A new blog is up...

I've "started" a new blog dedicated to culture in Spain and, to a larger degree, in Europe, but I haven't posted anything yet...

napoleonatseven.blogspot.com

The end of Supplying Demand...

Supplying Demand is finished, but I'll be starting another blog centered around Spanish and European culture soon. Check back for more information.

And, of course, thanks for reading.

B.W.I.

Supply: Teddy Shoes

I stopped by Teddy Shoes in Central Square, Cambridge the other day to talk to Steven Adelson, the owner and son of Teddy, who opened the store in 1957. They started off with factory close-outs and seconds (thus the "Cancellations" below the name), but then got more specialized in 1993, when he bought $3,000 worth of Capezio dance shoes and the sole right to distribute them in Cambridge.

At the time, it was a big investment. I thought I was going to poop my pants.

Since then, he's done orders of $30,000, so now it's not so much a big deal.

The store is, it's fair to say, packed, and carries many kinds of specialized shoes and outfits, often stuff that is discontinued or otherwise hard to find. Steve said they'd recently gotten orders from Bahrain, France, and Malaysia. Dance shoes are a big part of his business, but not the only one.

We carry a lot of unique sections of the market: ladies' heels, cross-dressers, cross-gender.

He said one reason men who cross-dress come to him is that he's got heels in their (large) size.

We talked quality and style. "You can have a shoe that's plastic and looks like leather and feels like it," Steven explained, pulling a pair of men's dress shoes off the shelf. He thinks making the customer happy is more important than what the shoe is made of. Later, a woman came who speaking French, and he explained their refund policy in her language. (He said he picked it up in high school.) After she left he explained (succinctly) his perspective:

If the customer can't bring something back, what good is that?

Steven got busy, and I wandered around. Vicki Morgenstern was trying things on.

It's a dying art, these shoes. It's like a Parisian store.

We talked about how his business has changed. He can sell stuff now that he wouldn't have before.

The store and product mix have become more yuppified...for example, tango shoes for upwards of $200.

The Internet has been bad for Teddy Shoes, partly, Steven said, because people try things on in the store then go home and buy them online. Steven's started his own sites to counteract that, though.

Steven got busy again, and I started talking to Amanda Kupiel, a young woman, originally from Ghana, who works in the store. I asked her for tips for women. "If you want to make jeans and a top dressy, you just put on heels," she explained. We starting talking about heels; Amanda's 5'10" and is afraid to wear ones that are too high. "The highest I'll go is 4 inches," she said. We talked about the dangers of going higher.

Is it intimidating to guys?

It's intimidating to me!

Steven shut the store, and I prepared to go. We talked about why there were so many different kinds of shoes in the world. "Everybody has their own whistles they walk to," he said, and I left.

Demand: Hooni, 25 July 2009, Boston Common

I mostly talked hair with Hooni, who was from Korea. He cuts his hair in layers and waxes it to get a spiky, pointed look, which he acknowleged was kind of androgynous. (He said he was inspired by Korean actor Won Bin.) We talked about the difference between American and Korean approaches to hair.

American guys want to be more masculine. We're more 50/50. It's a trend in Korea to be a more girlish guy. It's not gay.

Demand: Lauren, 24 July 2009, Loews Boston Common

I approached Lauren because of her massive shades. It turned out that she works at the ICA. We talked about how artists don't wear preppy clothes and whether a preference for Urban Outfitters over Abercrombie & Fitch was really actually sort of arbitrary.

She explained that she'd gotten her moccasins three years ago from Minnetonka Moccasins and that they were real leather.

You're going to a funeral and then a monster truck rally on the same day, and you don't have time to change. What do you wear?

I can't even picture what it would be like at a monster truck rally...

What wouldn't you be caught dead in that your parents might wear?

My mom has some pretty good-looking mom jeans, but I wouldn't wear them.

What's hottest: robots, ninjas, pirates or elves?

Robots.

Why?

My boyfriend walks like a robot.

Supply: Fishs Eddy

I was in Manhattan, on vacation, and my friend asked if we could stop in this store. Fishs Eddy was at first glance a domestics store, but with that kind of understated flair for kitsch that seems to be everywhere now. Below, the photographic evidence.

Supply: fire art

I ran into Logan on Boston Common, where he was practicing rope dart with a small group. Rope dart is a length of rope with a small dart attached, or, in Logan's case, a fist-sized ball. You alternately wrap the rope around parts of your body -- your arms, legs, even your neck -- and twist around in order to launch it, often using the momentum already built up.

It's very uncommon in the U.S. Ultimately I want to find somebody to teach me. The reason I teach is to find somebody to surpass me.

The twist is that Logan does this as fire art, which is to say the fist-sized ball he is swinging around is, in performance, lit on fire.

He also does "contact fire", aka "fleshing", which means putting a thin strip of fuel across the skin and lighting it. Normally, Logan explained, you ignite the line and, at the end of the line, there's a torch of some sort waiting to be lit off of your body.

A lot of the appeal of fleshing is being naughty. Every performance I've seen has been very sensual.

I had to ask him about accidents; he told me about a time he was using the fire whip.

When you crack the whip, it literally shoots fireballs.

There was a time when one blew back on him, but, of course, he survived.

I've been on fire -- I know how to put myself out...The entire left half of my torso was on fire.

I had to ask, "Why fire art?" He says it's largely because of the performance aspect, and, of course, a touch of fascination with flame. Julia, another performer, added, "It's the adult version of pyromania that doesn't include burning things down."