Sunday, June 25, 2006

Shoes on a Wire

I don't really have anything to say about these shoes hanging from the lines above Gladstone just west of Kent, so I thought I'd tell you about the dream I had early Saturday morning. Because hearing about other people's dreams usually bores me, I'll skip the beginning part where I was wandering around in Cornwall and start where I was falling off a skyscraper in Las Vegas.

When I am falling from great heights in a dream, I either do the Douglas Adams trick where you switch to flying by choosing not to hit the ground, or I do the body surfing trick to get myself to land in water. [Which I described for real life situations in What to do when...]

I figured that because I was fairly aware I was dreaming, the flying trick might not work, so I steered for water. I found myself over a bunch of lakes, but my subconscious mind was having none of clear blue water and I landed in a giant tank of bubbling, yellow toxic sludge.

So then I was walking in Las Vegas, dripping with toxic waste. I need a shower, I thought, but if I start looking for a shower, this dream is just going to become one of those endless search dreams where I'm trying to get a shower. I know! I'll rinse off in one of those fancy Vegas fountains! And look there's a fancy Casino fountain right here!

As I climbed over the concrete wall around the fountain, I thought: this will be good advice to put on my blog. When you're dreaming that you've been covered in toxic waste, don't go looking for a shower, instead, make a fountain appear and rinse off in it. You won't get in trouble because it's a dream.

Unfortunately, I woke up just then and didn't get to find out what the next part of the Las Vegas dream action would be, but at least I remembered the excellent advice.

Now you see that even if I'm not blogging much because of some dumb exams, I'm still thinking about blogging.

Any thoughts on the shoes?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to think shoes on a wire were indicative of people being a bit too drunk on their way home from the bar. More recently I've heard that gangs mark their territory with shoes on a wire. Or that shoes on a wire indicate that a drug dealer operates there.

Check this out: http://urbansemiotic.com/2005/12/28/shoes-on-a-wire/

Anonymous said...

Snopes, the urban legend site, did a bit on shoes on a wire too:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/gangs/sneakers.htm

Oh, and screw the exams, we're more important. ;)

Anonymous said...

You should have stayed with the wandering around Cornwall part of the dream. Perhaps you would have met some of your old friends who will be attending the 200th reunion this coming weekend.

bob said...

I think it mostly has to do with alcohol - a party starts, gets late, someone gets a notion, and takes all the shoes in the front entrance and throws em up on the outside power line. People get mad, babies get made cause no one wants to walk home in their bare feet, its really just part of evolution.

Anonymous said...

Shoes on the power lines usually indicates you can buy drugs nearby. I haven't heard about any gang type stuff in Canada... just good old weed and maybe harder stuff.

As for dreaming, I consistently have dreams where I can peddle my feet like I'm on a bike, but without anything underneath me... I'm able to float in the air or jump really far or high by floating down, etc. It's really very very cool.

It's so much a part of my dreams, that I don't really consider it out of the normal... rather, when I'm awake, I think... oh wait, I can't actually do that... damn. :)

Hope all is well. Good luck with that law type stuff. Doesn't sound like fun.

Troy aka Pimp Tea aka Brockway Biggs.
http://www.brockwaybiggs.com

David Scrimshaw said...

Zoom, Bob and Troy, thank you for filling me in on the theories behind shoe hangings. Judging by the people I've seen hanging around outside the homes there, the drug selling or party theories are both plausible.

When I took the picture there were three guys nearby who had a goth punk look. They didn't look organized enough to be in a "gang", but you never know.

Anonymous said...

All I know is that EVERYTIME I drive with the kids under the shoes at Lyon and Florence, we have to discuss WHO might have put them there, HOW they might have put them there, and of course WHY they put them there. My answer is always "I don't know. What do you think?"
Sorry can't remember any replies. But that's probably okay as other people's kids' cute comments belong in the same category as other people's dreams. Except of course for my kids and my dreams.
Jennifer Nicol