The Eyes Have It

The eyes are the windows to the soul.

This quote is so old that it has lost its origin in the sands of time. I’ve seen it attributed to Shakespeare, Leonardo, Shaw, the Bible, Darwin and a host of others. I’ve seen it listed as an English proverb, a traditional proverb and one of Aesop’s proverbs, even though Aesop told fables and not proverbs but what’s a fable between friends. The whole world seems to think this is true.

I’ve spent a lot of time using my own eyes and I’m not at all certain about the soul but I am sure it would be hard to do much arting if you didn’t have eyes. No, not impossible and it might take a switch to some more tactile media but you can create art without eyes, but it ain’t easy and maybe you should do all you can to keep your eyes working as they should and not have to learn a new skill at this late point in the game.

Eyes are important to art from so many directions it is hard to say which is the most important. Does having eyes to see with make more sense than seeing the twinkle in the eyes of a subject and how many of our Hollyweird stars would be so desirable without those dancing eyes which make us watch with eyes full of stars?

Some become stars because of physical attributes which we as mere mortals can only admire and pant after. There is only one George Clooney and he seems pretty happy making movies and dating impossibly slim women of foreign descent.

The same can be said for Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie or Charlize Theron and yes, I did list more women than men because I have more experience staring at women than I do at men, in fact I don’t stare at men at all cause that would get me whacked around the parking lot by band of homophobic vigilantes and even though they’d be blaming the blameless and taking out their own latent…well they’d be doing it wrong and besides I find women much more stare able so I stare at women and can say with complete subjectivity women are just more enjoyable staring subjects than men.

 And some of those women have a trick of artifice which makes all of those slinky curves and elegant limbs and fabulous dress immaterial. They have flashing eyes. Just ask Hallmark. A few years ago they hired Catherine Bell to make a little Hallmark holiday movie filled with all of the usual Hallmark schmaltz and soap. They figured an out-of-work actress from a second-rate television series would work cheap and if the movie didn’t bring in huge audiences it would fill the time slot and that would be okay cause it was for Halloween and they were going to get hammered by the scary Halloween movies like Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street and wiped out by the funny Halloween movies like Practical Magic which is and Arsenic and Old Lace which should be mandatory holiday viewing and still holds all of the charm it did when the one joke it had was fresh, (You don’t know that in the original Broadway production Jonathan Brewster was played by Boris Karloff and when the story says the insane killer goes crazy every time someone says he looks just like Boris Karloff, it was because it was Boris Karloff?), and so they figured a little made-for-TV-movie with an out-of-work actress like Catherine Bell would be safe.

They hadn’t counted on Catherine Bell’s dancing, twinkling eyes. Now Sister Bell has many attributes which ought to belong in the anatomy hall of fame but when she flashes those peepers look out, there is no way you can avoid being completely sucked in. Probably why The Good witch has become Hallmark’s staple go-to filler for any occasion when a crowd might be handy to have. (I do hope Ms Bell’s agent wrote a good contract and they must have done all right cause there have been three additional Good Witch films and they could make another one any time now.)

Anyway, back to the peeps, even if you aren’t Catherine bell, you should take good care of the old peepers. I hear diabetics are more likely to cheat than alcoholics. My doctor got me to play straight the first time when he said the magic words: Blind and on dialysis, that gob-smacked me good enough to stick to the rules.

And since you don’t want to be without your eyes and eyes are so important to art and since even the subjects of art need eyes to make those paintings so fantastic, you really think an enigmatic smile made the Mona Lisa so famous? What about that hooded look? You can tell that lady has something on her mind that does not meet with the seal of approval of the PTA.

So to keep your eyes and all of the eyes of your subjects and family in good shape, I want you to consider Zenni Optical

http://www.zennioptical.com/

Yes, it does take a bit of thought to order and you’ll have to learn how do read your prescription, but the amount of money you save will be a wonder. Now in Oregon where things like glasses become a write off on your taxes it is hard to justify not just heading over to the local eye joint and handing in your script and being done with it the very first thing.

But even if you are going to get back all of the money you spend on your cheaters at the end of the year, finding the scratch right now can be challenge. I tried these guys cause the local folks sort of shafted me on the last pair of glasses I got. I paid close to four hundred dollars for the frames and the lenses and within a year the frames failed and they wouldn’t or couldn’t fix tem and just shrugged and said you’ll have to go in and get a new prescription.

Thanks a bunch. So when I learned about Zenni I thought I’d give them try. I’ve had two pairs of glasses made, one a single vision set of readers and the other bifocals. Yes, thank you very much I am that old.

I couldn’t be more pleased. The two pair cost less than fifty dollars, I got the first set in about two weeks and the readers came in seven days and that is faster than I would have gotten them if I had gone local.

So I think you should take a look and give them a try. I hope you have exactly the same good experience I did and if you don’t the price will be so low it was worth a bet even if they don’t get it right and they probably will so I’m just saying that you ought to give them a shot so that you can save some money and have more art supplies in your box instead of buying another Mercedes for the guys at the optical plant.