Commentary

In the blink of an eye

August 14, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Anthony Carnovale

Look into my eye. Not ‘my’ eye (please DO NOT look at my profile picture), but the word eye. Stare at it like you would a pizza, a new pen (well, that’s how I’m going to look at it). Here, I’ll type it out for you again:

eye.

What did you see? I see a set of eyes. You don’t? Look closer. The letter e is an eye, there’s two; and the y looks like a runny nose. The term for it is autological — words with meaning reflected in their form –– like bed, llama, dog. If I look at ‘eye’ long enough, maybe it’ll wink. Maybe, it’ll just roll its eyes at me (like most of you, right now). When you’ve been messing around with words as long as I have, that’s how you start seeing them.

Throughout my life, I’ve paid more attention to words than eyes. I once wrote a poem comparing my grandfather’s blue eyes to a blue sky. My grandmother used to cure people afflicted with the ‘evil eye’. A girl in high school once told me I had beautiful eyes. I remember the first time a set of eyes from a painting followed me around a room. Everything you need to know about Salvador Dali, and his art, can be gleaned from his eyes. I’ve never had a black eye. I know that we can’t see our own eyes in the same way that we can’t bite our own teeth.  Like most things, we only pay attention to our eyes when something is wrong with them. Like when we see stars, streaks, or experience blurred vision.

When I turned 40, I started thinking about my eyes — hard. My vision was shot. It happened over time, but it felt as if I had been ambushed. I couldn’t see the numbers on a watch; I struggled with text messages; I couldn’t see how much salt to add to the flour. I started wearing glasses. I knew things had changed forever when I forgot my glasses for work and had to pick up a pair of reading glasses from Shoppers Drug Mart. Having to focus on anything from a short distance was like a Kafka story –– everything draped in mist (which might be good for fiction, but terrible when trying to look at a GPS).

When I was younger, I wanted glasses. The difference between Superman and Clark Kent was a pair of eyeglasses (and tights and a cape). On Scooby-Doo, Velma was always the first to solve the crime. My favourite member of Run DMC was DMC –– I loved how he rocked geek-chic with oversized glasses and white Adidas sneakers. I had a poster of James Dean, in round specs, reading poetry. I watched Nardwuar the Human Serviette geek out to music and merch on Much Music. I liked Elvis Costello’s glasses more than I did his music. I liked the way cool people looked in glasses. They looked cool — and smart.

Over the years, I’ve taught books in which eyeglasses played a pivotal role: In “The Great Gatsby,” Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s bespectacled image witnesses the debauchery and callousness of Gatsby and his cohorts. In “Lord of the Flies,” Piggy’s broken glasses symbolize the loss of rational thinking; In “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Scout’s broken glasses symbolize a shift in the way that she sees her father. Two of my favourite writers, Nelson Algren and James Joyce, wore glasses.  My good friend and poet, Harry Posner, wears glasses. When I was 17, I wore fake glasses until they started to hurt my eyes. My father wears glasses.

Today, I don’t have time for fake — I need to take better care of my eyes. When Jorge Luis Borges started to go blind, he began memorizing his favourite verses. In his poem “On His Blindness,” he laments: “Others have the world, for better or worse;/I have this half-dark, and the toil of verse.” Eyeglasses are no longer an accessory; they’re a necessity.

After some vexatious experiences with eyeglasses and salespeople, I needed something better. Our local optometrists carried stock that was predictable and kitschy. I searched online. In store. I gave online sellers permission to access my camera (usually a no-no) so that I could virtually try on frames. Everything felt like a gimmick — until I found Banton Frameworks.

Banton Frameworks is based out of Glasgow, Scotland, and was founded in 2012 by a couple –– Lucy and Jamie. Their first workshop was a shed at the bottom of Lucy’s garden. They make them in small batches and sell them on a subscription basis — available six times a year. Following their story is like following a traditional recipe (we even exchanged emails discussing pizza and sourdough). Craftsmanship matters to them in the same way it matters to a pizzaiolo in Naples, or a baker in France. The way it matters to me. Jamie even customized my frames to ensure I’d be happy with the fit and design. All of this at the same price point as pair of big brands on this side of the ocean. It just meant looking a little harder to find the right fit.  I haven’t taken my glasses off since they arrived in the mail.

For the record, I didn’t receive any compensation from Banton for this piece. I’m just happy that there are people like Jamie and Lucy who are doing what they do in the way that they do it. If, in fact, the eyes are the windows to a person’s soul, it’s probably a good idea to bedeck those windows in a pair of frames that feel, and look, this damn good. At least that’s how “eye” see it.

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