We gave ya’ll the theme of shoes to play with, to delve into, and put through the gristmill to reach something spectacular.  

It was hard right? Well, it sure as hell was hard for us.  

There are two ideas that pervaded the shoe-discourse that us prose editors underwent in order to reach some sensational ends. The first idea is that shoes are representational of a journey…the wear and tear of soles over and over throughout a given day, year, decade. Some shoes are reminiscent of memories and are eponymously named accordingly, such as the basketball glory of Air Jordans, while other shoes scream of failures like the lone man with Saturday night fever meandering home in his goldfish disco shoes. 

The second idea is that shoes allow for a transformational transference of identity and attitude. Is it any mystery that many voluptuous porn stars sport those sharp pointed high heels? You know, the kind that nasty psychopath in 1992’s “Single White Female” used to jab in the eye of her ex-lover? What caused the psychopathology--nature or the stilettos? It’s a mystery, but something is there.  

When I (Timberwolves) put on a suit and wear my glasses, something overcomes my sense of identity. Am I that awkward young man who reeks of the previous night’s wreckage? Or am I that savvy elitist sitting atop an intellectual high horse trudging along in eloquent cadence?  

Similarly, I (Daedalus Wax) slip on some two- perhaps three-inch heels beneath an evening dress.  And when the steep, pelvic-tilting heels click upon the ground, the eyes whiplashing in my direction assure me of some Cinderella-esque transformation.  How funny it seems then, when I switch to the daily grungy weathered sneakers with no further “dressing” and become once-again invisible in the crowd.   

It seems that so much is invested in not just the transference of shoes, but also clothing, a haircut, and the partner that is attached to our hips and taken about in the public sphere to raise our stock prices. Yet, there really is no core principle to such a concept of transformational transference that shoes may accord, or any other ornamental object for that matter. It is a recalibration for the potential that is already inherent in a person, yet superficially deferred or ignored by the person alone. The shoes merely allow for a dumb green light to let behaviors, attitudes, and actions pass through.  

In the 1980s Imelda Marcos, the wife of the former Filipino president was busily buying shoes while thousands of Filipinos were starving.  One can figure out that with her 3,000+ shoe collection Madame Imelda never had to worry about wearing the same shoes for 8.2 years. While investigators were auditing her extravagant collections of mink coats, clothing, and shoes, she remarked, “They went into my closets looking for skeletons, but thank God, all they found were shoes, beautiful shoes.”  

It is a shallow conclusion, superficial at best.  

How easy it is to imagine that if Freud were a fashion designer in this crazy twenty-first century he would simply tell us, “sometimes a pair of shoes is just a pair of shoes.”