simple is beautiful
New York Daily Photo: Different Bummer
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Thursday, 3 April 2008

Different Bummer

Some march to the beat of a different drummer. Some don't like marching or they don't have anything worth marching for - they prefer sitting. Perhaps they can't afford a drum or don't like drumming. So they sit on a park bench with white plastic glasses with slits and smile.
This was the posting's start BEFORE I tried to find some small morsel of info about these glasses to round out this tale. I did know that sunglasses like this were used by the Eskimo and arctic explorers (where glass was either unavailable or impractical). Living in the arctic, the Inuit soon discovered that they could develop snow blindness (Niphablepsia) a type of keratitis and over longer periods, cataracts. And these glasses did have a period of popularity in the 1960s.
Surprise. Apparently these glasses were all the rage in 2007, popularized by rap star Kanye West in his Stronger music video. Kanye markets them as Stronger Shades. Generically they are known as shutter shades - you can find sites online like: shuttershades.blogspot.com, shuttershadesonline.com, shutter-shades.us, strongerhsades.com etc.
So my whole story - how this person was striking out in his own small, humble way (hence - a different bummer) by donning a forgotten cheap piece of kitsch from the 1960s (perhaps because this is all he could find) - was turned upside down. The real story is quite the contrary, as he sports the latest, (nearly) hottest trend, inspired by a major Rap artist. Then again, perhaps the virulent adaptation by so many of whatever is currently fashionable is, in its own way, a different bummer ...

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