. Was it the season finale of Canada's Next Top Model, with its artificial excess, that made me see these extremely high heels with their band of sparkly studs across the toe? And check out the wispy nothing of a heel I dreamt alongside it: the shoe of the future. Just a platform to raise the heel, no sole, no vamp. Sportive.

Rorschach Shoes...

Last night, an image of plain white satin shoes, with black spots of ink bleeding across the toes. It was awfully hot last night and sleeping was difficult. I was thinking of the things I should do, or wish I would do, and all the things that I am not. Suddenly these shoes appear. Their once-perfect white satin sullied by a formless smear. However I instantly like their ink decoration. I've always preferred clothes with paint smattered on them.

These shoes are everything in my mind that hasn't yet come to be. They are the recognition and acceptance of messiness--the fruition of the creative violence I sometimes feel towards the expectation of perfection.

This is what I make of these shoes. Is it too much? Who knows? But that's what you get on a hot, humid and sleepless night.