n+1: The old Payless logo was gold and orange, colors that are supposed to make consumers hungry, right?

ASH: The reason Howard Johnson’s was turquoise and orange was supposedly—this is a rumor as far as I know, I’ve never read this anywhere (I should look into it more)—that turquoise and orange make you hungry. Anyway, who says? I don’t believe that. But the orange and pale blue in the Payless logo look like Howard Johnson’s. So maybe it’s supposed to make you hungry. Hungry for shoes. I do think women buy shoes as a sublimation of eating. You can shop for shoes instead of eating.

n+1: Eh, I don’t know. I think it’s about choosing and stocking up. Women are probably still in thrall to their thousands of years as gatherers of berries and edible tubers and things. Women take a lot of pride in their power to discern and select.

ASH: Well, that’s true. Shoe shopping is like gathering tubers. Shoes are like potatoes. It’s like that Jerky Boys joke, “I’ll take my shoes with me so I’ll have them.” But I see it more as a sublimation of eating and of sex. I like women’s shoes a lot, personally. I’ve always said that if I could do it all over again, I’d be a women’s shoe designer . . . or a Nascar driver. Shoes are like cars; you slip into them. Anyway, as far as the colors of food go, I don’t buy that. I don’t believe in any of these neurological approaches or evolutionary ones either. These brain and gene studies that attempt to isolate why we “naturally” relate to phenomena the way we do—you can figure these things out by sitting around and thinking about it. You don’t need electrodes. Anyway, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but we can firmly believe today that buying shoes is like gathering tubers, and in the future people will be like “Oh yeah, right. That was back when people thought shoe shopping was like gathering tubers!”

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