I was obliged to spend several days shopping for sports shoes. I was struck by their ugliness; and uniform ugliness, too: there are certain design traits which they all share, a kind of lumpy swelliness emphasized by the use of piece-meal decoration in contrasting colors, intended to look like shards of blown up egg splattered on the broken shell. I said to two ladies, who having been rendered helpless by the appearance of the shoes, stood before the shelf with their shoulders drooping in a dispirited resignation, unable to choose, perhaps unwilling to take any one in hand: "They all look like toothbrushes, don't they?" The ladies agreed emphatically and with a kind of relief at being understood, but we were all wrong: the toothbrushes are now like like sports shoes, not the other way around. God only knows why, but the sad consequence is that I am obliged to brush my teeth with my eyes closed. Otherwise I feel that I am brushing my teeth with a sneaker.
A leaflet advertised one of the shoe designs as having an "aggressive profile". It boggles the mind.
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