027 - #blogjune - Fifty shades of glaze

"Life is more than sunglasses and hit movies. Reality - that's the main event."

-  Sylvester Stallone

Song of the day:
"Things are going great, and they're only getting better
I'm doing all right, getting good grades
The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades"
- Timbuk3

The 27th of June is SUNGLASSES day -
Did you know the history of sunglasses stretches as far back as 14th century China, when judges used eye-wear made of smoke-coloured quartz to mask their emotions.  I can't even remember the first pair I had and I looked through a lot of pictures of young me. There was one, where I dressed up as the Fonz - back in the 70's. In the 80's it did become cool to wear sunnies. I am sure Top Gun was a major influence. Most of us go through several pairs throughout our life. Some get lost, some are broken - some are just totally out of style. I have been wearing my present pair since 1999. They are subscription glasses, mainly wearing them for when I drive. I do have another pair for when we go on walks, that I bought on our trip in Orlando, Florida back in 2017.





There have been some cool sunglasses in movies, like Eddie Murphy's character in the first (and best) Beverly Hills Cop. I had the poster on my wall for a long time. His Porsche Carrera sunglasses were typical 80's style.  If you were a really cool dude, you would have similar glasses like the Blue Brothers. But as I mentioned before, pilot Maverick (Tom Cruise) was probably the biggest influence on the sale of sunnies. And with a TOP GUN 2 on the horizon, I bet the Sunglass Hut is going to have a bright future.




Now, what about comic books. Surely there are characters out there that need to show kids (and adults) that wearing sunglasses isn't just really, really cool looking - but also important protection against the harmful rays of the sun. Superman shouldn't be worried, after all he gets his powers from our sun and Batman mostly seems to come out at night. The alter ego of Daredevil, Matt Murdock wears sunglasses - but than, he is blind. I don't think Tintin ever had any shades on in his adventures across the world either. There have been comic strips where sunglasses were part of a gag on the odd occasion, like Garfield. Even in his movie poster Garfield looks cool, but than - that IS one cool cat! Talking about cool cats ...