The Shocker Sneaker Watch: Week 1

By Louis Keene, Emily Lever, Chris Alarie, John Wilmes, Kristen Arnett, Ryan Murtha, Alex Siquig, Ryne Prinz, Micah Wimmer, Katie Heindl, Corbin Smith, Damon Agnos

Throughout the history of the written word, footwear has been a way to showcase a writer’s individual style and personality. Shoes can provide comfort and security on the walk to the kitchen to microwave the same cup of coffee for the fourth time, but whether you’re wearing slippers, sandals, heels, cowboy boots, flats, those shoes with the toes, or just skin, what you have on your soles makes a statement. You were really only supposed to read the first two sentences of this intro — so please, if you’re still here, skim ahead.

THE SHOCKER SNEAKER WATCH is going to take you behind the scenes of some of the most daring, innovating, and squeaky shoe choices of Shocker contributors this week.

LOUIS KEENE

“My maroon shoes.”

These maroon shoes I wore to a Costco date with my grandma even though they make my heels hurt. I don’t tie them, I just stuff the laces behind the tongue. At Costco, my grandma’s radiator cracked and she had to be towed. They say it’s gonna cost sixteen hundred dollars to get her driving again. The tag on the left heel has been hanging off like this for years.

EMILY LEVER

Today I laced up these dusty millennial pink Vans Old Skools, which were my only option because I was traveling and they weren’t going to fit in my bag. I wore them to take the subway to a falafel place and then walk 30 blocks to my intercity bus because I was ahead of schedule. With their rubber waffle soles, they supported my feet so steadfastly that I forgot they were there. But as the clammy, overcast day wore on, the tightly laced canvas uppers started to feel constricting. I looked down at the shoes and started to see them as many-eyed faces, with twin mouths intent on swallowing my legs.

I returned to my parents’ home to find a leak in my ceiling of my bedroom, my books and clothes dripping wet and the paint peeling from the moisture. I moved all my things out of the way of the leak as my parents fretted about the electric circuitry. I started to fidget and felt my shoes tighten further, or so it seemed to me. Though I knew I could unlace my shoes at any time, I wondered if I would be able to remove them or if, swollen by the humidity, they would cling to me and refuse to release me.

CHRIS ALARIE

These are my boots. I wore them to work today because it’s raining and they are my best footwear option for keeping my feet dry in inclement weather. They are fairly dirty and scuffed, in need of a good shine. I honestly haven’t cleaned or shined them recently because I mistakenly decided that after the long winter finally ended, I would have months before I would need to wear them again. I forgot about the rain because I am from northern California, where there isn’t much weather of any sort, and after four years living in New York, I still haven’t learned how to do things like “plan for the weather” or “take into account the fact that I don’t own a car and must actually experience the weather when it is bad”. Also, I am an idiot.

JOHN WILMES

Here at bottom of my disgusting legs, the left one still bruised from a fall in December, are a pair of shoes I call “Grey Shoes.” The fall happened when I was watching my friend’s dog and apartment and slid down the icy stairs. My leg bashed into the fence beneath and there was tons of blood! I’m sorry that this is about my legs and the weather instead of the shoes, but I have a condition that makes it very difficult to distinguish things from each other. The shoes are not tied in this picture, because when this assignment was being discussed in The Shocker’s headquarters I was so eager to share an image of my horrendous limbs that I snapped the photo before tying the GS’s. After I took the picture I rode my bike to the new local co-op, a truly unacceptable place, to buy four-dollar juice that I could have made for one dollar.

KRISTEN ARNETT

I find it easiest to wear boots while I’m working in the library. That way if a patron jams the copy machine, I can give it a satisfying kick to the paper tray. It’s fun to wear boots in Florida because it means that if you walk through tall grass a lizard will absolutely fall down the top and you’ll be forced to hop on one foot like an idiot so you don’t crush it to death. I got these boots for free because my sister-in-law bought four pairs of different boots and was too lazy to return these ones she didn’t like. I cherish this precious memory (of free shoes).

RYAN MURTHA

These are my Rainbow flip flops. They’re nearing the end of their life unfortunately — the straps are fraying and the bottom is starting to seperate. But it takes a while to break in a new pair so I’ve been putting it off for like two years, even though I own my next pair already. I know there’s a vocal contingent of anti-sandal folk out there, and to them I say enjoy your sweaty, pale appendages for the next four months. My toes will be tanned and properly aerated.

PROS: comfy af

CONS: I stub my toes a lot and also can’t run very fast in them

ALEX SIQUIG

I call these my “everyone has these shoes” shoes. They are wet because I went outside like a normie, even though there is a thunderstorm in progress. If sneakers have lines on them, I’m generally in favor. That’s my litmus test. Gotta respect lines. I feel like many people who once wore unwieldy skater shoes choose to go this route when they get old and fat and tired and wired. Once I twisted my ankle playing basketball in these shoes. My foot turned all purple and I was limping around the metal show I attended that night like a guy who was trying to make people notice his limp. It fucking sucked. Limping is not metal. Free Palestine.

RYNE PRINZ

Vans brands themselves as the “World’s #1 Skateboard Shoe”. In spite of this, I’ve never skateboarded well enough to justify wearing them. Maybe ten years ago or so I aspired to learn how, but gave up. I used to own a skateboard brand sweatshirt with the one of the two characters pictured below farting on the other.

My mother found it tasteless, and I found (still find) it rather funny. Regardless, these shoes are far more comfy than I thought they’d be, and I’ve only stepped in one pile of dogshit since buying them.

MICAH WIMMER

In July of 2017, I was working as a cashier at a local health food store in my hometown of Akron, Ohio where I was forced to be on my feet forty hours a week. It was not pleasant and my feet often hurt. I wore a pair of red Nike Cortezes for my first few months, but after helping a friend move in the midst of a summer downpour, those shoes were ruined after five years of wearing them as they gained an awful smell from the rain that would not go away no matter what I tried. A new pair of shoes were needed and I had attempted buying two different pairs of Nikes online in two different sizes, but neither fit well and I returned them. I was getting desperate, though, as the canvas sneakers I was wearing as a replacement did not provide adequate cushion for my feet and I ended each day in agony. In a fit of desperation, I bought two pairs of shoes on Amazon — one a blue pair of Cortezes and this grey pair of Puma Romas that you see here — in the hopes that one would fit. Well, the Cortezes did not and I gave them to my father, but these Pumas did and they did the trick for me even though they are far from my favorite pair of shoes ever. They’re fine, but ultimately a bit nondescript. One day, I hope to find another pair of Cortezes that fit, or maybe I’ll even branch out and get some Air Maxes or something, but I’m very cheap and until then, these will do. They’re relatively comfortable and also decently fashionable, and for me, that’s enough. I’m twenty-seven, work from home, and have a partner who loves me unconditionally — who am I trying to impress?

KATIE HEINDL

I bought these Nikes to go walk around the desert outside of Las Vegas in — they’re sick eh? Jacquard. Streetwear teens really think I am an ancient witch in disguise when I wear them.

CORBIN SMITH

This is a pair of Under Armor shoes supporting my hefty-boy blue-jean trunk quads. I suspect they were built with running in mind, but I don’t run on account of my love of cycling and my shitty-ass right ankle. They’re extremely light and they breathe, which actually make them kind of a clumsy purchase for the infamously rainy Pacific Northwest climate. I got them at an outlet mall, though, so they were cheap and its summer, so I’ve decided to break them out of their closet prison. I don’t normally hew to a color so loud on my dogs, but, like I said, outlet mall, very cheap. They probably got sold at a loss, even. Actually I stole them. I’m sorry I bought Under Armor shoes, I know their CEO is the-religious-type-of-yucky and was nice to Trump. Also the shoelaces are too long and my girlfriend keeps trying to get me to wear clothes for reasons aside from “They were cheap,” so they probably make me look like a dick for those reasons, as well.

DAMON AGNOS

I buy multiple pairs of these at a time, both out of habit from shoes I like being so frequently discontinued in my size, and because their quality seems to have diminished since Nike took them over. So I wear a pair until it starts to fall apart (it takes only a few weeks), then Mosley and I take them in to my dude Angel at Angel’s Shoe Repair, where Mosley gets treats. Angel hot glues the soles where they’re peeling apart and in the meantime I break in another pair (which I later bring in for gluing). It adds about ten bucks to the price of each pair, but it’s worth it. The shoes are comfy. If only they still came with that sublime rubber smell that was my favorite thing about them since childhood. Nike, if you’re reading this, please bring that back.