Senses and Shoe Shining
In the chapter on touch, Diane Ackerman suggests that shoe shining is one of humanity's "frequent emporiums of touch". That actually really bothered me. Now, I'm not a millionaire, and I don't live in the nineteenth century, so I've never been drawn to have my shoes shined. But I've walked by shoe shiners, seen them longingly stare at the scuffed shoes of passerby in the Boston and Providence train stations.
Now, I agree, it is a fact that a shoe shiner must touch the shoes of the shoe shinee to perform their duty, but to cite shoe shining as if touch was the most important sense involved- that's just ignoring what shoe shining is all about. Do you get your shoes shined because you enjoy feeling your shoes? Or because you want them to look better? There is a factor of preventing wear and tear, but a shoe shining is not a foot massage. The only touching involved is indirect contact through a shoe. If you get your shoes shined because you want the shoe shiner to touch your feet, please talk to your therapist.
Not only would I argue that sight is by and large the most important sense for perceiving shoe shinings and shined shoes, but the smell of the shining compounds is definitely more overwhelming than the delicate rub of the shiner.Even though I've never had my shoes shined, just from being in the vicinity of shiners, and from years of stocking shoe shine at Benny's, I can conjure the smell in my head. Fortunately, tasting is usually not involved in shoe shining, since shoe shines are probably as bad for you as tide pods.
Touch might be your number one sensation during a shoe shining if you are the shoe shiner, and you're a blind anosmiac.
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| http://www.asiatraveltips.com/newspics/0610/HongKongAirportShoeShine.jpg |
Now, I agree, it is a fact that a shoe shiner must touch the shoes of the shoe shinee to perform their duty, but to cite shoe shining as if touch was the most important sense involved- that's just ignoring what shoe shining is all about. Do you get your shoes shined because you enjoy feeling your shoes? Or because you want them to look better? There is a factor of preventing wear and tear, but a shoe shining is not a foot massage. The only touching involved is indirect contact through a shoe. If you get your shoes shined because you want the shoe shiner to touch your feet, please talk to your therapist.
Not only would I argue that sight is by and large the most important sense for perceiving shoe shinings and shined shoes, but the smell of the shining compounds is definitely more overwhelming than the delicate rub of the shiner.Even though I've never had my shoes shined, just from being in the vicinity of shiners, and from years of stocking shoe shine at Benny's, I can conjure the smell in my head. Fortunately, tasting is usually not involved in shoe shining, since shoe shines are probably as bad for you as tide pods.
Touch might be your number one sensation during a shoe shining if you are the shoe shiner, and you're a blind anosmiac.
I fixed your pic. You needed to upload the jpg itself, not just the link. What's interesting to me about your post and the picture you chose to illustrate it is the social relations, that is social hierarchies, the touch involved in shoe-shining implies. Ackerman talks about how social conventions, hierarchies, and taboo control who can touch whom and where. So....what else do you think is going on here besides what you already said in your post?
ReplyDeleteHaha yes! I chose that picture precisely because it very clearly demonstrates the social hierarchy that is typical of the shoe shiner vs. shoe shinee. There definitely is a an aspect of the rich being smug, or something like it, over making someone in a lower rung on the social ladder do menial work.
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