One does not lightly call the great shoeblogger the Manolo a “lesser” anything, but in a world which considers the phreaky fashion troll John Galliano to be a major god, well we must have a point of differentiation, so there it is.
In the world of advice columns, there is a wide range of approaches and, frankly, quality of advice. I am the humble and ashamed owner of “Can My Bridesmaids Wear Black,” an etiquette book which, at $1.95 for the hardcover on the “Please get these out of our store” table, was overpriced by approximately $2. And all the new (ie late-, as opposed to mid- or early-20th Century) Emily Post books are good primarily as fodder for humorous comparisons with books which don’t suck quite so hard.
In the world of advice columnists, the gods, of greatery or lesseryness as the case may be, there are Miss Manners, Ask a Ninja, Ask a Squid, and The Manolo. Of the first three we shall not speak…yet. Of the Manolo, we shall give only the following, perfect morsel. It is the superfantastic. It will be enough.
Dear Manolo,I’ve bitten the bullet and left academia and gone back to my true love—baking. I am opening a small bakery and I need to some comfortable, yet stylish shoes that have non-slip soles, can bear being covered in butter and sugar, but would still look good when I help in the front.
KayThe Manolo says,
of the course, there are those who believe that one would be foolish to give up the golden perks of academia, such as the pleasures of frequently reading the papers in which the word “hermeneutics” appears twice in the first sentence, once juxtaposed next to the phrase “Gilligan’s Island”.What? No more faculty meetings in which the professor of Marxist marketing comes to blows with the elderly Emily Bronte scholar over the matter of parking spaces?
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raincoaster 
One look at the first set of shoes made my feet shrink and hurt. ;)
Interesting post, but you forgot to give props to possibly the greatest advice columnist ever. He covers an area far broader than mere footwear. After all, the number of people missing feet is probably greater than that of persons missing … other bits.
Anyway, allow me to correct your gaping lapse in taste (The nature of what exactly constitutes a lapse of taste on this blog being a purely academic exercise for the student interested in doing their post-grad work at Arkham).
I nominate, without fear of ruining the quality of this blog, Monsieur Dan Savage.
At the very least you have to admire the candour of someone who dispenses, in his own words “sometimes spectacularly unhelpful advice”; said advice being far more relevant and helpful to today’s hedonistic-yet-undereducated society than “Dear Prudence” or “Dear Abby”.
And for a kicker, he writes his column on the desk of the late Ann Landers, who is doubtless revolving with grace and dignity at the approximate speed of a jet engine turbine.
Ah yes, I’ve been reading Dan Savage since his column was called “Hey Faggot!” I keep forgetting about him because his column is generally at least one or two clicks off the front page of whatever site it’s on.
The loafers are just asking for this bit of early 1970’s plagiarism . . .
Rene Magritte was a drunken twit
I paint therefore I’m nothing.
And Dan the Man is a great read, even if I am straight and just happen to be jealous of many gays’ sense of taste . . . .
maybe I’m just a better grade of santorum?
I would not care to speculate on that.
Actually, I loved working with all the gays at Starbucks because it seemed that we always had the same taste in men. I will never forget being in the back room at Main & 14th and Guy came in, wordless and shaking, and all he could stutter out to me and Jaime was, “You’ve got to come out front. You’ve GOT to come out front. You’ve got to COME out front.”
And there was the most perfectly-formed male I have ever seen, doctoring up his latte at the condiment stand in perfect obliviousness to the commotion.
Oh yeah, I forgot to add that he was wearing nothing but short-shorts and flip-flops. And I’ve been partial to compound words ever since.
Well, when I decide to become gay (Donnie said it was nothing but a choice, eh?), I’ll scout out dates for you.
http://www.poormojo.org/cgi-bin/gennie.pl?Squid+137+bi
Ah yes, Poor Mojo…He’s my favorite blogging squid!