Abandoned footwear

Abandoned footwear, such as a lone boot or shoe, is often noted in ponds and by the sides of roads. It is not known why old shoes and boots seem to be publicly abandoned more often than other articles of clothing, such as shirts or caps. Sometimes the shoes may even be new and fashionable.

There are many theories and individual explanations have been provided in some cases. Shoes, being more sturdily constructed than most other types of clothing, will last longer after being abandoned outdoors —vleather shoes, for instance, are estimated to last for 25-40 years outside.

However, the opposite of this hypothesis is the commonness of obviously intentional shoe abandonment, such as shoe tossing, in which shoes are tied together by their laces and thrown in great numbers into trees, over power lines, or over fences

Artistic use

While many people see discarded shoes as just garbage, artists such as poets derive insight and inspiration from them. The fisherman hauling up an old boot, rather than a fish, is a comic-strip cliché. In Cinderella, the lost slipper is a classic example of the literary device of the 'lost object'.

The theme of abandoned footwear and their untold story is explored in detail in the novel, Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries by author Julie Ann Shapiro. In the novel, her character describes the phenomenon, “The forgotten shoes are everywhere: littering the side of the highway, floating in the tide, going upstream with the Salmon, or occupying a field like a dead body,discarded and left to rot.” The novelist described the backstory of her novel, which offers much insight about the abandoned footwear from an art, societal and philosophical perspective.

“

In Southern California I noticed flip flops and running shoes left behind on the beach, the freeways, construction sites and parking lots and felt this uncanny urge propelling me to write about them. I couldn’t escape them, nor the unshakable sadness and loss I felt emanating from the shoes themselves. Why singular shoes I kept asking myself? Is it a Cinderella complex? Is this a poem I should write or a short story? I wrote them all and then one pivotal day I remembered a time as a teenager when my friends and I played with a Ouija board and a shoe moved by itself. It was this big aha moment! Of course, the shoes are haunted. Why didn’t I see it before? And that’s when I found Brad, my main character, the photographer who chronicled the shoes in the wake of his girlfriend’s uncertain death. In the singular shoes he saw, Jen-Zen, the eternal soul mate. He relived their love affair in search of answers as to why she died. Brad snapped pictures of the shoes and tried to say goodbye and get on with his life, but he couldn’t...the very shoes started to tell him something. When outsiders called his photographic odyssey nuts and others wanted to capitalize on it Brad believed most of all in his gut instinct telling him…there’s a message in the shoes…just believe…believe in yourself.

”

The author noted that, "... real life photographer, Randall Louis Hamilton contacted me and mentioned having a shoe photo collection, proving that life sometimes is stranger than fiction."

References

http://www.widemedia.com/fashionuk/news/2004/08/02/news0003247.html Re-use your shoes | fuk.co.uk ] http://www.snopes.com/crime/gangs/sneakers.htm http://www.recycle.ubc.ca/littermain.html Litter Reduction Program - UBC Waste Management ]

Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries (Synergebooks, ISBN 978-0-7443-1391-8), http://www.amazon.com/Jen-Zen-Shoe-Diaries-Julie-Shapiro/dp/0744313910/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202509481&sr=8-1

Julie Ann Shapiro, Back Story of Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries, http://www.julieannshapiro.com/Backstory.htm

External links

• Randall Louis Hamilton's gallery of abandoned shoes