Snake America Twenty-Six
Snake is a bi-weekly--but not this week--newsletter covering dumb stuff. This week: a coin ring, and more Nikes, as requested by my friend Andrew.
eBay: Coin ring, 1882, 14K: I keep buying rings then not wearing them then selling them to slower-witted friends. I'd never buy this ring, but if I somehow did, I'd be keeping it for a while, long enough until my one benefactor (there's only one friend who'll buy my used rings) bites the bullet. I thought maybe there was a possibility of these rings being properly licensed, i.e. an 1880s business deal between a ring company from the 1800s(1) and the US Mint, Klaus Josten getting permission to make coin-rings, but I doubt it. Guessing a bunch of rogue pilgrim jeweler cells stuck rings under their extra coins and showed them off around town, sold them, etc. Now it's fait accompli. I remember 10 years ago when one friend screenprinted our other friends' band's alternate logo onto a spare folding chair, and a big argument ensued over whether the screen-printed chair was official band-licensed gear. That logo had been restricted to T-shirts and athletic shorts until that time. One shirt the screen-printer in New Jersey made for himself had five logos on it like a Hannah Hoch collage and was considered legit. No agreement was reached. I used it as my office chair for a couple years but didn't take it with me when I left town. The window is open for this chair to have something in common with the above-mentioned rings. Both are good, and unlicensed. The rings have time on their side(2). Make enough cool rings with rare coins on them, or screen enough American eagles, broad wings in full span, onto enough white folding chairs and they creep into the canon. Again, I really can't wear this ring.
eBay: Nike Team Conventions, original: There were a whole series of Nikes that Michael Jordan wore before he got his own shoe. I want to say that the Nike Dynasty were the ones he wore in his rookie season through Thanksgiving. Or the Conventions. They all look alike. I like the Conventions, they are a sort of missing link, unnamed Nike--shrouded but undeniably of that shoe company and that era. Like in some scenes in Royal Tanenbaums (USA 2001) where you can't tell what street in New York it is they're shooting on but you know it's somewhere. "Is that Pomander Walk or is it Force Tube Avenue?" It could be either, but they framed the shot so you couldn't see the mailbox, etc. Though the sneakers linked here above lousier than the ones Mr. Jordan wore:
Not only because they are low tops. The transactional Sky Forces are all white, like the hospital cleats favored by the Oakland Athletics, but puffy like Reebok Pumps... lousy combo. I had a similar pair to the ones Jordan is wearing in the first pic, Sky Forces maybe, in black suede, with a grey heel, and the stuff in the heel had dried then seeped out, and it was so brittle it was like clay. Little archeological pellets came out of the shoe. I bought them then right away dropped them in a giant Tupperware thing (the kind you put kids' toys in, this one was mostly shoes) until I could fix the heel but no one in New York(3) can do that kind of work. When I threw the Tupperware out last week, the shoe flakes in there looked like peat moss. I'm sure there's no incentive for a cobbler to develop the expertise required to fix these shoes, but things change.
Thanks for reading. Happy Thanksgiving.
Snake
(1) Josten's? Would be funny if Josten's was an 1800s German Texas/Missouri company erected in parallel with the breweries of the time and region, etc
(2) This topical article explains how time can not be on someone's side.
(3) (and therefore the world)