Hey there!

This isn’t particularly book or writing related, but I’m going through a rather unique experience this week. And since you're all sci fi readers, I figured you’d be interested.

So gather round!

Let’s talk about how prosthetic eyes get made.

First up, prosthetic eyes are not what I thought they were. I have always heard “glass eye” and assumed it was a sphere that you popped into your eye socket, and which you could pop out when you sneezed in order to terrify children.

Turns out, that’s not how they make them these days.

(Although I think you can still pop them out at will to terrify children. I intend to do this immediately and often.)

Today's "glass eyes" are actually acrylic, and they’re more like a dish custom formed to fit over a spherical implant in your eye socket. The implant is attached to the muscles that control eye movement, which allows the prosthetic to move around more or less naturally.

Kinda cool, right?

Ocular prosthetics are the only medical devices still entirely made by hand. They’re hand-cast and hand-painted by ocularists who learn their craft through years-long apprenticeships. These ocularists are part scientist, part artist, part engineer — and the prosthetics they craft are an unusual blend of art and technology. (If you want to go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, this is a good starting point.)

I didn’t lose my eye — it was just badly damaged. In my weird eye, the iris is all blown out and the cornea is cloudy and scarred (which makes it look kinda badass like a shark. A+ for style, no notes). It's also physically smaller than my good eye (which makes the lid look sunken and frankly sad. Much less shark-like. Some points for effort, but C- overall).

(If you’re curious, you can find photos of what it looks like on my Instagram.)

(If you're like, "What is she talking about? When was she injured?" here's the newsletter I wrote about that back in July.)

The good news is that they make prosthetic shells for weird little shark eyes, too!

The prosthetic will be painted to look like my good eye. And because the bulk of the shell will fill out the eyelid, it should look fairly normal. (Although there's a whole subculture of people who do bizarre things with their prosthetic eyes, like this guy who machines himself terminator eyes out of titanium!)

I got fitted for a prosthetic this week, and friend, let me tell you. It was weird.

Here’s what they do.

First, they numb your eye with drops (like the kind they sometimes use at the eye doctor before testing your eye pressure).

Next, they insert a mold underneath your lid. This mold has a tube attached, through which they squeeze the same compound dentists use to take impressions of your teeth.

It doesn’t hurt. It feels, in the words of my ocularist, “Cold, wet, and weird.”

You sit there for 40 seconds, trying to stay calm while it dries, then the ocularist removes the whole thing while you worry that your whole eye might come out with it. (It doesn't, don't worry.)

And then the impression is done!

(If you want to see a video my husband made of this process, head here.)

Because this is my first prosthetic eye, the ocularist made a clear acrylic model for me to wear as a test. If I get used to that with no problems, they'll go ahead and make me an official fake eye.

I’ll share more about the eye-making process in a later email, because right now I’ve only gotten the impression taken and the clear acrylic model made. (The model is pretty comfortable, actually. I'm wearing it right now.)

The ocularist I’m seeing, Kevin Schou, has been making fake eyes for 47 years. In fact, he helped make the prosthetics Kevin Peter Hall wore as Harry in Harry and the Hendersons! That movie was a childhood favorite of mine, so it gives him immense street cred in my mind.

If you made it to the end of this email, thanks for sticking with me. I'll be back to recommending sci fi books next week.

But for now...

Happy new year, and happy reading!
Jessie

P.S.: Did you know that the actor who played Harry also played the Predator? That is one of my favorite weird bits of movie trivia — that Kevin Peter Hall could be amazing both as the gentle giant Harry, as well as the terrifying Predator.

Also, if you haven’t watched Predator lately, it’s totally worth a rewatch. The cinematography is phenomenal.

You should also check out this short essay in Nightmare Magazine by John Wiswell about how Predator is a slasher and Ahnold is the final Survivor Girl. It's super thought provoking!

See, look. I wrote about science fiction in my science fiction newsletter!

JK