From
Bootblack to Wolfe Scholar: The Literary Journey of Aldo P Magi.
(11) She meets the Greek proprietor of a fruit shop, a young Italian
bootblack, and the daughter of Romanian Jews, whose father's longing to go to Jerusalem evokes another sort of national desire.
into the ground by accepting holidays and drink for himself in exchange for advertising space, instead of regular payments into the magazine's accounts; claimed he lived in a "chic little pad in Soho" which was, in fact, a lino-floored, neon-lit dormitory which he shared with dozens of Italian waiters; dyed his hair with
bootblack; pretended his friend's country estate was his own, hosting lavish parties there when the real owner was away; regularly out stayed his welcome at friends' homes, drinking their houses dry in the process, and, was even suspected by some 'friends' of running the alleged Soho vice ring, which he had claimed in The Sun newspaper to have "busted".
In a 1937, Anslinger warned in The American Magazine that marijuana users "may often develop a delirious rage during which they are temporarily and violently insane," resulting in "a desire for self-destruction or a persecution complex to be satisfied only by the commission of some heinous crime." He blamed marijuana for armed robberies, "degenerate sex attacks," the random killing of an elderly
bootblack, cold-blooded murders of police officers, and a rampage in which a young man hacked his entire family to death with an ax.
It tells the magical story of a poor girl who tries to make a living selling matches in the cold London streets, of her heartfelt friendship with the young
bootblack Arthur, her meeting with a kind wealthy girl called Charlotte, and the cruelty of her father Jebb.
While hailing my scrambles as a student leader, he urged me, as a former newsboy and
bootblack, to lead the peasants in their struggle for liberation.
Gough worked as a
bootblack and owned his own shop.
We meet Andrew, a land-owning
bootblack who buffs the shoes of well-dressed men, "his face aflame with pride"; neighbors waving flags in a parade or tending their gardens, planting for a future that would change course suddenly; Freddy the schoolboy who wonders about the fathomless skies; Obadiah, Diana, Angelina, and others whose hearts are draped in melancholy musings about freedom and the elusive hope of justice.
He has relationships, both official and social, with the leaders of the community, political, religious, economic, educational; and to him the porter and the
bootblack are real persons.
In 2015, he moved to provide some philosophical mediation and contemplation in an ironic way in his outstanding novel "A Man Who Hates Shoes", aiming to portray the miserable life of the
bootblack who is waiting for a miracle to change his pathetic circumstances and austere life.
The second theme or cluster represents the overriding notion of equality of the law, where the landlord, the labourer, the capitalist, the proletariat, the minister, the
bootblack are equal as citizens and as legislators.43
The high stepping "indios," or rather white residents of Valdepitorros smeared in
bootblack as reporter Perez Zuniga improbably describes them, are symptomatic of the sustained fascination with ethnic otherness that marked popular journalism in the late nineteenth century.
Remembering the
bootblack who offered to pay for sex, Eduardo finds him and goes into the restroom with him.
On the
bootblack as a "modern innovation," see HW, 19 Sept.