Looking Up in IV

I’m more of an observer. I wander a lot. This is a catalogue of my many wanderings around Isla Vista, on which, my eye was drawn upward. To me these shoes are landmarks in the community, places where I can stop and think for a moment. They are representative of a single moment, and last infinitely longer than the moment would have by itself. One shared characteristic among the individuals who decide to hurl their shoes over electrical lines; they enjoy Converse.

“Fuck these sun-bleached raggety-ass shoes.”

Often times I would wonder what led to the circumstances that led to these shoes being in the predicament they are in. The following are both a collection of the shoes around Isla Vista, my own personal thoughts, as well as fictitious accounts of what led to the hanging of so many innocent converse sneakers.

There is something very special to me about looking up at the electrical lines and seeing a pair of shoes dangling in front of the sky. It suggests to me too many cliche’ metaphors about life to count. It always manages to ground me in my place in this world.

Particular moments shape you, but all of them are connected, and all of them form you. The shoes create a network of moments that are all connected by the people that have participated in the act, or by those that witness them after the fact.

This guy got a better pair of high-tops to add to his collection, and some jerk stepped on these ones at a kickback anyway.

This one I thought was obvious. Two very drunk friends have a shoe-tossing competition to see who can get them on the highest line. Both walk home barefoot. Wake up wondering where their favorite shoes went. They call each other, remembering the night through a haze of alcohol residue and ask each other what happened. They return to the scene. Go home. And buy each other new shoes to commemorate their new brotherly bond.

To say that this guys roommates hated him would be an understatement.

HE WAS IN THEM WHEN THEY HUNG THEM THERE

This is a serious moment in a group of people’s lives. They all decided to throw their shoes in commemoration of a moment that they shared together. There is one thing that Isla Vista has in spades and that is community. I like to think this was an important moment for them.

Or. They all live there and threw their stinky shoes to ward off the weirdos.

The two major dance groups in Isla Vista were screwed with housing this year and coincidentally ended up next to each on Del Playa. These shoes are a marker for the territories of the rival dance troops, and if a dancer crosses the line, they end up doing the time.

This guy is a class C criminal. Every spring break. He spring-breaks into your apartment in IV, and he steals your best skateboarding shoes. He then proceeds to hang them on an electrical line not five feet from reach, and not 100 feet from your door, yet they are unaccessible. He dooms you and your neighbors to a quarter spent looking at your best shoes wilt away in the unforgiving coastal air.

Rumor has it that the perpetrator is still a kid in junior high, meaning we could be suffering here in IV for a long long time to come.

This one represents how I feel in connection to this campus. I know the line is there holding me up, but I still always seem to feel like I’m falling. I’m not sure thats an enditement against the institution of college or my own failure to assimilate myself into a new community. These shoes were my first tether to Isla Vista.

“I’M DONE!” *CHUCKS SHOES (PUN INTENDED)