well-read wanderlust

I just thought that this is one of the great things that civilzation has produced.

Playwright Tom Stoppard in this morning's New York Times speaking of a lovely little book valise (by luggage maker T. Anthony, but no longer in production) that he carries with him when he travels.

I was a little surprised that this got my juices flowing this morning: After half a dozen whistle stops in the last couple of months I'm tired of the road and savoring the time at home, but even still. There's something about a well-made piece of luggage that not only appeals to my longing for the beautiful and useful -- but if it's luggage it can mean only one thing: "It's time to take to the road now".

To open to it. Receive it. Let it teach you what it will.

Or even just to dream of it. And hold the anticipation right there where you can taste it.

I'm afraid I'm a bit addicted. But like an alcoholic I know that, much as I love the taste of travel, I souse off the bottle to suspend the Right Now just a little bit; because when you're on the road the day to day and the bills that need paying tomorrow are on hold, replaced by what's just in front of you. Senses seem heightened, but perhaps are just focused. And maybe just focused on avoiding something else.

So I'm ready to stay home for awhile and take the time to look ahead a little bit farther than tomorrow.

And maybe start planning that Mexico City weekend...


[Photo: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times]

sly & the family stone & all the rest

Sleeveface meme again
Originally uploaded by lemonad.

Digging the Flickr Sleeveface group a little too much.

Must. Stop. (But not just yet »)

Many thanks to Robert Brook for the tweet that devoured my morning.

expense report

expense report
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Filling out my expense report for three days away working a gig in Virginia, during which time I drove a little rental Toyota Prius Hybrid. Probably spent three hours on the road total, getting between here and there and then detouring a long way out of the way to take a nice hike through the woods at First Landing State Park.

Usually that would cost me a gallon, maybe two, when I topped off the tank before returning the rental.

This time, given that it's a hybrid, it cost me 32 cents.

Actually, the pump stopped at 16 cents, but I didn't believe it so I pushed it a little bit farther.

I don't think I'll be submitting this receipt.

Posting by cameraphone.

uneeda biscuit (honest, you do)

Richmond, VA

of mice and men (or what henry said)

One of the highlights of our brief trip to Richmond was running into a fellow named Ray who gives walking tours of St. John’s Episcopal Church where Patrick Henry gave his rousing Give Me Liberty... call to arms in March of 1775.

Ray’s passionate telling -- he broke the story down frame by frame -- brought the history alive and won my love forever. He even gave us a snippet of Henry’s speech, which I looked up online on my return home and whittled down excessively (this being the abbreviated age of the Internet) for your reading pleasure, below:

Different men often see the same subject in different lights ... This is no time for ceremony ... it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery ... it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not ... whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it ... I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past ... We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne ... our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain ... may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.

There is no longer any room for hope.

Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

resistance is futile(hope springs eternal)

Flood Wall
Richmond, VA

Mr. Jefferson

Pleasure is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after that, this arrests us. The most effectual means of being secure against pain is to retire within ourselves, and to suffice for our own happiness.

—Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 12 October 1786

Paid our respects to Mr. Jefferson [1] over the weekend and to several of his lovely creations, including his home, Monticello. Was disappointed in a docent who insisted on subscribing tightly to the requirements of the architecture tour (for which we signed up special, so my bad) and resisted conveying insights into the lovely contraptions that Jefferson populated his life with through invention and acquisition.



So I secured a hefty volume that I hope will reveal all in good time, and which also contains the above quote, which startled me some but also explains the strange melancholy that seems to surround one of history's greatest hotties and one of our most prominent vegetarians.



Worth noting: Mr. Jefferson’s gravestone (at his behest) doesn’t mention his presidency. Instead it notes that he was “Author of the Declaration of Independence of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and Father of the University of Virginia”.

But nothing about holding down the highest office in the land.

Hmm.



[1] I was instructed by a Virginian of some standing that Mr. Jefferson is the proper way to address the former President.

stumped.

You've stumped me.

Presidential hopeful John McCain, according to Rolling Stone Magazine, when asked whether condoms prevent the transmission of HIV.

Was unable to find the Profiles in Pandering piece that ran in the 24 January print issue of the Magazine online, but I did find this tasty home base for the 2008 Campaign »

I suspect McCain may become the one folks love to poke fun at this time around.

feeds and seeds

Richmond, VA

a walk in the woods

a walk in the woods
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Stole a few minutes in the transition between the windowless corporate meeting rooms in which I spent the last three days and the nearly as soulless spaces of the Norfolk Airport (where my late flight to O'Hare has just been delayed another couple of hours) to steal away down HWYs 13 & 60 to Virginia's First Landing State Park abutting Chesapeake Bay.

Never saw the Bay, except for a brief drive-by, but I did get a good fix of white pine and bald cypress (see above) and sand in my shoes from the soft white trails that limn the park.

Plus a deep clean breath or two that tasted of the sea -- all of which were fine by me.

entitlement

I thought the editing, especially in the first version, was brilliant, as I said. The stories I can’t let go of in their entirety are these. “Community Center” (If It Please You) and “The Bath” (A Small Good Thing) and I’d want some more of the old couple, Anna and Henry Gates, in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” (Beginners).

I would not want “Mr. Fixit” (Where Is Everyone) in the book in its present state. The story “Distance” should not have its title changed to “Everything Stuck to Him.” Nor the little piece “Mine” to “Popular Mechanics.” “Dummy” should keep its title. “A Serious Talk” is fine for “Pie.” I think “Want to See Something” is fine, is better than “I could See the Smallest Things”…

Raymond Carver in a letter to his editor and friend Gordon Lish, concerning Lish’s edit of Carver’s book of short stories originally published in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, as cited in the 24 & 31 December 2007 issue of the New Yorker.

Letters to an Editor reads like heartbreak.

Carver’s widow, the poet Tess Gallagher, intends (maybe already has? It’s late and I can’t find my reference…) to republish the book of short stories as Raymond Carver originally intended them.

The New Yorker published Beginners in the same issue – this is the original What We Talk About… as Carver originally intended it, prior to Lish’s edits. Even more telling: The online publication of “Beginner’s”, Edited, a blow by blow account of Lish’s clear cut of Carver's work.

happy birthday, martin.

happy birthday, martin.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Posting by cameraphone from Chesapeake, VA

view from the guest room

Spent the weekend with two of my favorite people in the world at their beautiful new digs in Richmond, Virginia, where we paid our respects to a few of the movers of the American revolution, and where I was reminded once again why it is that friends matter so much; how they remind of us of what's possible; how just by showing up and sharing their stories they give us the courage to reach farther and do it better.

Posting by cameraphone on the road to Chesapeake, VA.

Welcome to Monday.
Time to get back to work.

smiling white guy

smiling white guy
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Liked this guy's smile. Shot at the Virginia
State Capitol Building where all the guys
were white, but not all of them were smiling.

The one exception was a super sweet miniature
portrait of Pocahontas wearing western clothes
and holding a lap dog.

Regretting that I didn't get off a quick shot
of that one.

Posting by cameraphione from Richmond, VA.

trestle

trestle
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Shot just outside the Virginia Holocaust
Museum at the only spot in America where,
I'm told, three railroad lines converge.

This one runs over and alongside
George Washington's canal.

Posting by cameraphone from
Richmond, VA

bill's

bill's
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Richmond, VA

Posting by cameraphone

the byrd

the byrd
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Beowulf for a $1.99
Tub of popcorn: $3.50

Posting by cameraphone from
The Byrd Movie Theater
Richmond, VA

mr. jefferson's rotunda

mr. jefferson's rotunda
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Or one of its rooms, anyway.

With Mr. Jefferson himself,
hanging over the mantle.

Posting by cameraphone from
the University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, VA

all season passageway with tree (trunk)

all season passageway with tree (trunk)
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Paying respects to Mr. Jefferson.

Posting by cameraphone
from Monticello, VA

tunneling

tunneling
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Enroute from Norfolk to Richmond, VA. I think we're under that river that feeds into Chesapeake Bay.

I have, however, only a Mapquest Map and it's uninterested in the names of rivers.

Posting by cameraphone.

if we know nothing of blood

Who was it who said that to be truly happy one must think about death for at least five minutes every day?

Here's your five minutes: Joe Wilkins' Of Blood and Bone in this month's Orion Magazine.

Not a bad way to get the job done. At all.

that time we went to the ocean

It was a story sparsely told by a friend at a time when I had curled in on myself like a bear under the onslaught of winter, eager to sleep through the cold that surrounded me. It contained both diagnosis and prescription.

Of the time when, as a child, newly arrived with her family from China, they decided to see the sea, and drove to the Pacific. In just a few lines she painted her wide eyed small self rushing to the edge of the water, taking in the expanse, shouting to the waves, asking her father: “Is it the biggest thing in the world?”

And she told me of her father, catching up to her racing feet, placing his arms around her small frame. “Almost,” he said, as they stared out together across the wide ocean. “Only the heart is bigger than this.”

i wish i could cry

Saturday Looks Good To Me 5
Originally uploaded by rulesqualified.

A series of Setlists from rulesqualified »

Just found entirely by accident in rulesqualified's Flickrstream.

They brought me great joy (for reasons I don't entirely understand) so I thought I would bring them to you.

bacon bits

with many thanks to Martin

midwestern wisdom

framing the problem
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

It's more fun to bowl than to shovel.

Tagline on a bowling alley marquee, spotted on my way into work this morning.

So you just keep that in mind the next time you're, well, shoveling.

googleganger

An individual with the same name as you whose records and/or stories are mixed in with your own when you Google yourself.

Cf. doppleganger.

Today's Urban Dictionary Word of the Day

urban cowboy

(c)David Rathman

Maybe I would been more deeply moved by the exhibits at the New Museum if they hadn’t been mere punctuation marks in the larger conversation that Rahul and I had over the weekend -- catching up, tossing ideas around, pondering whether some of the “under construction” installations were actually constructed installations -- whether they were messing with us or, really, just working it out.



Either way I have no regrets -- the catching up was the best part. Of the experience the “Hell, Yes” rainbow on the exterior of the building (just me? or so delightfully Japanese?) moved me more than the whole of it, even more than the lovely stacked boxes that made up the structure -- chiefly because the traffic flow through those boxes, which relied heavily on large elevators to transport people between floors and seemed better able to accommodate the ingress over the egress, left me, well, to state the obvious: Unmoved. (And when I’m trying to get from floor to floor I like to be, at the very least, *capable* of motion.)

But I did come away with a treasure: A small chapbook of Minneapolis artist David Rathman’s cowboy sepias. A chapbook that I thought I might hoard for myself but which Rahul, in keeping me honest, has reminded me that I said something like “my dad would love these...” as I was oohing and aahing over the laconic compositions which Rathman creates, according to the book’s preface, by first snapping polaroids of old Westerns which he renders in inky sepia and then, on many, overlays found snippets of dialog.

And you know how much we like the found here at detritus. (With apologies to my brother, AMB, who once stated declaratively during a visit to the AIC, “I don’t like words with my art.”)

The Clementine Gallery has posted a few of Rathman’s pieces online -- but unfortunately their selection doesn’t speak to what this whole little chapbook reveals. The pieces they’ve chosen to post are largely without the dialog, which I suspects makes them more commercially safe.

But I prefer the ones that speak aloud to no one in particular, saying things like: “My vices were magnificent.” “Every day above ground is a good day.”

And: “This used to be a proud town.”

This one’s coming your way, Dad. Just give me a few more days with it.

the landscape of the play

This is the only shot -- a poor one, I'm afraid -- that I managed to get off last night at the Imperial before the owner of this Playbill returned to his seat and lifted it away as the curtain rose on Tracy Letts' August: Osage County.

Seeing a Steppenwolf production on Broadway is like visiting old friends who have moved to the big city from the somewhere where you first met: They're shinier, a little wiser, maybe wearing a careworn hipness about them -- but they're still old friends and the time you spend together feels a whole lot like home.

Lett's delivered a three act monster production peopled by all the shining lights of Steppenwolf (left my Playbill behind so I'll have to circle back with names and their proper spellings [1] -- but Amy Morton led the pack, of course) and Lett's script managed to do that marvellous thing that he did so well in the Man from Nebraska -- portray the way people take on the essence of the place they're from and the places they escape to -- creating a humane terroir of the kind that characterizes wine in which you can taste the earth and the sunlight (or lack thereof) in each sip.

The only sour note in the whole Oakie-gothic middle class drug addled production was the wardrobing of the 14 year old reportedly from Boulder, Colorado. The clothes looked 14-years old enough -- but they weren't the clothes of a 14 year old pothead who grew up under the Flatirons with a CU professor father. Not even close.

But certainly to the point, which is that we carry the unconscious artifacts of our surroundings with us. Wardrobe, in this case, brought something to the table that looked like very much like Evanston, Illinois.

Completely unrelated: Stephen Sondheim was seated nearby, catching a show in his neighborhood. Unrushed. Smiling. Standing to let a late arrival stutter past his knees. Entirely organic to the city he calls home, and scattering, unconsciously, a little of that magic pixie dust as he smiled, stood and moved.

Posting by cameraphone.
Just about home myself.

[1] The whole cast is laid out beautifully in this NY Times Review »

smokestacks, bent

smokestacks, bent
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

On the road to LaGuardia. Homeward bound.

And after 5 nights away I'm so ready to be home.

Posting by cameraphone from NY (for just a little while longer)

I can see you

I can see you
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Shot in Soho, NY

Posting by cameraphone
from the road home

the new museum

boxed in

boxed in
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Spent the afternoon losing my way with** an old friend through the New Museum of Contemporary Art, which really *is* a new museum (designed by architects Sejima & Nishizawa) and is also *called* the New Museum.

The structure and the exhibits were wholly disorienting.

Which is not entirely a bad thing.

The going without my big gun camera? That was kind of a bad thing.

Posting by cameraphone from NYC.

**and catching up and eating lots of good food with too.

south of houston

south of houston
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Just South of Houston which, I'm told, means we're in Soho. (SOuth HOuston)

And Houston? By all means *don't* pronounce it like a city in Texas -- instead lead with the word "house" if you want to avoid the subsequent moment in which the cabbie asks: "So where are you from?"

Which carries the subtext: "Because clearly you're not from here."

Posting by cameraphone from NYC

after the show

After Elaine went home, around 1.30 AM
Cafe Carlyle, NYC

the leavings of the evening

the leavings of the evening
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

How is it possible for an 82? 83? year old woman to be so extraordinarily *sexy* on stage? After some discussion we've narrowed it down to this: Appetite.

Wanting it. Doing what you need to do to get it. And yeah: Sharing a slice of that pie with the generousity of the best kind of hostess.

Just wrapped up an evening at the Cafe Carlyle with the Kari & Sarah & the inimitable Elaine Stritch where she delivered her At Liberty show with more intimacy and perfect timing than was nearly bearable.

Laughed. Cried. So good. All of it.

Except, for maybe, the bill.

Posting from cameraphone from NYC.

true religion

true religion
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

The interview of actor Josh Brolin, by NY Times critic Caryn James for the Times' newly expanded Arts & Leisure Week, unfolded just as you might expect it would: beautifully, spontaneously played and ultimately well-rehearsed, what with the well-placed pauses and those deep sniffs that hard bodies like Brolin interject to make it look like they're not trying too hard.

I went because I'm a whore for any and all info I can scarf up re the Coen's "No Country For Old Men", and came away entirely glad I had -- even after the hopeful parade of actors had commandeered the mic with thoughtful questions like "Who does your head shot?"

How could you not enjoy the delightful eye candy of a working boy in mojo boots telling stories about directors and acting (most of which you can read if you google any of his recent interviews) and occasionally spinning out lovely L.A.isms like: "I believe if you create a hole [in your life] it will be filled -- either with gold or with shit."

But ultimately I had to love the man for his returning and eternal reverence to the importance of story over spectacle -- its "imaginative sense" and his observation that, in recent movies, "stories are starting to surface again."

Truly, a man of the cloth.

p.s. Brolin's created a short film called Ex -- or maybe X? -- that appears to be quite good and will soon be extended into a full-length feature.

and bacon.

Did I mention the bacon?

It's arrived, and is simply magnificent.

late breakfast, pershing square

late breakfast, pershing square
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Restaurant is snugged under that piece of
Park Avenue that wraps around Grand Central
and bridges out again until it at last runs
straight and flush into the 30's and beyond.

Waiting for eggs. Then it's back to work.

Posting by cameraphone from NYC.

buy john hodgman a vowel

Fisheye Scrabble
Originally uploaded by Word Freak.

It's no secret that I'm a John Hodgman fangirl, but I'm an even bigger fan of supporting kids and the development of their creative and expository writing skills (oh? you didn't know that?).

If you are too here's your chance: Hodgman's playing in Scrabble for Cheaters this next Saturday in NYC, along with John Oliver -- and is looking for sponsors.

All the proceeds go to 826NYC -- which is an organization that is simply loaded with goodness.

You can buy the poor guy a vowel for $50 -- or confer the chutzpah to make up a word for a mere $500.

You know: for kids!**

Or as David Plouffe would say: DONATE NOW!

** 10 points if you got the Hudsucker Proxy reference.

of ducks & alphabets

Had the great good honor of meeting alphaduck of Choka fame today.

We talked of ducks and alphabets and how to keep writing couplets even after the walls of fame and alleys of shame have gone dark.

Stay tuned.

Posting by cameraphone from NYC.

jersey turnpike

jersey turnpike
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Lincoln Tunnel just ahead.
Posting by cameraphone.

haybales

haybales
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Wrong turn somewhere near King of Prussia, PA.

Posting by cameraphone from the road

contact with the sprinkler will cause flooding

Two kinds of people in this world:

One sees a sign like this and simply obeys.

The other sees the universal red slash -- this
one or any other -- and imagines how events
would unfold if they went ahead and did the
thing depicted.

In exacting detail.

Or maybe there are actually three kinds of
people: the third one goes ahead and does it.

Posting by cameraphone from a
hotel room in Devon, PA

search me

Search is one of the most powerful editorial functions in our society today, and we should really demand that it be done in an open and transparent way.

So the project is really a bit of a political statement by me about what we should all be looking for in an open society and an open Internet.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales commenting on today’s beta release of the new collaborative search engine Wiki.com in DM News.

Wales assures us all that Wiki.com is based on principles of “transparency, community, quality and privacy”.

freedom to pillage

Something you probably already know: The Chicago Tribune Tower contains, in its stone facade, some 136 fragments from historical sites around the world. From the Wikipedia entry on the Tower:

Prior to the building of the Tribune Tower, correspondents for the Chicago Tribune brought back rocks and bricks from a variety of historically important sites throughout the world at the request of Colonel McCormick. Many of these reliefs have been incorporated into the lowest levels of the building and are labeled with their location of origin. Stones included in the wall are from such sites as the Trondheim Cathedral, Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, the Great Pyramid, The Alamo, Notre-Dame, Abraham Lincoln’s Tomb, the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall among others.

In all, there are 136 fragments in the building. More recently a rock returned from the moon was displayed in a window in the Tribune giftstore (it could not be added to the wall as NASA owns all moon rocks, and it is merely on loan to the Tribune), and a piece of steel recovered from the World Trade Center has been added to the wall.

It's not clear whether the correspondents had permission to lift these artifacts: What is known is that they had mandate from their boss, McCormick, to do so.

remembering summertime slushies

Denver, CO

on being a mermaid

Karri’s always wanted to be a mermaid. I want her to be successful but I don’t see a lot of future in it as a career. Maybe when she gets a little farther along, she’ll go to college.

Ronald Holliday, commenting on his daughter’s career choice, in Mermaids Past and Present Keep Things Real in this Sunday’s New York Times.


My big sister once aspired to be a mermaid, and I’ve long wanted to interview her about that aspiration for detritus. Reading about Karri Holliday’s working world in this morning's New York Times gave me the impetus to get it done.

suttonhoo: When did you first know that you wanted to be a mermaid?
suttonhoo’s big sister: When I was 5 years old and and I read the book Peter Pan. They were just so lovely siting there on the rock in the lagoon and that just seemed like a good place to hang out (perhaps it was the glamour of the aerial shot). It’s more like a vanity thing: I wanted to be a pretty mermaid sitting on a rock in a lagoon.

What about the job appealed to you most?
The being lovely part -- I just adored those mermaids -- it’s probably something to do with being adored; sitting on a lovely rock and being admired by Peter Pan and whoever flew over.

What are the chief responsibilities of being a mermaid?
Handling all that admiration with the style that only a mermaid could possess. Pretty much sitting around being admired -- just being gracious about the whole admiration thing; being worthy of the admiration. I didn’t want to be a jerk mermaid -- I wanted to be a kind, benevolent mermaid.

This reply spurred an exchange about my sister’s career as a cheerleader -- when we were in school she made a name for herself by being a “nice” cheerleader, not a “stuck-up” cheerleader. (I, on the other hand, was the farthest thing from *any* kind of cheerleader. But we won't dwell on that here.)

Looking back, do you see any ties between a cheerleader and being a mermaid?
Definitely -- cheerleading is a way to be admired and it’s a way to get attention; it’s a way to be popular.

What are the chief perks about being a mermaid?
All that admiration -- it’s all about being loved, really. I had no concept back then about what you needed to do to be successful; I wonder if it’s also about being a girl -- it’s maybe just a societal thing of “you’ll get what you need if you’re pretty”. I didn’t want to be a cancer-curing mermaid: I wanted to be a pretty mermaid.

Do you think your professional career was influenced by your early desire to be a mermaid? (My sister was regional director of a national non-profit before she became a full-time mom.)
Yeah -- on some level -- the way I behaved in my career had roots in my desire to be a mermaid; my competitiveness, the things I did to be admired; the things I did that I didn’t even enjoy doing in order to be admired -- here I was in this career that I had no real joy in doing, but I excelled at it because -- because I wanted to be mermaid.

Would you encourage America’s young people to pursue a career as mermaid?
I think there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be admired, but I think that you shouldn’t get your self-worth based on what other people think. I don’t think that’s the ticket -- but I think that if being a mermaid makes you happy...

A lot is lost in the pursuit of admiration, if it’s not feeding your soul.

So I would say: Be a mermaid with caution. I’m not sad that I ever wanted to be a mermaid, because it kind of opens you up to figure out what’s important and what’s not.

You can’t tell people not to do their stupid things -- you have to let them do their stupid things so that they can figure it out.

It’s a funny story -- my wanting to be a mermaid -- and the reason I decided not to -- when I finally decided I didn’t want to be a mermaid wasn’t because they were imaginary -- it was because they didn’t wear tops. I was so adamant about wanting to be a mermaid and our babysitter told me: “Oh you don’t want to do that: they didn’t wear clothes”. I was 5 & 1/2 when that happened -- this dream was not a lifelong thing -- it lasted about 6 months -- I didn’t hold on to it forever.

shoe repair

repair
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Why yes, Virginia: As a matter of fact there IS a whole Flickr group dedicated entirely to shoe repair signage »