The Mechanic & the Muse: These boots are made for stumping...

Reporting

"Made in the Shade"
A package on Southern writers: profiles, interviews and an 11-state directory of writers you may never have heard of but are worth your time. Appeared in Creative Loafing chain.
"Mass Appeal"
A day-in-the-life profile of a telegenic parish priest in Miami. Published in Catholic Digest, reprinted in the St. Petersburg Times
"The Liberation of Tam Minh Pham"
How the first West Point graduate from South Vietnam disappears after the fall of Saigon, only to be rescued by his classmates two decades later. A cover story in The Washington Post Magazine

French novelist Honoré de Balzac, 19th century literary realist and tireless collector of status details, would have been proud.

On display in today's New York Times was one of those details that, as Tom Wolfe observed, is "symbolic, generally, of people's status life, using that term in the broad sense of the entire pattern of behavior and possessions through which people express their position in the world or what they think it is or what they hope it to be.

In her story about the Senatorial contest in Virginia between Republican incumbent and staunch Bush Administration supporter George Allen and anti-war Democrat and Vietnam War vet James Webb, New York Times political reporter Robin Toner made this observation:

"The war is not an abstract issue for Mr. Webb. His son, Jimmy, 24, a lance corporal in the Marines, shipped out to Iraq this month. He wears his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail, in tribute to him and “all the people sent into harm’s way.”

Mr. Webb tells his audiences that the idea came from his son, who noted that Mr. Allen always wore cowboy boots, though “there are no cowboys in Virginia.”

Accompanying the story was a floor's eye view of the same detail by Associated Press photographer Kevin Wolf, an image that more sharply demonstrates the contrast. (Click to enlarge)

From head to polished or scuffed toe, status details can speak volumes about a person's self-view; in a tight political race, even the choice of footwear could make all the difference. Writers should get as many of them in their notebooks. That way when they're looking for what best sums up a subject's appearance, they have the most apt detail to draw from.

Comments

And, likewise, I noted that Toner noted those boots, because, during a political debate between Ohio Dem. primary candidate Subodh Chandra and Ohio State Senator Marc Dann, I noted in my review of the debate that Chandra too wore cowboy boots.

Thank you for this blog entry.

Posted by: Jill | September 19, 2006 at 08:18 AM