Introduction

Would it be possible for Juan to be the foot-slogging hero in STARSHIP TROOPERS if he didn’t have the right boots?

In Niven’s FOOTFALL, why are we directed to pay so much attention to feet? Is there a subtext here?

Why are so many booksellers opening shoe boutiques? And why is it impossible to purchase a fantasy novel written by a women which does not mention shoes at least once per chapter?

If a shoe falls in the forest, do the sequins still glitter?

Let’s have more talk about this important subject.

* * * * * Why do women who wear high-heels wobble when they discuss politics? Is there an inherent instability in the socio-economic posture they’ve adopted? Or is the increased strain on the arch of the economy sufficient to explain any minor deviance from the straight and narrow footpath?

* * * * * Coming quickly on the heels of the Military SF discussion, one finds a toehold of sanity in the discussion of shoes and feet. After all, why kick against the traces? Why not put the shoe on the other foot? Why dance when you can shuffle in old black pumps?

* * * * * Are women who wear open-toe’d high heels more likely to paint their toenails? If so, what color? How is this reflected in the works of, say, Ursula Le Guin or Evangeline Walton?

* * * * * Punt.

* * * * * When Kzinrreti metamorphose from woman to cat, what happens to their shoes? This has been bothering me for the longest time....

* * * * * Kickoff.

Statistics

Is there a correlation between shoe styles and geopolitical boundaries? Tell me why there is a seven-year cycle to heel height which just happens to conicide with vulcanism in Hawaii? Tell me why last Saturday a shoe boutique owner in NY retired at the ripe old age of 38, chuckling with glee?

Fear of Shoe Discussions

Are you afraid it will become a runaway success? Or that we’ll sneak in a few zingers? Or that we’ll pump you for information? Or that we’ll loaf around? Or that we’ll behave like heels? Or that we’ll....

Well, you see, it’s not about you at all. It’s about shoes.

* * * * * And sequins. Can’t forget the sequins.

Let’s have some more serious discussion about this important topic which appears everywhere on the board.

Literature

Feet of clay, shoes of gold.... Are we trying to hide something? Is the saddle shoe connected with the Electra complex? Exactly what is being repressed here?

We find this symbolism in all areas of literature. The darker themes, especially, are dominant in children’s literature. Remember the old lady who lived in a shoe? She beat her children. Did she do this because she resented the gigantic shoe? Was the shoe a symbol of the heel which crushed the serpent? Or was it simply an old boot with delusions of grandeur?

Sorry if I’m shoehorning too many questions into a single post. We need to finish this serious discussion so it doesn’t keep tromping on so many other topics. I mean, if it keeps coming up elsewhere, there must be some substance, right? An unresolved question, a Gordian shoelace knot which needs to be untied?

* * * * * Old saddle shoe to baby saddle shoe: “Keep your laces tight, my child, or tongues will wag!”

Politics

Today in Footwear Politics: The U.S. is faced with the prospect of a new Supreme Court judge who wears orthopedic Buster Browns. Conservative factions throughout the nation are hailing this development as the best thing for footwear since the introduction of Velcro straps. The more liberal leaders are twiddling with their laces over the possibility of seeing the Supreme Court take a new stance on many footwear issues.

Footware

Today in Footwear Computer Systems: Microsoftie announced the introduction of “FOOTWARE,” a microprocessor-controlled, ersatz sequin LCD shoe peripheral for the well-dressed female executive who puts her feet up on the desktop at the office. FOOTWARE can be programmed to display up to 256 rotating personalized messages in marquee-fashion. A low-cost upgrade allows the ersatz sequin messages to be displayed on either heel or toe. Microsoftie executives expect that sales will climb rapidly, once they get a toehold in the corporate environment. Two major selling points, they say, are the small desktop footprint and the extremely long battery life of the supertwist backlit LCD display.

Pedal Alcohol Syndrome

Medical Footwear News: Today researchers for the DSM IV confirmed rumors that the new edition of the famous psychiatric diagnostic manual will include Pedal Alcohol Syndrome, or PAS.

PAS is evinced by neonates whose mothers consumed alcohol and went shoe shopping during pregnancy. Symptoms include a reduced foot weight, higher incidence of apnea, microencephelia, fascination with sequins, and overall decreased intelligence. Infants afflicted with PAS are often Shopping Disordered, causing complications in later social adjustment. During a parietal lobe seizure in adolescence or adulthood, these individuals will often be seen jumping from shoe-store to shoe-store in pseudomaniacal purchasing frenzies.

Double blind studies using surrogate slippers show that PAS infants prefer sequins and heels to workaday pumps. Researchers caution that it is still too early to determine whether PAS is a functional or an organic syndrome, and hypothesize that the prognosis for recovery from PAS is linked directly to the individual patient’s desire to be cured. Many persons formerly thought to be simple shoe aficionados may now be more correctly diagnosed as either Shopping Disordered or PAS.

Footware Fen Anonymous

Today this reporter is shocked and saddened by the dissolution of FFA, Footwear Fen Anonymous.

In recent months, FFA has come under increasing criticism from pro-shoe groups. At a FFA meeting last week, three FFA members created a human chain to block the entrance to a large downtown discount shoestore. Their brave effort to save their fellow shoppers from the evil influences of Footwear Fennism ended when police arrested the three former Fennists and charged them with blocking a public walkway.

Other setbacks for the FFA include recent loss of tax-exempt status and the unexpected recidivism of the founder and president, Lady Shoethain. Lady Shoethain was caught fondling a pair of cloggs in her bedroom one evening last week by her husband, himself a reformed Fennist. Upon further investigation, he discovered several thousand pairs of exotic foot coverings. Lady Shoethain had been secretly selling sneakers to school children to support her shopping habits, and is now a patient at a private sanitarium in New Hampshire.

This reporter, though, will remember forever the first FFA meeting he attended. One after the other, some shamefaced, some hopping from foot to foot in anxiety, others blissfully at peace, the members came to the podium to give their testimonies.

“My name is _________, and I’m a Footwear Fan. It’s been three years since I last entered a shoestore.”

“I haven’t had a new shoe for 10 weeks,” said one proud lady.

“The last time I touched a new shoe was when my husband died,” mourned another. “I knew it was a sickness, but I just couldn’t help myself. I....” She broke off, too ashamed to continue. The others chimed in helpfully until the whole sordid story was told. At last the poor woman wailed, “Yes, it’s true! I used my credit cards!” and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

For this reporter, the closing of the FFA is like the click of a sinister heel in the hallway of a haunted house. We are all waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The Flatfoot

Call me Joe. I’m a cop, a flatfoot. I work on the Shoe Vice Squad. It’s not a pretty job, but someone’s gotta do it. I keep the city safe for ordinary shoes like you and me.

We got the call late one Saturday night. Some dame was blocking traffic on the corner of 4th and Foot. Seems she’d had a bit of a fight with her old man, and he’d tossed her shoes out the second story window. Took him seventeen hours to get ‘em all. Some of them were mutilated. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“Hey, Laces,” I said to my partner, “we got ourselves a job.” He fingered the little rubber edges on his sneakers and grinned. Laces was crazy, but he was a good cop. He knew which side of his shoes to keep on the ground.

We found the dame in the middle of the intersection. There were shoes everywhere, and she was trying to pick them up. Cars honked and taxi drivers cursed.

“What’s the problem here?” I asked.

She showed me a pair of Italian heels which had been slashed from sole to toe. Then she started to cry when she saw a dainty pair of Danish sandals which had been... Well, I can’t say just what had been done to them, but whoever did it was one sick hush puppy.

“Take it easy, lady,” I soothed. “Just the facts. Where’s the shoeless bastard who did this to you?”

She pointed and we went.

Laces did the necessary thing when we caught him. I looked the other way, and when I fill out the report, I’ll say there was a gun in the guy’s hand. Just another day on the Shoe Vice Squad, keeping the streets safe for ordinary shoes like you and me. I’m a flatfoot, a cop. It’s my job.

Dune Shoes

You see, there was this guy named Paul who wore fencing shoes, and his father, who wore shiny black ducal boots, and his mother who alternately wore army boots and long pointy witch slippers. They spent a lot of time goofing around with worms and getting high on spice in the desert, and made friends with some ferocious dudes who wore rubber body stockings.

DUNE SHOES was a great book.

My favorite bit is when that old lady tested Paul with the Gom Slipper. “Are you a young human -- or a shoe!?“

OTOF (on the other foot), the most disgraceful part came when I realized that the raspy nasty worms didn’t wear shoes at all! Let me tell you, I just had to stop reading at that point.

Actually, I preferred SHOE MESSIAH. The part where all the poor Freman children went to Saks to get new shoes had me in tears.

Saving Soles

I’ve been told that a lot of SF takes its sole inspiration directly from the Bible’s “Sermon on the Shoe”: Blessed are the shoemakers, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven / Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit Susan’s shoe collection.”

It may not save any soles, but it reduces the wear and tear.

Harlan’s Shoes

From the intro to DEATHBIRD SHOES: “Shoes can do anything. They fear nothing: they are shoes. But there is only one rule ... when belief in a shoe dies, the shoe dies.”

Later tonight: WHEN JEFTY WAS A SHOE.

“REPENT, HARLEQUIN!” SAID THE SHOE SALESMAN

More Shoe Books

As they said in LIFE OF BRIAN, “Follow the shoe!”

There are some exciting new hard Shoe Fashion (SF) book releases due soon. Niven’s THE SHOE IN GOD’S EYE promises some excellent SF adventure. Pournelle will finish KING DAVID’S SHOESHOP fairly soon. Of course, we’re all looking forward to Niven’s next DREAM SHOE PARK, Clarke’s 2110 SHOES, and Asimov’s latest, ROBOTS DON’T WEAR SHOES. Ginny Heinlein also promises to release the original uncut version of PODKAYNE, where we discover that the heroine ran back into the house on Venus not to rescue the fairy, but to recover her suede pumps.

* * * * * If you ask me very nicely, I might give you my rendition of Gene Wolf’s classics:

• The Shoes of the Torturer
• The Sandals of the Lictor
• The Pumps of the Conciliator
• The Shoes of the New Urth

Heel to Toe

Just tell me this: In the last seven days, how many pairs of shoes have you actually worn? (Fondling them in private doesn’t count.)

* * * * * ... And I suppose you’ve all heard about the new type of Politically Correct shoe store, haven’t you? They only sell left wingtips....