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illustration by Stephen Appleby-Barr

The Double Knot

I pull a Houdini

by Miriam Toews

illustration by Stephen Appleby-Barr

Published in the Escape: Summer 2008 issue.  » BUY ISSUE     

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I‘m in a bag. I’m in a straitjacket in a bag. It’s a sky-blue laundry bag that Angie my ex-wife made me, and there are two, maybe three hundred people standing around watching me try to get out of it. I’m pretty sure the little shit I picked for a volunteer tied a double knot in the drawstring, his idea of a joke, so I’m stuck, I’m rolling around on the pavement and I’ve got one minute precisely to get out of the straitjacket and then out of the goddamn bag or this bit will die and I’ll lose my crowd. The kid is counting down the seconds by tens. I’m miked up and I’m yelling things at the crowd, I’m making them laugh. I’ve got music playing, it’s loud, all horns, blasting from my Peavey and yeah, this is supposed to be a killer bit. But the kid has gone and tied a double knot and now I’m fucked. If it was my own kid I would sit him down after this debacle and say hey, dude, why’d you mess me up like that? Do you think that’s funny? Do you think it’s funny when you trap your dad in a bag and then stand there laughing while he loses his crowd and his income and his self-respect? Maybe Angie would be there hanging around after the show and I’d ask her hey, Ang, why when we were so good together did you have to fall for a spiritual healer?? I paid for those sessions! And that Amway crap, and I . . . thirty seconds! . . . busted my ass doing shows all over everywhere to buy you cool stuff so you’d be happy and fulfilled, and even when you needed money to open your house alarm business I had nooooo problem with that, I covered it, I did extra shows in Key West and in Vegas and Made. It. Happen! I’m out of the straitjacket, but I’m not out of the bag, I’m soaked in sweat, I’m still rolling around. I’m hissing at the kid, untie the knot, kid, untie the fucking knot! But he can’t . . . twenty seconds! . . . hear me because he’s too busy laughing his head off and the music is way too loud, and maybe if I could somehow get my Leatherman out of my back pocket I could slash my way out. That would be lame but at least I’d have made it out in a minute and the crowd might be compassionate, they might not notice, but I don’t want to destroy this bag because it’s all I have left of Angie. If she’d been into it we could have had a kid, a son or a daughter, a kid that wouldn’t have left me high and dry like this, standing next to me killing himself laughing, we would have had a kid that was kind and beautiful like his . . . ten seconds! . . . like his mother, and we would have been a real family and we would have helped each other out when we were in trouble, and okay so her spiritual healer who is really a roofer represents freedom and possibility, fine, if she wants . . . now I can hear the audience, they’re counting down to zero with the kid and I’ve got my Leatherman open, I’m ready to fucking destroy the very last thing I’ve been able to salvage from my marriage, my life, my . . . three! . . . two! . . .dream, and miraculously the top of the bag opens, the knot has come loose. So I calm down, I breathe, I can see a patch of sky, I emerge from the bag smoking a cigarette, serene as hell, like was there a problem here? I high-five the kid, hey, we’re all friends, good fun, the crowd goes nuts and I’m done.

Miriam Toews received a 2004 Governor General's Award for her novel A Complicated Kindness.

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nike dunk:
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December 31, 2008 02:05 EST

Anonymous:


What do you
have in your closet?



How long ago
was it when shoes were just footwear?  You threw them on to go play out in the
back yard, or down on the playground.  Today, however, having a pair of sneakers
has taken on a whole new meaning, especially when dealing with sports shoes. 
What has really made the sneaker culture huge is the sport shoe industry, with
Nike and Adidas pulling up the front.  These sports icons have been worn and
styled by not only top athletes, but by people in the music industry. 




They say that it was the Nike Dunk
that started it all off.  In 1985, Nike brought out the
Nike Dunk. 
Originally these sneakers meant for the college community of basketball
players.  Instead, this style of sports shoes started the sneaker sub-culture. 
 Although this style of sneaker was designed to be used during high intensity
basketball games, the spotlight quickly turned to the fashion of wearing them,
what they looked like, and which ones you owned.  Twenty years later, Nike has
brought the Nike Dunk back on
the courts with all its retro style and performance.
But why stop
with basketball shoes?  In 2000, Nike decided to jump into the skateboarding
scene with the new Nike Skateboarding product line. 



With
Nike SB has come the
Nike Dunk SB.  For years, before
skateboarding came out from the underground scene, skateboarders utilized the
rugged design of basketball shoes.  Nike decided to capitalize on what Vans and
DC shoes had been monopolizing for years, and take what was already an amazing
sneaker, and fit it into the needs of skateboarders.  What the
Nike Dunk
SB brought in the way of performance was extra-padded tongue and their
patented Zoom Air insole. In the way of style, this sneaker has already come out
with six series, and names for them like Grip, Forbes, and Vipers.



Another blast
from the past would be the Nike Air
Force 1.  These sneakers first came out in the early 80’s.  And like the
hip hop culture, their popularity grew.  However, this band did not reach their
full fashion peek until 2002 when Nelly released the song “Air
Force Ones”. 



The other major
sports shoe brand is the Adicolor
Shoes, an Adidas Original.  The design became so popular because the
plain white canvas was adaptable by painting, drawing, and spraying on your own
personal design, and even accessories were sold to help you in your creativity. 
In 2006 they pushed the envelope further with a new color series using artists
and designers from all over the world.




Another huge sneaker that was popular with the hip hop world was the
Adidas Superstar.  A very raw
and controversial Hip Hop group that helped skyrocket the
Adidas
Superstar to stardom was Run-D.M.C. This cutting edge group was known for
wearing their Superstars out on stage, and even wrote a song dedicated to them
called “My Adidas”.  Whether its Nike or Adidas, clean out that closet, dust off
your old sneakers, and get into the game. 



December 31, 2008 02:10 EST

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