There's a song playing through another wall

[venta]

Following on from yesterday's post, I've just been amused by the label on my new trainers. In an attempt to prevent my already rusty German from oxidising completely, I often read instruction manuals, etc, in German. Not least because there's always a handy crib if I get stuck.

Anyway, on my brand new suede Pumas (£13 including postage, brand new in box, thank you eBay) there is a label which tells me a little bit about a basketball player named Clyde. Apparently he asked for the shoes to be made wider and more colourful in the 70s, and so they renamed the shoe after him.

It then goes on to say:

"Nach drei Jahrzehnten haben sie nichts von Ihrer Coolness verloren."

To which my first reaction was... German: a language so utterly square that they have to borrow a word for cool from the English. Worse, they chose coolness.

Needless to say I have wrestled with the shoelaces and I have now laced my shoes up the proper way instead of the damn silly way the kids do it these days. In just ten minutes I have achieved what Puma has managed to stave off for more than thirty years.

Comments

[marjory.livejournal.com]

You're right, you know! Cool could also be lässig, which would be the equivalent of saying, "Groovy!" without any irony or locker, which is more of a personal, "Hey, I'm easy!" statement. Really people say geil, which means great or horny. I shudder to think what a pair of shoes not having lost their horninness after 3 decades would entail...

Yes, I'm a dweeb.

[venta.livejournal.com]

But a dweeb with a good knowledge of German slang, which is both useful and interesting. Though admittedly less useful where you now live ;)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

my brand new suede Pumas

Which I for some reason misread as "brand new suede pyjamas". Now that would be cool!

[venta.livejournal.com]

You mean you don't have some already ? How quaint.

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

Given that I have spent much of my adult life avoiding children I'm finding it difficult to imagine the "damn silly way". Any clues?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Next time you are walking the streets, observe the footwear of anyone between the ages of about 3 and 35. If they're wearing trainers, then there's a chance that the laces will be lying in neat parallel lines across the upper, and there will be no bow in sight.

To achieve this, I believe you thread one end of the lace from (say) the bottom left corner across to the opposite eyelet, then up to the eyelet above, then back across to the left, and so on. The two ends of the lace are now at opposite ends of the tongue, you tuck both ends inside your trainer and treat it like a slip on.

The whole aim is to have neat parallel lines without any of that boring criss-cross nonsense that I go in for. I believe there are alternative lacing methods which involve hiding the crossing parts behind the tongue.

[venta.livejournal.com]

There are also slightly less mad ways of achieving the same thing. Such as:

http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/straightbarlacing.htm

... which is a scary site in its own right.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Isn't the internet great? I love being presented with something which any sane person takes competely for granted, but for someone it's a driving obsession. (Like this one.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Me too... that site is strangely endearing. Part of the appeal is that you always suspect these deranged obsessives to be strangely lacking in social skills, and yet the sites themselves often seem to be written with great good humour and all-round niceness. I approve of the idea that completely normal people have deranged obsessions as well :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Maybe everyone should be issued, when they join the internet, with a free website that they're only allowed to use for the display of an obsession.

(Hmm, actually I suppose that's what GeoCities was.)