Cirque de Sole

     This may be the first time I've needed to tell you about something from the morning newspaper --  forgive me, but it's a real Hey-Doris! item and I have nobody else to yell "Did you see this!" to.
     It seems that hundreds of Sneakerheads paid $20 each to attend a convention here yesterday -- the Cirque de Sole.  While some limited edition sneakers sell for a few hundred dollars each, it's evidently the after-market that really counts.  Yesterday here, one collector paid $2,500 for some sneakers ("trainers", to you Canadians), and another rejected $6,000 for a pair of Nike Air Jordans made for the rapper Drake.  One organizer described the subculture as "the intersection of collectibles and fashion."
     Don't know why I'm so surprised.  A few years ago here, I was looking on the Internet for an illustration to go with my memory of wearing shoes fastened with a buttonhook (also associated in whispers with abortions back then) -- and I ran into a thriving Buttonhook Society, with meetings, conventions, display case exhibitions...clearly there's an organization for just about any obsession you can imagine.
     That set me to wondering about the possible value of my son's tattered Converse hi-tops, circa 1967, that hang on that nail by the furnace.  But when I went to take a picture for you, I discovered to my horror that the nail is empty!  Someone must have stolen those, somewhere over the years.  I'll bet they've been smuggled out of the country.  They'll probably show up at a convention in Zurich next year, priced at who knows how many thousands of euros.


This would have been BEFORE -- and I'll never be able to show you AFTER.