I have a tongue in my shoe
The other day while out for a walk I tripped over an unusual word.
I picked it up and examined it. It
seemed to have the right weight,
excellent fragrance and good looks. In all, a fine word.
I took it home, taking care not to mix up the order of its
letters. I put it on the table. I stood it up, laid it down, looked at it back
to front and upside down. After all this I still had no idea what it was. What
it meant. However, it felt like a word with many possibilities. It felt like a
friendly word. A word you want to get to know. The best way to get to know a
word is to read it, then make friends. When I read the word it said
"Quotidian". I decided to look it up. It told me : 'Daily'. 'Of
everyday'. I looked it up in another dictionary. It told me the same, but added
'trivial' and 'commonplace'.
I looked up trivial: 'of small value or importance'. How does
commonplace find itself next to trivial I wondered, and who relegates things to
that place? What happens when we trivialise the commonplace. A place where most
of us live.
Each day I travel the common place. It is not trivial. It is
common in that it is for everyone, in that we all use it. As in The Commons,
where I found the word which started this whole thing. I walked the road. The common road. This makes me a
pedestrian. This word, besides the meaning of 'going on foot' also means 'dull,
uninspiring, prosaic'. I sometimes wonder how this comes about? What is dull
about a pedestrian? Maybe, in our culture, pedestrians are considered dull
because they do not drive a car. However, I enjoy the undull activity of
walking. In most cases I wear shoes to walk the road. These are common objects.
But how common are they really.
At this stage I remember the following quote, "Everyday things represent the most overlooked knowledge".
And here is where the word 'Quotidian'
returns. It suggests "The depths
and reach of the commonplace". The Common Place.
I had a good look at my shoes which walk the Common Place. Good
shoes. Functional. A strong sculptural form. A thought occurred. We place all
sorts of junk on plinths and pedestals
(Pedestal?
Pedestrian? Dull? unaspiring? prosaic?) in galleries and call it
Art. We place expensive bits of food on
another type of pedestal, large white porcelain plates, and call it Food Art.
But we overlook the truly special, the truly magnificent. The Common Shoe. Call
it Foot Art
How do we make a common object Special? In the same way we make
everything special. By giving it 'attention'.
I gave my shoe attention by trying to name the parts of the whole.
Embarrassingly I got as far as front and back, top and bottom and two sides.
Then I looked inside and saw 'the tongue' and realised that every other aspect
of the shoe would probably have a name as well. Not only a name, but also a
story attached to the name. What, by the way, is a tongue doing in my shoe.
Why do we name things? Why do we learn the
name for things?
Because I did not know the names of the parts I decided to go to a
shoe shop. No one in any of the five shoe shops I visited could tell me the
parts of a shoe. Then I went to find a boot maker. I found an old fashioned
one. One who knew his stuff. When I told him my problem he said: "You don't see the thing because you
don't know how to look. You don't know how to look because you don't know the
names" So let's look at this shoe.
Tell me what you know, he said. I knew the sole and the heel.
Placing the shoe on the sole and the heel we looked at the rest of the shoe. So
what else it there? We enjoyed looking at the shoe for a while and noticed the
wonderful lines which ran along it. Made me think that the modern car body is
most probably based on the form of a shoe. Just another form of the same
transport.
There is 'Lace'. Lace on a shoe? At the end of the lace is a hard
bit. It used to be metal but now is plastic of sorts. This is the
"Tag" or "Aglet". This protects the end of the lace from
fraying. It also makes it easier to push
the lace through the "Grommets". The little holes which have as
protection a small ring, or "Eyelet".
The boot maker explained that the parts of the shoe are made from
different grades of leather. Grades in terms of strengths. The strongest piece
is above the heel. It is called the 'Counter'. (Interestingly it is also the
name for the curved part of the stern of a ship). Then there is the 'Cuff',
which figures, it is the piece of
leather which goes across the top edge of the shoe. Just like shirts and pants have cuffs. The piece which
fits between the Counter and the Cuff is the 'Quarter'. The Frontal area which
covers the instep is called the 'Vamp'.
Look up this word and wonder. Finally the strip of leather which connects the
sole is called the 'Welt'. 'World' in German. Und warum. And why.
He tells me that "because
we don't know the name of things, everyday things remain hidden".
Now here is the last word from the boot
maker. "When I repair a shoe I use
a steel object to place the shoe on. What is its name......?"
And here, in
hiding, is the answer to the boot
maker’s last question.
Petrus
