Demand: Lisa and Diana, 30 June 2009, Boston Common

Diana (left) and Lisa (right) were sitting on a bench smoking; Lisa rolled her own. They were both thrifters. Lisa was particularly enthused about thrifting her shoes. "They found me," she explained.

I noticed Lisa's bag, which was a reddish brown and had "Jamaica" in (relatively) big letters on the outside.

Have you been to Jamaica?

Lisa: No.

Do you feel that's false advertising?

Lisa: No.

Pretend you're on a blind date, and the person shows up wearing X, and you decide you will never see them again because of it. What is X?

Lisa: Assless chaps. Leather assless chaps.

Diana was wearing Sperry boat shows ("They're durable.") and tight black pants. She normally wears skirts. "No pants! No pants!" Lisa said. I wrote that down. "Three exclamation points! You only wrote down two!" she scolded me.

Diana's necklace was obviously homemade: a piece of string with a beer can tab and a little book she made.

What's in the book?

Diana: Drunk scribblings....It's been blogged before.

If you saw a person from 20 feet away and knew that they were a douchebag, what would they be wearing?

They both answered quickly and I couldn't keep up who said what, but they later said they more or less agreed with each other on the answers.

Salmon pants...a really deep-v salmon shirt...a head band...souped-up Nikes.

I searched my bag for my camera and explained that I didn't know where it was. "This is very unprofessional, Brandon," Lisa said, and then Diana spotted it hanging from an outer pocket.

Demand: Gabriele and Daniel, 30 June 2009, Boston Common

Gabriele (top) and Daniel (bottom) were visiting from Italy. As soon as I stopped them, they said they had a question for me: they wanted to know where they could find some techno music or a rave, but I couldn't help them.

I asked Gabriele about his shoes, which he called "alternative sneakers".

What does "alternative" mean?

Gabriele: Something that somebody else would look at but not buy.

Daniel has been a model and works for Dolce & Gabbana on the retail end. (I asked him about his technique: "I get into your mind and I convince you that you want it.") He wasn't happy with Americans' sense of style: "I'm disgusted with their fashion here."

Daniel: Here people don't know how to mix their style. Sometimes people dress well...But then their shoes, it's like, "What the fuck?"

Gabriele said he thought Americans were too conservative in the way they dress. He and Daniel agreed: it wasn't bad to occasionally miss as long as you were trying something new.

Gabriele: You make a lot of fucked up things before you get what you want.

I awed over Gabriele's hair a little, explaining that I'd never seen anything like it. It was closely cropped on top, but on the bottom half of the back of his head there were little dreads.

Demand: Stephone, 30 June 2009, Boston Common

Stephone recently had his prom.

I had James Brown hair...a little pompadour.

You're sitting at a cafe, and 20 feet away you see someone who is a douche bag. What are they wearing?

They're wearing khaki cargo shorts, and they look just like the guy next to them. Kind of like a lot of guys around Boston.

What's your taste in clothes?

It depends on what's clean.

His glasses were large. He says he got them from Dorothy's Boutique, where "It's all a lot of stripper clothes."

I asked him about his high-top fade, which I had noticed on a few young guys recently.

Why is the high-top fade back?

It's circa new wave, trying to bring the eighties back, but it's not going to work 'cause it's 2009.

Demand: Jeff and James, 27 June 2009, Allston

Jeff (on the right) and James (on the left) were waiting for takeout. Jeff was wearing a hat with "DR" on it, which stands "Dominican Republic", whom he had watched in the World Baseball Classic. James was wearing Sperry Top-Siders, "the most comfortable shoes ever." We discussed the problem of funky feet smell, which he claimed was not a problem, even though he wasn't wearing socks.

James had his hat on backwards; it said "Hawaii".

My neighbor gave it to me for a 6-pack of beer.

Supply: Ben & Jerry's truck, 20 June 2009, Downtown Boston

Demand: Mike and Evander, 26 June 2009, Boston Common

Evander (with curly hair, in a Lacoste shirt) and Mike (the other one) had just come from buying a golf club for Mike. I asked about Mike's shoes, which he had bought from the Providence Place mall, in a "semi-skate oriented store." It sold skate wear but no actual decks. "It's kind of selling a scene," he said. Anyway, he was sold the shoes by "a very eager crazy pregnant lady." He doesn't wear socks so his shoes smell bad: "It's infernal." He said that instead of buying socks, he buys deordorizing spray.

We starting talking about the value of collared shirts for men.

Mike: As a guy over 25, you wear a collared shirt and turn up your have-your-shit-together index by 25 percent.

Also, Evander added, without a collared shirt, "You can't buy a golf club."

You're going to a meeting of all the most important people in your life, both living and dead, and you're going to make a speech. What do you wear?

Evander: You're in a place beyond time, in a purgatory of sorts, so I think I'd go with an Eastern theme, Hindu-influenced...with pink, saffron, turqoise, silken robes...something to transcend reality.

I had already asked Mike the same question, but he focused on the details of this meeting and we never got around to specifics. I suggested that a nice suit was a logical choice, but Mike explained he never wore suits except when it was expected of him. "It's a kind of shell," he said.

Are you worshipping the club?

Evander: No, I'm honoring it.