was it me or my glasses that was here?

[lazariuk]

One time Bucky Fuller was giving a talk at a university where he had spoken previously many years before that. He was introduced as having been here before.

When he started speaking he wondered out loud what that was true of.

He pointed out that since his last talk which had been many years previous that all of the faculty had been replaced with younger ones, all of the students were new ones and as a matter of fact the hall he spoke in had since completely burned to the ground and had been replaced with a new hall and newly furnished.

He then pointed out that since then that all of the stuff of his body was now new stuff compared to the stuff that was there those 30 or more years previous. Hair had fallen out, new hair had grown, shin peeled away, new skin grown, the stuff of the cells replaced etc. Yep he said all of it was new and then he remembered that what might be the one thing in the room which was also in the room when he spoke 30 years ago were the frames for his glasses. The glass itself was new but he had been using the same frames for a very long time.

Then he said that "if I am to be thought of as an object then the frames for my glasses were more me than anything else that people are looking at" and that they might be the only object in the room that had been there those 30 years ago

Strange guy that Bucky. Imagine someone keeping the same eyeglass frame for over 30 years. Some people just seem like they never want to let go of the past.

Anyway I thought it would make a cute animation that could be called "Bucky's Glasses"
You know those time sequence animations where a man walks out of a hall and we follow his glasses. They stay while time removes all the people, burns away the hall and everything new gets put in it's place while all of the stuff of the man wearing the glasses gets blown away and new stuff comes around to take it's place. The glass in the frames gets replaced from time to time and then we have a man bringing those glasses frame back into the new hall with the new people in it and then at the end of the animation we have some words come out of the emptiness of one side of the glasses and it says "Hmmm this place look familiar" and then out of the emptiness of the other side comes "Yeah we've been here before"

Cute?

[Sue]

Strange guy that Bucky. Imagine someone keeping the same eyeglass frame for over 30 years. Some people just seem like they never want to let go of the past.

30 years? Maybe. I just looked for some pictures of him and having studied them quite closely he seems to be wearing a different pair in each.



in picture 1 they look like solid plastic, with the side pieces attached halfway down the lens
in 2 they seem to be rimless, or with light metal frames
3 are solid again but with sidepieces coming from the top
4 are plastic but with metal nose bridge and little metal flashes at the corners; definitely a different pair from 3

Interesting story, memory is a strange thing.

[lazariuk]

3 are solid again but with sidepieces coming from the top
4 are plastic but with metal nose bridge and little metal flashes at the corners; definitely a different pair from 3

Interesting story, memory is a strange thing.

Thanks Sue
3 and 4 look to me like they could be the same glasses but on further looking I would agree with you. I am not certain that the time span was thirty years. I know that he was in his 80's when he told the story. How long does the body take to replace all of it's stuff? Anyone know?

Speaking about memory being a strange thing, I awoke one morning with the thought that I had no proof that I was the same person who went to sleep the night before. All I seemed to have were some memories that were attached to a certain body that I also seemed to be sentimentally attached to. That itself is a strange memory.

[Manna]

just because he has some different frames, doesn't mean he doesn't also have the same ones. My husband has 3 pairs of glasses, all with the same prescription. Two are antique frames that he found at flea markets, and he used to wear these when we were performing in Civil War garb. The third pair is of recent manufacturing.

[lizzytysh]

I thought of that, too, since I have different pairs. He could have his old, favourite pair that he always kept. I believe the time frame is 7 years for the body's replacement issues.

It's a wonderful animation idea, Jack. Very clever.


~ Lizzy