Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Secret Identities

Just for the record, there's no way the Clark Kent-eyeglasses disguise could have worked in real life. Sure, I wrote dozens of stories about Clark and Superman, including a few that dealt with him keeping his secret identity a secret.

I've worn glasses for almost fifty years. Other than sleeping or swimming, there has not been a time when I didn't have them on, so only a very few people have ever seen me without them.

No one seems to have been fooled by the clever disguise.

So, when I showed up at CTY last week, sans glasses... well, if glasses were enough of a disguise, you would have expected that at least a few people would be puzzled as to who I was. None of them were. In fact, most of them, including people I have worked with for many summers, didn't seem to notice that I wasn't wearing glasses any more.

One fellow instructor did finally ask, "Hey, what happened to your glasses?" Another told me I'd had my hair cut shorter this year. Considering how little hair this is on my head, I don't think that was the change in my appearance.

**

Yesterday, Dr. Wolfgang made his appearance. Unlike "Mr. R," Wolfy now sports a pair of reading glasses (along with his very official-looking lab coat) and, while my own class is well aware that we are one and the same, the students in the Bay Ecology classes have only met Wolfgang. When they see me around campus, sans the glasses, will they believe that Mr. R just happens to resemble Dr. Wolfgang?

Or will they also see right through the glasses disguise?

2 comments:

  1. Many many years ago (in the days before it was called CosPlay) I attended a comics convention in Sydney, dressed as Black Canary, with a blonde wig. Later in the day, I changed into my regular clothes and went to greet some people I had met during the day, only to find they didn't recognise me. Some years later, I had it explained to me that the reason was that nobody was looking at my FACE when in costume. I suspect the same applies to Superman, when he shows off his muscles in lycra, as opposed to Clark in his blue (serge?) suit...

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  2. And here I was thinking I had a new husband...

    xxx

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