Eye See

In a little over an hour, Joyce and I will drive over to the Cleveland Eye Clinic in Brecksville for Eye Slice #2. Yes--as he did with my right eye two weeks ago--my surgeon will slice open my eye (the left one this time), remove the lens clouded by cataract, insert a new one (plastic! perhaps crafted from discarded drinking straws?), clean me up, shove me out the door (after collecting more than a few $$--worth it; I'm not complaining), and I will return--I hope--to a world that is bright and clear and colorful.

Which is what it has not been in recent years.

I wrote here on Saturday about that first surgery and about how, over the past two weeks, the right eye is now showing me a world that I'd nearly forgotten.

My sight was blurred--not safe to drive at night--pages drifted in and out of focus as I read.--etc. Very frustrating.

But I was afraid, you know, of some dude slicing my eyeball. It's like a scene in a horror film ... in fact, didn't it happen in A Clockwork Orange? (Maybe not, but I know I've seen it.)

[Pause for Google search.]

Okay, it seems the film I was thinking of is Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog), 1929, a surrealist film (short) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali. YouTube has links to the scene (and the whole film), but I'm too nice to ... nah. Here's a link. Don't think I'll watch it this morning, if you don't mind.

And there are a couple of websites devoted entirely to eyeball scenes in horror films. Geez ...

Not to mention Oedipus and King Lear and others ...

Oh, and we mustn't forget that great film masterpiece, The Vikings (1958), with Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine and Kirk Douglas, who loses an eye when a falcon (trained--ordered to do so) claws it out. (Link to scene if you have nothing better to do.) I remember seeing this masterpiece at the Hiram College Cinema; I was 14. (Just checked: Director Richard Fleischer got a nomination for Best Director from the Directors Guild of America; Vincente Minnelli won it for Gigi.)

Anyway, I'm actually looking forward to this morning. I know what's going to happen (well, I know what's supposed to happen), so I am much less anxious than I was two weeks ago.

So, I guess the only thing to say about today is "We'll see."