Your ears are on your head, so why should your music system hang on your waist? Such is the marketing logic behind Oakley’s Thump sunglasses with built-in MP3 digital music player. This writer had a great time watching the finish line of the New York City marathon with a Thump on; Thalia sang ¿A Quien Le Importa? as if the runners had might as well have just stopped in their tracks to have group sex, and the system’s Mylar speakers delivered concert-hall quality sound.
Oakley boasts of Thump’s adaptability. They say that when you go inside, you can just flip the lenses up from the frame to “keep feeding your brain with music.” That would be one way of not hearing people tell you how ridiculously straight you look with those lenses flipped up.
Still, the ensemble only weighs 1.8 ounces and both the shades and the MP3 are state-of-the-art. You really can run while wearing your Thump and never have the player skip or the shebang fall off. Because the lenses are made of Iridium-coated Plutonite, you can fantasize that you are Superman, and then when your beard Louis Lane calls your cell, those earphones too conveniently flip up out of the way.
