January 2006 Archives
Claudian letters were developed by, and named after, the Roman Emperor Claudius. . . . He introduced three new letters:
A backwards, upside-down 'F' to represent consonantal U, possibly inspired by Greek Digamma. . . .
A broken 'H' to represent the sound of Greek Upsilon. . . .
A backwards 'C' to replace BS and PS, much like 'X' stood in for CS and GS, and inspired by Greek Psi.
These letters were used to a small extent on public inscriptions dating from his reign but their use was abandoned after his death. . . .
However, later on, the letter Y was added, filling the role of his broken 'H'. His first innovation [three new letters] would not catch on for over 1500 years, when U, V, and W became recognized as separate letters. (Until the 17th century, U and V were represented by the same letter, printed V as capital, v initially, and u medially and finally, resulting in spellings such as "haue" and "vpon".)
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. I know it's not authoritative, but no one else online has anything on this vital shit!
In the liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet reticence of Confucius, the piquancy of Lao Tzu, and the ethereal aroma of Sakyamuni himself.
Kakuzo Okakura, from The Book of Tea, 1964.
Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.
Kakuzo Okakura, from The Book of Tea, 1964.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.
Robert Browning, from The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
Alfred Noyes, from The Highwayman.
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The northern lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Robert W. Service, from The Cremation of Sam McGee.
Where does this leave us What is light We can describe very precisely what it does:
1. It has wave-like properties that give very exact answers according to the classical theory of interference.
2. It has particle-like properties that give very exact answers in collision processes between photons and particles.
3. It travels through a vacuum at the constant speed of light.
4. It has the same constant speed in a vacuum no matter how we look at it, be it in a laboratory frame of reference or from a space ship moving close to the speed of light.
5. The particles of light have no mass. . . .
To describe these properties quantitatively we need the theories of relativity and quantum electrodynamics, we need the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. These are combined in a quite superb theory known as quantum electrodynamics, which can describe very beautifully all of these properties and is the most precise theory that has been tested in the whole of physics.
Malcolm Longair in Light and Colour, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
Do you know a painter called Van der Meer . . . the palette of this curious painter consists of blue, lemon yellow, pearl grey, black and white. In his very few paintings there is in fact the whole richness of a complete palette; but the combination of lemon yellow, pale blue and pearl grey is as characteristic to him as the black, white, grey and pink are to Velazquez.
Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to Bernard, quoted by Bridget Riley in Colour for the Painter, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
In terms of painting materials, the modern era began in 1704, with the invention of Prussian Blue. . . .
The precise dating of pigment inventions gives us a formidable weapon in the matter of determining authenticity. A number of apparently old paintings have been betrayed by the presence of Prussian Blue.
David Bomford, from The History of Colour in Art, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
Coloured shadows in Impressionist paintings generally contained blue/violet tones as the complementary to yellow sunlight. Much fun was had at their expense, and the derisive term violettomania was coined to describe their collective sickness.
David Bomford, from The History of Colour in Art, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
In Nature, colour may be a source of great beauty to the beholder, but to a plant or an animal it is most often a means of survival. . . . Natural colour arises from a diversity of mechanisms, often associated with distinct functions. Dyes and stains are used by many creatures, frequently for camouflage. Structural colourtypified by the metallic sheen of a Mallard ducks blue speculumis generally used for the intense colours that announce the presence of an individual, as for example in a mating display. Colour can also be used for warning, as in the poisonous fire-bellied toad, or even for mimicry. Less commonly, animals can dispense with colour altogether and become transparent, or, as in the squid, they can actively control skin colour for the purpose of camouflage, or for attraction and mating.
Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, from the introduction to Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
Some animals give off bioluminescence. Some contain bacteria, which they stimulate chemically to glow, and some use filters to modify this light. Others produce their own alchemy of compounds, which when allowed to mix give off light. . . . Some bioluminescence has a sexual function. Fireflies certainly atract mates with their light displays, and several species of deep-sea squid and fish would appear to use bioluminescence in their courtship displays.
Peter Parks, from the essay Colour in Nature, from Colour: Art & Science edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
Blue is always different from yellow, for example: depressed (the blues), where yellow is gay, loyal (true-blue), where yellow is cowardly, and the like. Blue has a similar meaning to yellow about once in a blue moon.
Marshall Sahlins, quoted by John Gage in the essay Colour and Culture, from Colour: Art & Science edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.
A Sanskrit word for diamond, meaning fire or sun.
The Book of Diamonds by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The only state in the U.S. where diamonds of any amount have been found. . . . Altogether four pipes have been found, the principal one being called the Crater of Diamonds in which the public may search for a fee.
The Book of Diamonds by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
Watch out! This is usually rock crystal from Arkansas.
The Book of Diamonds by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A dark grey or black diamondperhaps opaque, perhaps semi-transparent. The words are also used to describe carbonado, a tough industrial diamond.
The Book of Diamonds by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
Can be any shade of blue but diamonds that are blue in both daylight and incandescent light are rare; most show blue only in daylight. . . . The most famous blue is the Tavernier Blue or the French Blue, from which was cut the Hope Diamond.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A reddish or coffee-brown fancy diamond, second in value among the fancies to yellow.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The toughest form of industrial diamond, usually black or gray and principally found in Brazil.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
These two diamonds of Frances I were described by Cellini as the most beautiful in the world. The Cellini Green, he said, was green like a pale green emerald but it shone as no emerald has ever shone. The Peach, which Cellini described as the second most beautiful, was flesh colored, tender, most limpid and it scintilated like a star.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A greenish yellow to yellow-green diamond of pronounced color.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
Any diamond with strong, attractive and natural body color. Red, blue, and green are the rarest.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The property of changing one kind of radiation to another. Under X-ray, ultraviolet or cathode rays, the diamond usually fluoresces blue, although occasional stones may glow red or yellow shades. If the fluorescence is sufficiently strong to change the color of the stone for any length of time, it is called fluorochromatic.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The Indian city that was the center of diamond trading in the seventeenth century, and as such a synonym for riches in the drama and poetry of this period. The term is often generously used to cover the ancient alluvial diamond deposits to the south and east of the city. . . .
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A diamond with a naturally green color, a fancy. A stone turned green artificially should carry that information in its name. No naturally colored diamond of a true emerald green has yet been found, although Cellini claimed to have seen one in the fifteenth century.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A diamond is said to be limpid when it is without body color and very transparent.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The appearance of a materials surface in reflected light; if it reflects the reflected light it has luster. The luster of rough diamond is said to be greasy; of fashioned diamonds, adamantine, from the Greek word for inconquerable.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
This has enough purple in it to rate as a fancy.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A diamond with a hazy interior.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A diamond of distinct orange tint but also probably a diamond from the Orange River area in South-West Africa where most of these bright and sometimes flaming fancies are found.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
An imagined, long searched for, never discovered stone which was believed by medieval alchemists to have the power to change rock or flint into gold or diamond.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The property of continuing to emit visible light in darkness after exposure to radiation. Some diamonds (like many squid) do it, but they are unusual diamonds.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The property of some diamonds and other gems to become luminescent when exposed to the action of visible or ultraviolet-light rays only. They are said to be fluorescent if luminescent during exposure, and photophorescent if luminescent or glowing afterwards.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A light-red diamond, more reddish than peach colored, less rosy than rose colored, and less purle than heliotrope. A fancy.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A diamond that changes color from blue to yellow depending on whether the light is daylight or incandescent light.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The rarest of all fancy-colored diamonds are red ones, and so any red-brown or rose-colored diamond is often called a red diamond. No really ruby-colored diamonds have ever been reported.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The name now given to colorless lead-glass brilliant-cut or single-cut imitation diamond. Once rhinestone was only applied to colorless quartz crystals from the Rhine River valley in Germany; when highly dispersive glass became available, it was substituted for the quartz.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
An early style of cutting. It is usually rose shaped, that is, it has a flat base, and a domelike top with a variety of triangular facets resembling petals which come to a small point at the center like a rosebud. Also called a rosette.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The flashing or twinkling of light which in diamonds comes from the facets. Comparative scintiallation of two diamonds can be measured by the number of facets on the stone and the quality of their polish.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
Possessing the ability to change color temporarily. Some diamonds change color when brought into dayilight after being kept in darkness for a long timesay in a vaultand then change back to the original color after a few hours. Others change color under X-ray.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A diamond that has been coated or otherwise treated to improve its appearance, including those diamonds bombarded for color changes.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A fine jeweler will use this term to mean that he can see flaws in a diamond under his special loupe that you cant. Very, very slightly flawless means it is difficult for even a trained eye with a ten power loupe to find the flawsbut they are there.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A term principally used in England or in English literature for the color and transparency of diamonds and other gems. It is of the finest water, or It is a ruby of the second water.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
A yellow diamond which may be canary or champagne.
The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The allure of absinthe was threefold. One, its history; so many of the great writers and painters that I admired, from Verlaine and Wilde to van Gogh and Picasso, adored absinthe. Two, it was illegal in the United States. Three, better than any other alcohol I know, it created in me that most appealing state of languidness, dissolving muscle and mind so that I didnt really care what happened or didnt happen to me. So, while I enjoyed the way it made colors appear brighter and created halos around anything bright, the way it made the night sky itself fsem to breathe like a giant beast crouched over me, I became hooked on absinthe because it allowed me to escape, the way that reading allowed me to escape.
Elissa Schappell, from That Sort of Woman, 2003, an essay in The Mrs. Dalloway Reader, edited by Francine Prose, 2003.
Yellow and black, pink and snow white, shapes of all these colours, men, women and children were spotted for a second upon the horizon, and then, seeing the breadth of yellow that lay upon the grass, they wavered and sought shade beneath the trees, dissolving like drops of water in the yellow and green atmosphere, staining it faintly with red and blue.
Virginia Woolf, from Kew Gardens.
The ripe grassheads bend in the starlight
in the soft wind, beneath them the darkness
of the grass, fathomless, the long blades
rising out of the well of time. Cars
travel the valley roads below me, their lights
finding the dark, and racing on. Above
their roar is a silence I have suddenly heard,
and felt the country turn under the stars
toward dawn. I am wholly willing to be here
between the bright silent thousands of stars
and the life of the grass pouring out of the ground.
The hill has grown me like a foot.
Until I lift the earth I cannot move.
Wendell Berry, from On the Hill Late at Night, first published in the collection The Country of Marriage, 1973.
Bluebird blue as the sky-blue heart
Of my girl whose heart is the sky
Guillaume Apollinaire (18801918), A Bird is Singing, from The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Donald Revell, 2004.
Her hair is golden they say
Like an hour of lightning
Or like the strut of fires
In small dying roses
Guillaume Apollinaire (18801918), The Pretty Redhead, from The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Donald Revell, 2004.
Listen to our bombs singing now
Their dark purple love is hailed by the dying
The drenched springtime the nightlamp the attack
Its raining my soul its raining, but it rains dead eyes
Guillaume Apollinaire (18801918), 1915 April Night, from The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Donald Revell, 2004.
People observe the clothing and grooming of people in their surroundings, their speech, whether they are perspiring, their skin colour, and skin reactions, as well as their gait and movements. All these observations provide information about sex, race, income, education, social standing, personality, mental state, and health. Many peple also consciously and subconsciously observe the eyes of other people, regarding eyes as windows of the mind. They observe the subtle play of muscle movements around the eyes, the rate at which a person blinks, the level of the eyelids, the volume of tears round the eyelids, the colours of the whites of the eyes, the colours of the iris, and the directions a person is looking. Furthermore, pupil size also influences the reactions of people to each other. For example, a person with narrow pupils is often regarded as hard and unfriendly, while a person with wide pupils is regarded as warm and friendly.
Dr. G.M. Woerlee, from Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near-Death Experiences, 2003.
Several people cluster around the bed of a dying person. The pupils of the dying person widen as their condition worsens. And as the pupils of the dying person widen, they notice that the lighting in the room becomes brighter, or even that the room is bathed in bright light. No-one else notices that the lighting in the room has changed, only the dying person, because only the pupils of the dying person widen. This is why dying people may say they see bright light, bright light that does not hurt the eyes, or even bright landscapes. . . .
The reduced focal depth of the eyes of a person with wide open pupils, means they see all people, and objects upon which they do not focus their eyes, as vague and blurred forms. Furthermore, more light enters the eyes of a person with wide open pupils, so they perceive people upon which their eyes are not focussed as vague blurred bright figures, or even as beings of light. The mental function of the dying and nearly-dead is abnormal, so they may interpret these bright forms and figures as being supernatural, ethereal, other-worldy beings of light, or even as personages and gods from their religion.
Dr. G.M. Woerlee, from Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near-Death Experiences, 2003.
The premiere episode of Dragnet 67, . . . entitled The Big LSD, . . . drew on recent news reports about the hallucinogen (which remained legal until October 1966), as well as stories about the Sunset Strip scene. . . .
Friday and partner Gannon were called to the scene of a weirdly painted juvenile chewing the bark off a tree. The scene opened with the cops finding the young man lying on the ground with his head buried under leaves. As they pulled him up, there was a cut to a shocker close-up of the young mans facepainted blue on one side, gold on the other. Wide-eyed, he exclaimed, Reality, man, reality. I could see the center of the earth! As Friday attempted to read him his rights, the boy declared that he wasnt here, but thereand had green hair: Im a tree! Flipping out, he tore at Gannons suit, then started calling out various colors: I can hear them all!
Aniko Bodroghkozy, from Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion, 2001.
One black, one white, one blonde.
tagline of the ABC television series The Mod Squad, about three young cops: Linc Hayes, Pete Cochran, and Julie Barnes. The series aired from 1968 to 1971.
Youre beautiful. Do you have to be pretty too
Pete to the young radical Daphne, on The Mod Squad. This episode, The Guru, aired on December 31, 1968.
Diamond is crystallized carbon, of density 35, and graphite is also crystallized carbon, but of density 22. . . . If a diamond is heated at ordinary atmospheric pressure to above 1,200C, then it turns black; it turns down to a graphitic powder. So the mere heating of graphite is of little help in trying to convert graphite to diamond. On the contrary, heat converts diamond to graphite.
S. Tolansky, from The History and Use of Diamond, 1962.
Diamonds grow in India, some as big as a bean, some like a hazel nut. They are male and female and from the falling dew they multiply and bring forth small children.
reporter Sir John Mandeville, writing in 1360. From The History and Use of Diamond, by S. Tolansky, 1962.
In the early Middle Ages the diamond was a rare, highly valued object, which was worn not as a decoration or as an object of beauty, but as a magical amulet. Indeed, since only natural unpolished stones were at first available and as these only occasionally have an attractive shape (and this only as a rule when they are small), it was not the appearance but other properties which gave the diamond its special position. As a decorative gem it was not at first rated as highly as the ruby or the pearl. Its real magical importance was due to its great hardness. Because of this hardness, by the simple and familiar process of sympathetic magic, it was firmly believed that diamond could endow its wearer with corresponding hardihood and manhood. . . . Diamonds were, therefore, often worn by knights and leaders on the battlefield.
S. Tolansky, from The History and Use of Diamond, 1962.
All transparent materials, in addition to refracting light, also exhibit what is called dispersion, that is, the refractive index is slightly more for the bluer component of daylight than for the redder. The different colours which constitute white light are differently refracted, i.e. dispersed, and this is of course why a glass prism shows the colours of the rainbow. In diamond, the dispersion is especially high, about five times that of glass. So what is the result when light falls on the well cut diamond First, 18 per cent is immediately reflected. Then the rest enters, but is largely reflected within the diamond and ultimately finds its way back to the eye of the beholder. But on its path it is strongly dispersed, i.e. split into brilliant, widely separated spectral colours. This, then, constitutes the famous fire of the diamond, the flash of spectral colour from the dispersed light spectrum.
It need only be added that fire is far more effective in flickering candlelight than in daylight or electric light. The changes in angle of incidence of light resulting from the flickering candles make a diamond jewel worn in such light appear to be virtually alive and flashing with fire. Truly the thousand candles at Versailles, before the days of gas or elecricity, must have brought out to perfection the brilliant fire of the diamonds worn by the ladies of the French Court.
S. Tolansky, from The History and Use of Diamond, 1962.
Some diamonds phosphoresce, that is, if they are brightly illuminated either by daylight or artificial light and are then taken into a darkened room, they continue to give out a glow which gradually fades away. Such phosphorescence is not a special property of diamond alone for it is also shown by many other crystals. It is closely connected with impurities in the crystals and is not a property of very highly purified materials. . . .
Some diamonds when rubbed in the dark will emit a glow, and this, too is very closely related to phosphorescence. It is typical also of many other crystals carrying impurities. . . .
Many diamonds when illuminated with invisible ultra-violet light give out a visible glow. This is called fluorescence and it leads to the emission of a blue or a yellow-green light.
S. Tolansky, from The History and Use of Diamond, 1962.
It was firmly believed in India that he who owned Koh-i-Noor would rule the world. When the Persian, Nadir Shah, sacked Delhi in 1739 this diamond became one of his objectives. The tale is told that the defeated Mogul hid the diamond in his turban. Nadir, learning of this, invited the conquered Mogul to a feast and then forced him to exchange turbans. The moment the Moguls turban was in his hand, Nadir unwound it and the diamond fell out. At which moment Nadir is said to have cried out, Mountain of Light! and this is the legend of how the diamond acquired its name.
S. Tolansky, from The History and Use of Diamond, 1962.
The days raced after one another, brilliant and quick like the flashes of a lighthouse, and the nights, eventful and short, resembled fleeting dreams.
Joseph Conrad, from The Nigger of the Narcissus.
One gem there is whose scintillating light
Too strong temptation! Captivates her sight!
the Roman satirist-historian Juvenal, quoted in The Book of Diamonds by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
Ringo, the drummer in the Beatles quartet who took his name from his passion for rings, summed up the American dream of the sixties: If you want to give me a ring, he told a television audience candidly, I prefer diamonds.
Joan Dickinson, from The Book of Diamonds, 1965.
The man who was probably the greatest diamond collector of modern time, Diamond Jim Brady . . . had a different set of monogrammed jewelry for each day in the monthdiamonds one day, emeralds the next. . . . It was believed he owned more than twenty thousand diamonds all told, that sometimes he wore as many as $250,000 worth on a single day, and that he purchased another several thousand for the actress Lillian Russell.
Joan Dickinson, from The Book of Diamonds, 1965.
When a ray of light passes through a well-cut diamond it is refracted through a large angle and consequently the colors of the spectrum becoming widely separated strike a spectatorss eye separately so that at one moment he sees a ray of vivid blue, at another, one of flaming scarlet or one of shining green while perhaps at the next instant a beam of purest white may be reflected in his direction.
Marcel Tolkowsky, quoted in The Book of Diamonds by Joan Dickinson, 1965.
The diamond is the crystalline Revelator of the achromatic white light of Heaven.
Thomas H. Chivers, (18071858).
Diamond in the English, and Diamant in the French, are both synonymous with Adamant, which comes directly from the Greek . . . meaning literally the untamable, the unconquerable.
Edwin Streeter, from The Great Diamonds of the World, 1882.
"Fair as the star that ushers in the morn,"
origin unknown, found in reference to diamonds in The Great Diamonds of the World by Edwin Streeter, 1882. Anyone ever heard this line before
The title of the sequel to Peter PanJ.M. Barrie's children's literary classichas been revealed. The new book, called Peter Pan in Scarlet, will reveal what happened to the boy who never grew up. . . . It will be published on 5 October this year.
London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, which owns the copyright to the story, commissioned author Geraldine McCaughrean to write the sequel. . . .
The trustees stipulated the book must feature the original charactersPeter, Wendy, Tinkerbell, the rest of the Darling family and the fearsome Captain Hook. They have read and approved McCaughrean's recently-finished manuscript.
McCaughrean said: 'Neverland was such a marvellous place to spend my year.'
BBC News, Friday, 20 January 2006.
Richard Dyer, in his study of whiteness in visual texts [The Color of Virtue: Lillian Gish, Whiteness, and Femininity, 1993], delineates the role of light in producing the glow of white women, a class- and race-specific image of femininity that manifests when idealized white women are bathed in and permeated by light.. . . He establishes the historical connections between light, blondness, and spirituality, noting how the properties of light (and fair coloring) have meshed, in traditional Western iconography, with the enlightenment privileged in Christian discourse. Religious art thus portays sanctified white people enlightened by the glow of haloes . . . and the figure of the woman as angel, enlightened and enlightening. . . . These descriptions apply to Nancy Drew. . . . Not only does her blue-eyed, blonde-haired prettiness make her appear angelic, her behavior epitomizes the traditional functions of angels: protecting, avenging, and ministering. . . .
When Nancy attends a college ball with her boyfriend [in Quest of the Missing Map by Carolyn Keene, 1942] we see . . . Nancys wardrobe: Nancys new white dress made on simple lines accentuated her attractiveness. Eschewing frippery and bright colors, Nancy Drew exemplifies the properly conservative white woman.
Ilana Nash, from American Sweethearts: Teenage Girls in Twentieth-Century Popular Culture, 2006.
October 22 [1938]
In Astoria, NYC the first xerographic image was created
(derived from the Greek 'dry' & 'writing')
Edward Sanders, from America: A History in Verse, Volume 1, 19001939, 2000.
"Some of the very earliest myths, probably dating back to the Paleolithic period, were associated with the sky, which seems to have given people their first notion of the divine. When they gazed at the skyinfinite, remote and existing quite apart from their puny livespeople had a religious experience. The sky towered above them, inconceivably immense, inaccessible and eternal. It was the very essence of transcendence and otheresss. Human beings could do nothing to affect it. The endless drama of its thunderbolts, eclipses, storms, sunsets, rainbows and meteors spoke of another endlessly active dimension, which had a dynamic life of its own. Contemplating the sky filled people with dread and delight, with awe and fear. The sky attracted them and repelled them. It was by its very nature numinous. . . .
At some pointwe do not know exactly when this happenedpeople in various far-flung parts of the world began to personify the sky. They started to tell stories about a Sky God or High God, who had single-handedly created heaven and earth out of nothing. This primitive monotheism almost certainly dates back to the Paleolithic period. Before they began to worship a number of deities, people in many parts of the world acknowledged only one Supreme God, who had created the world and governed human affairs from afar.
Karen Armstrong, from A Short History of Myth, 2005.
Whooah, baby,
Please come on back,
For youve got something of mine.
Im sure I like this black Cadillac in the morning,
My black Cadillac in the morning,
Yeah, my black Cadillac.
Lightning Hopkins, Black Cadillac, from the album How Many More Years I Got, 1962.
Down the long road into Statesville, he walked toward a realm of gold, sunset had turned all the world to gold.
And next morning, he was on the great road again, walking into sunrise gold. The sun came up behind him like a big red full moon, a red that was full of yellow, a red orange warm gold that absorbed all the pinks and pale reds of the morning.
Julian Lee Rayford, from Cottonmouth, 1941.
Cut to Sam Trench at roadside.
TRENCH: Well something certainly is happening here at Tolworth roundabout, David. I can now see Picasso, he's cycling down very hard towards the roundabout, he's about 7550 yards away and I can now see his painting . . . it's an abstract . . . I can see some blue some purple and some little black oval shapes . . . I think I can see . . .
A Pepperpot comes up and nudges him.
PEPPERPOT: That's not Picassothat's Kandinsky.
TRENCH: (excited) Good lord, you're right. It's Kandinsky. Wassily Kandinsky, and who's this here with him It's Braque. Georges Braque, the Cubist, painting a bird in flight over a cornfield and going very fast down the hill towards Kingston and . . . Piet Mondrianjust behind, Piet Mondrian the Neo-Plasticist, and then a gap, then the main bunch, here they come, Chagall, Max Ernst, Miro, Dufy, Ben Nicholson, Jackson Pollock and Bernard Buffet making a break on the outside here, Brancusi's going with him, so is Gericault, Ferdinand Leger, Delaunay, De Kooning, Kokoschka's dropping back here by the look of it, and so's Paul Klee dropping back a bit and, right at the back of this group, our very own Kurt Schwitters . . .
PEPPERPOT: He's German!
TRENCH: But as yet absolutely no sign of Pablo Picasso, and so from Tolworth roundabout back to the studio.
Monty Python, from the very first Episode One: Whither Canada, 1969.
"Mardis Gras, a time when the old town came alive with magic and beauty, flags and bunting, pennants, and lights, lights. Lights strung around Bienville Square, red, white, yellow, blue, orange, green lights, all flashing and glittering. The fountain in the Square wrapped in colored lights. . . .
The night, the purple and red night, the flaring flames of orange torchlight wavering hippity-humpity through the exciting, magic realm of Mardi Gras by night. The great colored floats glittering in gold leaf and silver leaf, the tinsel scintillation of the floats rocking along beside the white robed Negroes toting their white metal boards against which the yellow torch flames danced. The white-robed mules pulling the floats, and on the floats, the symbols that spelled out a complete fairy legend, or a tale from classic Greek. There might be a dragon with open mouth gasping out black clouds of smoke, a green-and-orange dragon accentuated with gold leaf. Or thered be a ship, a galley with oars moving, with a silver sail, and warriors standing there in golden armor, warriors jigging and dancing and throwing out red, blue, white, yellow strings of serpentine to the crowds illuminated by the passing torches. Warriors in golden shining armor, reeling with the jerk of the float, gayly taking a swig from a bottle and passing the bottle around to the other warriors, all of them leaping and throwing out serpentine and silver-wrapped chocolate kisses."
Julian Lee Rayford, from Cottonmouth, 1941.
"The very first opera publicly performed in Venice, Andromeda, was already elaborate, as [this] account printed in 1637 . . . shows: 'The sky opened and one saw Jove and Juno in glory and other divinities. This great machine descended to the ground to the accompaniment of a concerto of voices and instruments truly from heaven. The two heroes, joined to each other, it conducted to the sky. Here the royal and ever worthy occasion had an end.'"
--Leslie Horry, from A Concise History of Opera, 1972.
"It would perhaps be more correct to describe this romance of the Crusades [Franz Gluck's Armide] . . . not as a 'decorative' but as a 'spectacle' opera, for Armida's magically transformed garden and the holocaust at the end, when her palace goes up in flames, bring to mind Parsifal and Gotterdammerung."
--Leslie Horry, from A Concise History of Opera, 1972.
"Jack of diamonds, Jack of diamonds
I've known you from old
Now you've robbed my poor pockets
Of my silver and my gold."
--Clarence Ashley, from Coo Coo Bird, recorded October 23, 1929.
"Night, a black hound, follows the white fawn day,
Swifter than dreams the white flown feet of sleep; . . ."
--Algernon Charles Swinburne, from Atalanta in Calydon, 1865.
"Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, . . ."
--Algernon Charles Swinburne, from Prelude, 1871.
"'Though I gat bruises green and black,
I loved him never the less a jot; . . .'"
--Algernon Charles Swinburne, from The Fair Armouress, 1878.
"And one bright eve ere summer in autumn sank
At stardawn standing on a grey sea-bank
He felt the wind fitfully shift and heave
As toward a stormier eve; . . .
And in his sleep the dun green light was shed
Heavily round his head
That through the veil of sea falls fathom-deep,
Blurred like a lamp's that when the night drops dead
Dies; and his eyes gat grace of sleep to see
The deep divine dark dayshine of the sea, . . ."
--Algernon Charles Swinburne, from Thalassius, 1880.
"Oh what is the light that shines so red
'Tis long since the sun set;"
Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid:
"'Twas dim but now, and yet
The light is great."
Quoth the other: "'Tis our sight is dazed
That we see flame i' the air."
But the Queen held her brows and gazed,
And said, "It is the glare
Of torches there."
--Dante Gabriel Rossetti, from The Staff and Scrip, 1851-52.
"Sunbeams and starbeams, and all coloured things,
All forms and all similitudes began;
And death, the shadow cast by life's wide wings,
And God, the shade cast by the soul of man."
--Algernon Charles Swinburne, from Genesis, 1871.
"I sit on a purple bed,
Outside, the wall is red,
Thereby the apple hangs,
And the wasp, caught by the fangs, . . .
Gold wings across the sea!
Moonlight from tree to tree,
Sweet hair laid on my knee,
O, sweet knight, come to me!"
--William Morris, from Golden Wings, 1858.
"'In a gold and blue casket she keeps all my tears,
But my eyes are no longer blue, as in old years;
'Yea, they grow grey with time, grow small and dry,
I am so feeble now, would I might die.'"
--William Morris, from The Blue Closet, 1858.
"Alice the Queen, and Louise the Queen,
Two damozels wearing purple and green,
Four lone ladies dwelling here
From day to day and year to year; . . ."
--William Morris, from The Blue Closet, 1858.
"'And every morn I scarce could pray at all,
For Launcelot's red-golden hair would play,
Instead of sunlight, on the painted wall. . . '"
--William Morris, from King Arthur's Tomb, 1858.
"Fast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover
Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.
Under the purple thyme and the purple clover
Sleeping at last."
--Christina Georgina Rossetti, from Sleeping at Last, 1896.
"Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me."
--Christina Georgina Rossetti, from A Birthday, 1862.
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark. They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo. . . .
Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better. They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, they say.
--Chris Hogg, reporting for BBC News from Hong Kong, 12 January 2006. Thank you, Apostropher, for your ace aesthetic eye!
"You have seen the huntress moon
Radiantly facing dawn,
Dusky meads between them strewn
Glimmering like downy awn:
Argent Westward glows the hunt,
East the blush about to climb;
One another fair they front,
Transient, yet outshine the time;
Even as dewlight off the rose
In the mind a jewel sows."
-George Meredith, from The Woods of Westermain, 1883.
"Quick and far as Colour flies
Taking the delighted eyes,
You of any well that springs
May unfold the heaven of things."
--George Meredith, from The Woods of Westermain, 1883.
"You must love the light so well
That no darkness will seem fell,
Love it so you could accost
Fellowly a livid ghost."
--George Meredith, from The Woods of Westermain, 1883.
"Without offence to your modesty be it spoken, I have a burning desire to see your Soul stark naked, for I am confident 'tis the prettiest kind of white Soul, in the universe . . . . But if I must be content with seeing your body only, God send it to come quickly: I honor it more than the Diamond-Casket that held Homer's Illiads. For in the very twinkle of one eye of it, there is more Wit; and in the very dimple of one cheek of it, there is more Meaning, than in all the Souls that ever were casually put into Women."
--Alexander Pope, from On the Knowledge and Characters of Men.
"Tho' the same Sun with all-diffusive rays
Blush in the Rose, and in the Diamond blaze,
We prize the stronger effort of his pow'r,
And justly set the Gem above the Flow'r."
--Alexander Pope, from On the Knowledge and Characters of Men.
"It is like looking through a microscope, where every thing assumes a new character and a new consequence, where things are seen in their minutest circumstances and slightest shades of difference; where the little becomes gigantic, the deformed beautiful, and the beautiful deformed."
--William Hazlitt, commenting on what I call the "trippiness" of the Rape in 1818. Found in The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope, edited by Cynthia Wall, 1998.
"In the early eighteenth century the microscope was just beginning to become popularized; ladies wore miniature microscopes on their wrists and amateur scientists . . . were frequently satirized in poems and plays. Both the simple act of looking through the microscope and its larger implications for use in research showed that to be miniaturized in the eighteenth century was not merely to be reduced. On the contrary, the miniature became magnified."
--Cynthia Wall, from The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope , 1998, a wonderful anthology concerning the famous "heroi-comical" poem.
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,
"They are merely conventional signs!
"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank"
(So the crew would protest) "that he bought us the best----
A perfect and absolute blank!"
--Lewis Carroll, from The Hunting of the Snark.
"The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily Arts,
And wins (oh shameful Chance!) the Queen of Hearts."
--Alexander Pope, from The Rape of the Lock, 1714.
"But since, alas! frail Beauty must decay,
Curl'd or uncurl'd, since Locks will turn to grey,
Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,
And she who scorns a Man, must die a Maid;
What then remains, but well our Pow'r to use,
And keep good Humour still whate'er we lose"
--Alexander Pope, from The Rape of the Lock, 1714.
A secret party of surveyors [was taken] to lay out the 3,000 acre future Brilliant City, complete with neighborhoods: Discovery Claim, Ruby Gulch, Diamond Flat, Sapphire Hollow. On this trip there were of course more diamonds. Alfred Rubery, a rich Englishman, found one of the fabled anthills. At first he couldnt believe his eyes. It was a sure-enough anthillnatural to this area . . . a foot or two high, made of coarse rock and mineral grains. But this one was sprinkled with many red and white stones of uniform size. Looking closer, he realized they were rubies and diamonds. Practically screaming with ecstasy, he shoveled the whole thing into a sack, ants and all.
Kevin Krajick, from Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic, 2002. Watch out, Alfred, the anthill was real, but the overall scheme is a hoax!
You old black gold you've taken my lung,
Your dust has darkened my home.
And now I am old and you've turned your back,
Where else can an old miner go
Blue Diamond Mines by Jean Ritchie, 1964.
In the mines, in the mines,
In the Blue Diamond mines,
Ive worked my life away.
In the mines, in the mines,
In the Blue Diamond mines,
Oh, fall on your knees and pray.
froBlue Diamond Mines by Jean Ritchie, 1964.
You must be color blind, his mother told him.
He looked at the box of water colors: alizarin, vermillion, yellow, ultramarine, cobalt, blue green, yellow green, black, white, brown, orange.
It was tantalizing. He could see every color there. He knew every shade of difference between those colors. He looked about at the trees out on the street, at the color of the sidewalks, at houses. No inflection of color escaped him. He recognized every one. He wasnt color blind, he knew he wasnt. But he couldnt name those colors. Why hadnt he got a set that had names beside each colour . . .
Julian Lee Rayford, from Cottonmouth, 1941.
To beat the whites with the red wedge is not only to win the Civil War, improve the economy, and build collectivism; it is also to force the wedge into all the white zones of experience. . . . the closed, all-enveloping roundness of white investment must everywhere be opened and pierced by red sharpness.
Jean-Franois Lyotard, celebrating the famous 1919 poster by El Lissitzky. Translated by Yve-Alain Bois in El Lissitzky: Radical Reversibility, Art in America, April 1988.
1 : a unit of fineness for gold equal to 1/24 part of pure gold in an alloy.
MerriamWebster Online Dictionary.
1 : variant of KARAT.
2 : a unit of weight for precious stones equal to 200 milligrams.
MerriamWebster Online Dictionary.
1 : a biennial herb . . . with a usually orange spindle-shaped edible root; also : its root.
MerriamWebster Online Dictionary.
Some folks say that once in a while youll find a coral snake in there, he glistening magic in his yellow and vermillion stripes, lying there near your foot like a thing bewitched, the fatal spell of his fangs in his wonderful color: cute thing, pretty little yellow and vermillion snake. Those rattlers in the swamps are of wonderful coloration: white, black, yellow, orange, red, blue, in great diamonds. Not like desert rattlers, dry, dusty in color, but moist in color, refulgent in color.
Julian Lee Rayford, from Cottonmouth, 1941.
Mobile lies beside that tawny river. Swamps lie along that golden-red muddy-green-yellow river. Swamps as individual, each one, as the people on their outskirts.
Julian Lee Rayford, the opening lines of Cottonmouth, 1941.
At first I painted a horses [bone] head and then I got this cows head, and I had this cows head painted against the blue . . . and I thought, well I have to do something else about that. And that was at the time that the men were all talking about the great American novel, the great American play, the great American, oh, it was the great American everything. . . .
So I thought Ill make my picture a red, white, and blue (laughs), Ill make it an American painting. . . . I put a red stripe down each side. It entertained me, but I dont think anybody else caught on to it for quite a while.
Georgia OKeeffe, from the documentary Georgia OKeeffe, (60 min), 1977.
Lavenders blue, dilly dilly,
Lavenders green,
When you are King, dilly dilly,
I shall be Queen.
Traditional English, Lavenders Blue, from Lullabies and Poems for Children, selected and edited by Diana Secker Larson, 2002.
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;
When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene; . . .
Come live, and be merry, and join with me
To sing the sweet chorus of Ha, ha, he!
William Blake (17571827), Laughing Song, from Lullabies and Poems for Children, selected and edited by Diana Secker Larson, 2002.
Pink was the shell within,
Silver without;
Sounds of the great sea
Wandered about.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (180992), Minnie and Winnie, from Lullabies and Poems for Children, selected and edited by Diana Secker Larson, 2002.
Yes, thou shalt know what mystery lies
In the amethyst deep of the curtained skies,
If thou wilt fold thy onyx eyes. . . .
Eugene Field (185095), Armenian Lullaby, from Lullabies and Poems for Children, selected and edited by Diana Secker Larson, 2002.
Child of the moon, rub your rainy eyes. . . .
Oh, child of the moon, bid the sun arise.
Oh, child of the moon,
Give me a misty day, pearly gray, silver, silky faced, wide-awake,
crescent-shaped smile.
from Child Of The Moon by the Rolling Stones (Jagger/Richards), 1968.
Babys beds a silver moon,
sailing oer the sky,
Sailing oer the sea of sleep,
While the stars float by. . . .
Babys fishing for a dream,
Fishing near and far,
Her line a silver moonbeam is,
Her bait a silver star.
from Babys Beds a Silver Moon, traditional, as found in Lullabies and Poems for Children, selected and edited by Diana Secker Larson, 2002.
Where did you get your eyes so blue
Out of the sky as I came through.
What makes the light in them sparkle and spin
Some of the starry spikes left in.
George MacDonald (18241905), Where Did You Come From Baby Dear, as found in Lullabies and Poems for Children, selected and edited by Diana Secker Larson, 2002.
Fly away my blue-eyed friend,
Fly away my daisy,
Fly away my blue-eyed friend,
You nearly drive me crazy.
Wish I had a banjo strong,
Strung with golden twine,
And every time Id pluck on it,
Id wish that girl were mine.
from the traditional ballad Shady Grove, My Little Love, as found in Lullabies and Poems for Children, selected and edited by Diana Secker Larson, 2002.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Jane Taylor (17831824), Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
Blacker than midnight,
Teeth like flags of truce.
The blacker the berry
The sweeter is the juice.
from St. Louis Blues by W.C. Handy.
Trouble in mindIm blue,
But I wont be blue always,
For the sun will shine
In my back door someday.
from Trouble in Mind by Richard M. Jones.
I was born standin up and talkin back.
My daddy was a green-eyed mountain jack.
from Trouble by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Chagall, Miro, and Kandinsky all seem to know that pure colorsespecially red, blue, and greencome to a focus at different points in reference to the retina and that extreme depth can be achieved with color alone.
Edward T. Hall, from The Hidden Dimension, 1966.
In America linear perspective is still the most popular art style for the general public. Chinese and Japanese artists, on the other hand, symbolize depth in quite a different way. Oriental art shifts the viewing point while maintaining the scene as constant. Much of Western art does just the opposite. In fact, a most significant difference between the East and the West . . . [is that] space itself is perceived entirely differently. In the West, man perceives the objects but not the spaces between. In Japan, the spaces are perceived, named, and revered as the ma, or intervening interval.
Edward T. Hall, from The Hidden Dimension, 1966.
The concept that no two people see exactly the same thing when actively using their eyes in a natural situation is shocking to some people because it implies that not all men relate to the world around them in the same way. . . .
How there can be such great differences in the visual worlds of two people becomes clearer if it is known that the retina (the light-sensitive part of the eye) is composed of at least three different parts or areas: the fovea, the macula, and the region where peripheral vision occurs. Each area performs different visual functions, enabling man to see in three very different ways. Because the three different types of vision are simultaneous and blend into each other, they are not normally differentiated. The fovea is a small circular pit in the center of the retina containing roughly 25,000 closely packed color-sensitive cones, each with its own nerve fiber. The fovea contains cells at the unbelievable concentration of 160,000 cells per square millimeter (an area the size of the head of a pin). The fovea enables the average person to see most sharply a small circle ranging in size from 1/96 of an inch to 1/4 of an inch (estimates differ) at a distance of twelve inches from the eye. The fovea, also found in birds and the anthropoid apes, is a recent development in evolution. . . . In man, needle-threading, removal of splinters, and engraving are some of the many activities made possible by foveal vision. Without it there would be no machine tools, microscopes, or telescopes. . . .
Surrounding the fovea is the macula, an oval, yellow body of color-sensitive cells. It covers a visual angle of 3 degrees in the vertical plane and 12 to 15 degrees in the horizontal plane. Macular vision is quite clear, but not as clear and sharp as foveal vision because the cells are not as closely packed as they are in the fovea. Among other things man uses the macula for reading.
The man who detects movement out of the corner of his eye is seeing peripherally. Moving away from the central portion of the retina, the character and quality of vision change radically. The ability to see color diminishes as the color-sensitive cones become more scattered. Fine vision associated with closely packed receptor cells . . . shifts to very coarse vision in which perception of movement is enhanced. . . . Peripheral vision is expressed in terms of an angle, approximately 90 degrees, on each side of a line extending through the middle of the skull. . . . Thus even though man sees less than a one-degree circle sharply, the eyes move so rapidly as they dart around painting in the details of the visual world that one is left with the impression of a much wider clear area than is actually present in the visual field. The fact that attention is focused on foveal and macular vision in co-ordinated shifts also maintains the illusion of broad-band clear vision.
Edward T. Hall, from The Hidden Dimension, 1966.
Vision was the last of the senses to evolve and is by far the most complex. Much more data are fed to the nervous systems through the eye and at a much greater rate than through touch or hearing. The information gathered by a blind man outdoors is limited to a circle with a radius of twenty to one hundred feet. With sight, he could see the stars.
Edward T. Hall, from The Hidden Dimension, 1966.
Taken by themselves, the reddening of the face in anger, the blush of embarrassment, the red spot between the eyes indicative of the slow burn . . . and the flush of passion are little more than curiosities. Combined with what we know of behavior in lower life forms, they can be seen as significant remnants of displaysbehavioral fossils, you might saywhich originally served the purpose of letting the other person know what was going on.
Edward T. Hall, from The Hidden Dimension, 1966.
The evening lights were being turned on, and at this hour Sabina felt like the city, as if all the lights were turned on at once causing a vast illumination. There were lights on her hair, in her eyes, on her nails, on the ripples of her purple dress now turning black.
Anais Nin, from A Spy in the House of Love, 1959.
Dressed in red and silver, she evoked the sounds and imagery of fire engines as they tore through the streets of New York, alarming the heart with the violent gong of catastrophe; all dressed in red and silver, the tearing red and silver cutting a pathway through the flesh.
Anais Nin, from A Spy in the House of Love, 1959.
Q: The Ruby Slippers in The Wizard of Oz were originally what color (they were changed because red looked much better in the new creation of color film)
A: Silver.
from Trivia of the Silver Screen by Lester Gordon, 1995.
This year, Im a star, but what will I be next year A black hole
Woody Allen, as quoted in Trivia of the Silver Screen by Lester Gordon, 1995.
New Orleans natives hold red beans and rice closer to their hearts than any other of their many fabled dishesso much so that Louis Armstrong made his autograph Red beans and ricely yours.
Bill Neal, from Bill Neals Southern Cooking, 1989.
Southerners may make resoutions for the New Year, but they know success (or lack of it) depends more on what is eaten on 1 January than on all the good intentions in the world. More black-eyed peas and collards are consumed on that day than any other time of the yearpart of an antique gastronomic insurance policy. Collards are for a steady suppy of folding green in the coming year; black-eyed peas for plenty of pocket change.
Bill Neal, from Bill Neals Southern Cooking, 1989.
Farewell, cried Glaucus, absently. Farewell, my friends.
He fired the blowtorch and approached the ice.
Whereer he moved, the goddess shone before, he quoted, adding in a reverent whisper, Homer.
Colin Higgins, from Harold and Maude, 1971.
Look at the sky, said Harold, chewing thoughtfully. Its so big.
And so blue.
Beyond the blue is the vast blackness of the cosmos.
Yes. But spreckled with uncountable stars. Theyre shining right now. We just cant see them. I suppose thats just another instance of all thats going on that is beyond human perception.
. . . She turned and looked out at the setting sun. Theyre it goes, she said wistfully. Sinking over the horizon where were all going to go. The colors are changing and soon theyll be gone, leaving us with darknessand stars.
Colin Higgins, from Harold and Maude, the novel, not the movie, 1971.
There be three kinds of fairies, the black, the white, and the green, of which the black be the worst.
John Walsh, of Netherbury in Dorset, 1566, as quoted in Witchcraft by Pennethorne Hughes, 1952.
It is important to remember that mere faith-healing and the peddling of unusual herbal remedies was not witchcraft. Or it was white; theologically reprehensible but probably merely a department of county medicine. Witchcraft proper exists only where the powers called upon are consciously felt to be evil ones.
Pennethorne Hughes, from Witchcraft, 1952.
Magic and religion are co-terminous . . . in any given society. Both generate power. Wrongly directed, by any given convention, that power is Black Magic. Black magic, and dabbling in it, seeking to gain and not to give, to achieve and not to contribute, is what the addicts know as the Left-hand Path. They claim that it is very powerful, and (with the aid of the drugs and practices it imposes) practitioners indeed often end up out of their minds.
Pennethorne Hughes, from Witchcraft, 1952.
RUDDY CHEEKS
AND FACE
OF TAN
NEATLY SHAVEN
WHAT A MAN!
BURMA-SHAVE
from The Verse by the Side of the Road; The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs and Jingles by Frank Rowsome, Jr., 1965.
These are the banana docks, and the checkers are calling out the grades and qualities and ripeness of bananas. Theyre white men and theyre directing the whole operation. Occasionally youll hear a song from one of the Negro dock wallopers, theyre toting bananas. . . . Come over here, boy, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up / Come on, Charlie, take em down / Step along here now, step along / Red above, yellow below, green across, jumbo, white flag / Hey, white flag, white below, red below to the west, Chinee on the wharf / Hey, boy, on the wharf / Nine below, eight below, seven above / West to the west / Nine outside, yellow outside, nine across / Ching-ching-ching of the tabulating machines / The hum and the click and the roll and the bumpity thumpity clanking of the conveyors / The chanting of the checkers and the steady hum of the men toting bananas, and occasionally a fragment of a song / A long time sweet daddy, a long time sweet mama / Oh-h-h doo-da, doo-da, doodle-ah, doodle-ah, doodle-ah, doo-da-a-a / Green flag, black flag, a light nine, and a light nine, and a light nine, and another light nine, and a light nine, and another light nine / Medium nine and another medium nine and another medium nine, and another medium nine / And a heavy nine, and a heavy nine, and a light nine, and another light nine . . . [He keeps going] And another yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow / Hey, boy, Chinee to the warehouse / Green flag, red flag, a black flag / Light nine, heavy nine, black nine, yellow nine / Green flag, green, light nine, yellow, black flag / Walk Charlie, let your green, green, green, yellow / Go above, come above, come on in, come on in, going by, my my my my my my / Come and get your lovin daddy / Oh, I am so sad and so blue and I think about you more and more every day / Ah, lord, more and more every day / [Softly] Green flag, another green, another green, yellow, yellow, yellow / Get em green there, Johnny, get em green / Come on it, come on in, going by, going by, Chinee to the warehouse / Hey, boy, Chinee / Come on Charlie / [loud] Walk, Charlie, walk.
Julian Lee Rayford in 1973, interviewed in And They All Sang; Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey by Studs Terkel, 2005.
Woke up this mornin
Blues was round my bed
Ate my breakfast
Blues was in my bread.
Leadbelly, as paraphrased in And They All Sang; Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey by Studs Terkel, 2005.