Miss C Visits The Manolo

I am delighted to have a guest post on espadrilles at the Manolo's Shoe Blog. 

Do pop over and visit!

Think Pink with Maira Kalman

As I was researching a prettier image to accompany my Maira Kalman post below (the Peotry issue is my chocie), I noticed the artist's consistent attention to pink. 

Not only did she not open her pink gift-wrapped present in my last post, but she blogs about other pink packages, namely Sweet 'n Low envelopes (see image to the right).  And although you can't spy the Sweet 'n Low in her illustration, there's plenty of pink for a sensory reference.

Following are more Kalman "pinks" for some Daylight Savings cheer:

Maira Kalman's "Opening"

According to the Sunday Times, the new Maira Kalman exhibition at the Jewish Museum includes a "pink-wrapped gift package from India that she deemed

too beautiful

ever

to be

opened."

Barefoot 'round the Park

What?  That isn't the title of the Neil Simon play (and film, starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda)?

Perhaps I can be forgiven, because my (sort-of) malapropism did indeed occur because of a sighting at the theatre.

After one of our Into the Woods performances, the cast was greeting its stage-door public and I noticed that one audience member seemed to be straight out of a Flintstones episode.

From head to ankle she was Ann Margrock, but her feet were pure Fred:

By this I mean that she was wearing what looked to be a pair of rubber bare feet over her own feet.  Curious, I asked her about the provenence of her "feet," and she informed me that they were for "barefoot running," which she had been doing for the past six months and loving it. 

I am a long-distance runner, but have not been able to perform anywhere close to my favourite mileage for years because of foot injuries: my high arches may be pretty for ballerina-type points, but are dreadful for impact. 

An Olympic-marathon-training acquaintance of Mr. C told him that she felt all runners had twenty really good years during which to run.  I had those from 14-34 before my heels began feeling sharp pains.

So for the past decade I've been toiling away on elliptical machines while pretending that I am feeling the breeze and sunshine on my skin, or tempting fate by jogging around soft soccer fields, being conscious of running heel to toe.

Barefoot running, however, as I'm learning, uses a forefoot strike instead, as practitioners insist that landing on one's heel first increases the possibility of heel injuries.  Apparently the forefoot strike is a more natural impact.

Truly, though, I'm not about to run barefoot, except on a beach, for fear of landing on a painful pebble or a shard of glass, but I am considering trying barefoot shoes.

The Flintstone shoes from the above anecdote are by Vibram FiveFingers, and I will not select them because they look too silly and would call unwanted attention to me:

Nike Free is one possibility:

as is New Balance Minimus:

And here is a one-stop-shopping site for barefoot runners.  I like the Newtons, pictured below:

However, I am concerned about inviting a host of new injuries with the new gait that comes from barefoot running.  Have any gentle readers tried this activity, with or without shoes?

I Spy: The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime

I've been admiring this book cover since it crossed my desk this morning.

The use of circles--spotlight, wheels, patterned edge of dress--and sense of motion (is she running to or running from?)--makes me want to open the volume and find out.

Lacosted by Vanity Fair

inside

Ahh, but Lacoste is definitely working its product-placement angle in the April Vanity Fair.

outside

Upstairs, Downstairs at Burghley House

My Scottish grandmother loved to watch "Upstairs, Downstairs"; I preferred "The Partridge Family."

But I came to appreciate the meaning of the British TV show's title in a completely different way when a savvy friend passed on the March WSJ magazine to me.

In it was a story on England's Burghley House and its current occupants/caretakers.  I'd seen the house in the film The Golden Bowl when it was decked out in appropriate historical splendour, but the WSJ showed it in anachronistic pleasure:  history on the ceiling (upstairs); modern family put-your-feet-up-on-the-chesterfield comfort on the floor (downstairs). 

To be sure, the modern family comfort depicted here is all red-and-smart-coffee-table-book elegance, but still.


**Those gentle readers who prefer more of a pop culture metaphor might wish to substitute "mullet" for "Upstairs, Downstairs" . . . or as we call it in Canada, "hockey hair."