Eyeglasses

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy podcaster Matt Gourley (‘With Gourley And Rust’, ‘Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend’, many other incredible shows) for a look at why eyeglasses are secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• ‘With Gourley And Rust’ podcast
• ‘Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend’ podcast
• @Townlandband on Instagram

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• Museum of Durham History

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Four Eyes: Looking for glasses. (The New Yorker)
• I Wear My Sunglasses at the Fight? The Emperor Nero and the History of Sunglasses (History From Below)
• Column: Why are eyeglasses so expensive? (The Los Angeles Times)
• What Those Numbers on Your Eyeglasses Mean (Mental Floss)
• Google submits 1,928 pages arguing for a trademark of the word “Glass” (Ars Technica)
• From cat names to fruit, here are 11 bizarre things celebrities have tried to trademark (Insider)
• 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy: Glasses — this is a great podcast by Tim Harford. Also Alex accidentally credited him as Tim “Hanford” on the ‘SIF’ episode about air conditioning. Alex regrets the error, and fixed the autocorrecting system in his notes doc that caused that before.
• Ira Asks: How Are Eyeglasses Made? (NPR’s Science Friday)
• The World Health Organization’s page about blindness and vision impairment
• Canadian Health Measures Survey, 2018-2019 (Statistics Canada)
• A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses (The New York Times)
• Vision Care Lags, With Blind Spots In Insurance Coverage (NPR Health Shots)
• The Great American Eye-Exam Scam (The Atlantic)
• 60 Minutes: “Do you know who makes your glasses?” — a 2012 report by Lesley Stahl, cited by many comedy shows all over the place.
• SOME NONPROFITS working to increase eyeglasses access worldwide: EYElliance.org, The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness,  VisionSpring.org, Sightsavers India. These are featured in Andrew Jacobs’ great New York Times article.