Snake America: Section Six
Snake is a regular email (twice a week-ish) where I write about eBay auctions, videos, Craigslist, ephemera, errata, rare Post It Notes, iPad afficionados...
Nice shoes:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/321509085833 - The designer sneaker market/phenomenon is shallower now, and broader. As recently as five years ago, guys who obsessively collected Nike running shoes didn't dabble in basketball sneakers, and both differentiated themselves from Jordan heads, neither of whom talked to Adidas collectors, who were all Euros*, and none played with the guys who collected and notched dress shoes, since anyone who had two pairs of Aldens before 2007 either: Voted for Jimmy Carter
Worked in advertising
Was into rockabilly
Wore extreme eyeglasses And often all of the above. Now things are different (no shit) and sneaker collection is, like music, melding into a confusing amalgam of taste. (In a world where Gunplay, Lubomyr Melynk and Napalm Death share a stage sponsor, the man with a kitchen-sink collection of Nikes is king.) I spoke about Nike's slow lurch to lower quality, and collectors no longer stick to one iteration of Air Jordans or a single year of Nike's production, or a certain model of a runner. Or if they do, they're the quietest in the room, getting drowned out by a newfound affectation for luxury sneakers. It's no coincidence that luxury brands, models of good design and almost Buddhist depth (one scarf or trunk...forever) are mining any levels of the golden age of sneaker design for their current lines. In a sense, their shoes aren't as bad anymore--compare the Prada America's Cup to any of these**--but they're not perfect. That's a tall order, of course: the original artifacts are in league with a Neutra house***:
The best-executed rich people shoe out right now--the Saint Laurent one above, I guess, or the early Raf Simons****--can't compare to the original Nike whose designs they're honoring. Just as risotto and lobster and Jazzmasters were originally for poor people but aren't, workaday sneakers get reworked by luxury brands. Anyways, Kenneth Cole is and has always been garbage in a deeper and bigger way than any of the brands for sale on Sneakerboy, but this here is an insanely tasteful and well-executed shoe. Not sure how they came up with this... but it should be remembered. Or at least bought. I am also sure there are some current hidden-in-plain-sight design classics coming out of 1 Nike Road now. But I'm not as sure.
Nice house stuff: http://www.ebay.com/itm/161040275287 - Growing up in a government town under two out-of-country parents, I didn't go to many games. I remember hearing about a kid in my school with season tickets and could only think about how halfway through the season the whole family must get sick of the requirement to be somewhere every day and how they'd rather be at the movies or at home, how their parents must get sick of corralling them into the car and how they must get sick of their dad leaving early before the game is over, and it's not like it's the Expos or anything... I've only come around to the idea of getting season tickets a year ago... I just don't entirely understand it. There was never commemorative stuff in the house either, except the Petro Canada Calgary Olympics wine glasses, bought from Petro Canada, which was kept in the fine china hutch next to the dishwasher and above the accordion-door bread/pillbox, and never used. I've been watching these stupid 7-11 Cups for over a year. I only have two cups in my apartment. One is an 11" tall MetRX vibe plastic protein shaker with the sticker still on it, that smells like Casein. The other is a chipped, red Nike mug with gold lettering that says, "Merry Christmas 1986," with some squiggles, and can't be put in the microwave. These 7-11 cups would be nice if they were bone china, or if Fire King had made them and stamped an Iowa hamburger place on the side. I'm not sure these can be handed down by generations, but they look like silver age comics and are from 7-11 ... it's a push. Also .... why is Ray Chester green?
Hate mail, requests, corrections, tips, fried eggs and Nerds Rope (together) can be sent to me here. Thank you for reading.
Snake
* Like many Nike running collectors ... if you go to Italy you see only Air Max 97s and if you go to Copenhagen they'll bag on your Jordans like they bag on your black coffee in Australia
** If you dig the first one... you're a cop or pilled out with no muscle definition wearing light-colored jeans, AKA a cop.
*** Worth mentioning Jon Anastas owns one of these... the discursions of which are subject for another email...
**** Which are kind of cool, I guess, but fit SOO wide, I have a pair and when I bought them I thought they'd be like Air Max 97s but colorful, but they're fat on my foot like a pair of Etnies quitlifes. Sal Barbier should be getting royalties. Fat, fat sneakers. For sale. Terrible.