We soon found out why the sales clerk had smiled at our Fellini-Med breathers. In the decades before cybereyes had made glasses obsolete, a person could be instantly recognized as a brainwipe by the type of eyeglasses he wore. The worst, my grandmother once told me, was having to wear the squared-off, black plastic frames that were all her struggling family of six could afford. Back when my grandmother was a kid, in the decades that saw the introduction of glam rock and all of its customized accessories, the rage in eyewear was tinted-glass lenses, color-coordinated frames, flamboyantly outre shapes, and flip-up shades. Sixty years later, she still could remember the names the other kids teased her with on account of her glasses.