The Rise of Sneaker Culture is both a book and a traveling exhibition. It's billed as "the first exhibition to explore the complex social history and cultural significance of the footwear now worn by billions of people throughout the world." If you're in New York between now and October 4, you can check it out at the Brooklyn Museum. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you file a report.
As a companion piece, if not intentionally, a documentary was released last week in New York and Los Angeles about sneaker culture. Sneakerheadz, from the producer of Little Miss Sunshine (which seems a bit of an odd juxtaposition, tells the story of the globalization of the sneaker business, and the cultural implications of the transformation of kicks from athletic wear to collectible, highly-desired tokens of community for millions.
The Fast Company piece linked in the first paragraph above has a cool timeline of the growth of the sneaker industry, dating back to 1921, when Converse became the first company to pay an endorser to promote their brand. Chuck Taylor had no idea that his name would remain a totem for hipsters around the globe nearly 100 years later. Nor that I would own five pairs of his shoes.
"There's an important and growing segment of the G:TB family that identifies as hardcore sneakerheads."
ReplyDeleteI like to think I'm important and my wife notes that my waistline is growing. So I guess this is an accurate lede.
I'm in the market for some new Vans. Company turns 50 next year.
ReplyDeletez, mark's important, too.
ReplyDeletealso, i like to pretend that we have tens of thousands of readers.
ReplyDeleteso the nationals are pretty much done, huh?
ReplyDeleteMy 8 y/o is enjoying the Sambas I bought him.
ReplyDeletehe needs some of those winged joints
ReplyDeleteRob owns more pairs of Chuck's than hooded sweatshirts. I find this odd.
ReplyDeleteVans has lots of variety these days, Clarence. After a long stretch not buying any I've purchased quite a few in recent years. I'm wearing some navy vans right now in fact.
Nice, Mark. I'm way too old to run the checkerboard slip-ons back, sad to say. I think these might have to be me.
ReplyDeleteI believe I called this a couple weeks back http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/13437973/former-florida-state-seminoles-qb-deandre-johnson-enrolls-east-mississippi-cc
ReplyDeletethose are pretty dope, clarence. i know a guy who's the founder and headmaster of a really cool private high school here in my neck of the woods. had scotch with him last week. and he was wearing those vans. they'll smarten you up, my man.
ReplyDeletei'm up to three hooded sweatshirts, mark. moving on up.
ReplyDeletezson will only wear Kobes or Crocs. I greatly prefer the Kobes.
ReplyDeleteMy kid used to wear KDs. Now she's strictly Toms and flip flops. Fucking hipster.
ReplyDeleteNike has children's 4s for $35.
ReplyDeleteMy kids both have Sanuks. It's a sweet look when we clean them up.
ReplyDeleteEverybody in my house except the 3 year old has Sanuks. I only wear mine with pants when it's cold outside. My winter version of flip flops.
ReplyDeleteAbout to go in on tequila and tacos. All downhill from here.
Holy crap. Season 2 of True Detective was the hottest of hot messes. Spare yourself 8.5 hours and do not watch it.
ReplyDeleteI liked the ending but it didn't redeem the first 8 hours.
ReplyDeleteI introduced my wife and her friends/coworkers to Uber last night. How do a bunch of drinkers in their 30s know nothing about Uber?
ReplyDeleteAnd you're too late, TR. Thanks for nothing.
I'm eating really well this weekend. Lunch was just duck wings, truffle fries and bulgogi & pork belly tacos.
ReplyDeletecatching up of episodes of the test. the fact that there are english teachers who don't know the gutenberg bible is a trifle alarming. they seem like lovely people, though.
ReplyDeleteAt my wife's annual company award ceremony. Last year some girl got rocked and caused a huge scene. At one point she threw her shoe at a member of upper management. I thought it was hilarious. Upper management...not so much. Open bar still exists but they upped the dress code. I'm not sure how that will dramatically change the vibe but whatever. I'm just the plus one anyway.
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched but it looks like Jameis Winston and the Bucs are meeting their exceedingly low expectations. Yaaaay!
ReplyDeleteI found True Detective tolerable, definitely had to re-train myself how to watch an episode of television to watch it (the answer was to watch basically every episode twice). The show took a lot of liberties with the number of names and seemingly insignificant players that ended up being important for one reason or another. A lot of things were told rather than shown to the audience but I give a police procedural some leeway in that area. My two biggest qualms were (a) Colin Farrell co-opting Christian Bale's Batman voice for the last quarter of the season and (b) Vince Vaughn's hallucination-fueled desert walk. Oh, and Vince's wife's breasts being constantly ready to burst from her clothing, but ultimately no nudity out of her.
ReplyDeleteSpoiler alert.
ReplyDeleteVince's wife acted like she was on ludes all the time and mumbled many lines. The train station scene was a joke. Vince spent all his time turning his cash into jewels, yet when his wife chucks the ring with her rock, they just let it go. That makes sense.
Arguably, the most important masterminds here were the mayor's son, who got only one scene ever, and the siblings, who got barely one each until the end.
And if I followed the ridiculous plot close enough, are we to believe that Caspere had an affair w/ the female owner of the jewelry shop? So when his bastard daughter (who didn't know she was his daughter) dyed her hair and came back to get close to him for revenge purposes, she was actually banging her dad, yet neither of them knew that?
And we still don't know why the kid was in the bird mask, waiting for Ray at that house during Episode 2. Or maybe we do. Or maybe I'm just grumpy about a 7 AM flight on a Sunday.
Why didn't he use real bullets? Was Laura/Erica Caspere's kid or was Leonard his kid or both?
ReplyDeleteTR -
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the train station scene. I tried but think I am incapable of rewatching the first 20 minutes of the last episode, between the really depressing post-coital pillow talk (and alternate shots of each of them smoking while the other one sleeps) and the uber-long train scene. The whole white dress discussion was corny - you knew what they were setting up.
Colin aged about 8 years between the beginning of the penultimate episode to the end of the last episode. When he grew his stubble and started wearing the conspicuous cowboy hat and jean jacket, he looked like a humanized version of Droopy, deputy dog's sidekick.
I took the same plot points as you - Laura was 4 when she was orphaned and put into foster system. She and her brother met up years later to take revenge, she got close to him, but they didn't know about he fathered her (just her, not her brother). From his reaction in the train station they didn't know she was his daughter. I took from the explanation that he was probably at Caspare's other house (the night he shot Colin) to get videos that Caspare shot that included his sister.
I think the showrunners tried to get creative and keep it unpredictable by not featuring the main antagonists. One way to avoid people guessing who is involved is keeping those players in the periphery. It's at best unconventional and at worst lazy/cheating.
Some of the dialogue felt really inorganic, which I did not expect. A lot of the kitchen sit down between Velcoro and Frank, most of ADA Davis's dialogue, especially "People die every day, but most of them don't have the pleasure of doing it in California", as well as Colin's prison meeting with the Rapist: "You know me, you just didn't know you did." I think Colin is a strong to quite strong actor, but he wasn't pulling that off.
This all makes it clear that you need to catch up on Mr Robot. That show brings the ruckus.
ReplyDeleteTrump gets his military advice from "watching shows". Breathe easy people.
ReplyDeleteThis show killed any dramatic aspirations Vince had, unless he finances it himself. Bad script didn't help him, but he still wasn't good.
ReplyDeleteColin was bad-ass though. McAdams was good, as were her two giganto moles. My wife says they've always been there. Those suckers are huge.
Don't look at Bernie Sanders the next time you see him on tv. Just listen to him....it's Seinfeld ' s George Steinbrenner. There is no doubt about it. Why is no one writing about this?
ReplyDelete