July 2006 Archives

"Like a sprawling, misshapen Christmas tree the lights of Sector Twelve General Hospital blazed against the misty backdrop of the stars. From its view-ports shone lights that were yellow and red-orange and soft, liquid green, and others which were a searing actinic blue. There was darkness in places also. Behind these areas of opaque metal plating lay sections wherein the lighting was so viciously incandescent that the eyes of approaching ships' pilots had to be protected from it, or compartments which were so dark and cold that not even the light which filtered in from the stars could be allowed to penetrate to their inhabitants."

--James White, Hospital Station, 1962.

"Space, the mirror, waits for life to come look for itself there."

--Ray Bradbury, A Serious Search for Wierd Worlds, 1960.

I can't believe its so easy to post to my site from far-away London, but here I am and there you are reading the post! Lindsay and I are enjoying our summer vacation. Tomorrow she'll get her tattoo, which is the purpose of this leg of the journey. On friday we fly to Amsterdam, the purpose of which will be . . . fun! I am hoping that everyone is well. Please post comments and I'll check back later.

Peace out,

Paul

''Oh! Sweet opiates, stupefying ecstasy,
Burnt-red bitters, clear topaz vermouth,
Absinthe-milk clouded by emerald! Pour away!
Pour away! Forget the whys and the wherefores.''

--Jean Richepin, from Absinthe, as quoted and translated from the French by Elizabeth K. Menon, Evil by Design: The Creation and Marketing of the Femme Fatale, 2006.

''Highly addictive and likely to cause hallucinations, absinthe was described in poetry and prose as a female lover--the 'green-eyed fairy'--a full-fledged femme fatale. The poetic term for absinthe was 'la dame verte.' The user hoped to reach a hallucinogenic state and be transported to a fantastic world, yet the actual effect was isolation from others, from reality, and eventually from his or her mental faculties. 'L'heure de l'absinthe,' which indicated the time of day that people usually engaged in the ritualistic preparations, between five and seven in the evening, was equated with notions of fatality and destiny by Andre Gill. Charles Cros, in his poem 'L'heure verte,' described the time when absinthe permeated the air as the 'emerald' hour.'''

--Elizabeth K. Menon, Evil by Design: The Creation and Marketing of the Femme Fatale, 2006.

'Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.'

'Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man, 1964.

Jeesus Chriist, thrift collage by Paul Dean, 2006. This and the following piece will be among the work on display tomorrow evening at The Scrap Exchange in Durham, North Carolina. The event will also feature an avant-garde marching band, so . . . don't miss it!

Dots, thrift collage by Paul Dean, 2006.

'The green light dazzled her as she went in. It was as if she stood in the hollow of an emerald.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

'Dew shone red, violet, gold on the trembling tips of the grass blades. It was a perfect May morning.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

'Through his half-open eyes he saw hands holding flowers'thin hands, fine hands; but hands that belonged to no one. And were they flowers the hands held' Or mountains' Blue mountains with violet shadows' Then petals fell. Pink, yellow, white, with violet shadows, the petals fell. They fall and fall and cover all, he murmured. And there was the stem of a wine-glass; the rim of a plate; and a bowl of water. The hands went on picking up flower after flower; that was a white rose; that was a yellow rose; that was rose with violet valleys in its petals. There they hung, many folded, many coloured, drooping over the rim of the bowl. And petals fell. There they lay, violet and yellow, little shallops, boats on a river. And he was floating, and drifting, in a shallop, in a petal, down a river. . . .'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

Whatever happened in Egypt must have been much more powerful than an atomic bomb.'

'There is a kind of net that is as old as Methuselah, as soft as a cobweb and as full of holes, yet it has retained its strength to this day. When a demon wearies of chasing after yesterdays or of going round in circles on a windmill, he can install himself inside a mirror. There he waits like a spider in its web, and the fly is certain to be caught.'

'Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Mirror from Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories, 1985.

'[S]omebody, he observed, had written the words 'God is Love' in pink chalk on the gates of Apsley House. That must need some pluck, he thought, to write 'God is Love' on the gates of Apsley House when at any moment a policeman might nab you.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

'Eleanor sat back under the shade of her white umbrella. The air seemed to hum with the heat. The air seemed to smell of soap and chemicals. How thoroughly people wash in England, she thought, looking at the yellow soap, the green soap, and the pink soap in the chemist's window.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

'In the country is was an ordinary day enough; one of the long reel of days that turned as the years passed from green to orange; from grass to harvest.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

'The lights opened in the middle of the house. All the colour came back. The whole Opera House leapt into life again with its faces and its diamonds and its men and women. They were clapping and waving their programmes. The whole house seemed to be fluttering with white squares of paper.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

''It's the moon,' she said. It was the moon that was making the leaves white. They both looked at the moon which shone like a silver coin, perfectly polished, very sharp and hard.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

From Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata, 1825. As reproduced and captioned in Imitation and Imagination: The Art of the Theatre, by Loren K. Ruff, 1994.

'The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection;
The water has no mind to receive their image.'

'from a Zenrin, quoted by Alan Watts in Tao, the Watercourse Way, 1975.

'If the mind is not overlaid with wind and waves, you will always be living among blue mountains and green trees. If your true nature has the creative force of Nature itself, wherever you may go, you will see fishes leaping and geese flying.'

'Hung Tzu-ch'eng, from his Ts'ai-ken T'an, as quoted by Alan Watts in Tao, the Watercourse Way, 1975.

'[Y]ou can only know God through an open mind just as you can only see the sky through a clear window. You will not see the sky if you have covered the glass with blue paint.'

'Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity, 1951.

'Look! The person who lives in the light of God is conscious neither of time past nor of time to come but only of one eternity.'

'Meister Eckhart, as quoted by Alan Watts in The Wisdom of Insecurity, 1951.

'Under the wide and starry sky
Dig me a grave and let me lie;
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.'

'Robert Louis Stevenson, as quoted by Alan Watts in The Wisdom of Insecurity, 1951.

'The curious gleam which had come into all their eyes when Major Elkin began his story had faded completely from Colonel Pargiter's face. He sat staring ahead of him with bright blue eyes that seemed a little screwed up, as if the glare of the East were still in them; and puckered at the corners as if the dust were still in them.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

'Where am I' she asked herself, staring at a white jug stained pink by the setting sun. For a moment she seemed to be in some borderland between life and death. Where am I' she repeated, looking at the pink jug, for it all looked strange.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

'It was an uncertain spring. The weather, perpetually changing, sent clouds of blue and of purple flying over the land.'

'Virginia Woolf, the opening lines of The Years, 1937.

'When the sun went down a million little gaslights, shaped like the eyes in peacocks' feathers, opened in their glass cages, but nevertheless broad stretches of darkness were left on the pavement. . . . At length the moon rose and its polished coin, though obscured now and then by wisps of cloud, shone out with serenity, with severity, or perhaps with complete indifference. Slowly wheeling, like the rays of a searchlight, the days, the weeks, they years passed one after another across the sky.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

'[H]e sipped. He set the glass on the table in front of him. He turned again to the Antigone. He read; then he sipped, then he read; then he sipped again. A soft glow spread over his spine at the nape of his neck. The wine seemed to press open little dividing doors in his brain. And whether it was the wine or the words or both, a luminous shell formed, a purple fume, from which out stepped a Greek girl; yet she was English. There she stood among the marble and the asphodel, yet there she was among the Morris wall-papers and the cabinets'his cousin Kitty, as he had seen her last time he dined at the Lodge. She was both of them'Antigone and Kitty; here in the book; there in the room; lit up, risen, like a purple flower.'

'Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

The one they call the walker.

'The illusion of transparency goes hand in hand with a view of space as innocent, as free of traps or secret spaces. . . . Is [a window] simply a void traversed by a line of sight' No. In any case, the question would remain: what line of sight'and whose' The fact is that the window is a non-object which cannot fail to become an object.'

'Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 1974, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, 1991. Quoted inThe Prose of Things: Transformations of Description in the Eighteenth Century, by Cynthia Sundberg Wall, 2006.

'What remains critically underappreciated is the extent to which eighteenth-century English society was . . . deeply interested in the plastic possiblitlies of personal habitation. . . .

Things are described in catalogs, inventories, letters, guidebooks; things are acquired by shopping, collecting, bidding; things are arranged and rearranged in private spaces, both in the world and in texts. . . . Acts of dispersion, dismemberment, fragmentation, are countered by acts of collection, assemblage, collage'description.'

'Cynthia Sundberg Wall, The Prose of Things: Transformations of Description in the Eighteenth Century, 2006.

'Color connects. . . . Color also resonates socially, historically. Jane Schneider has shown how the dominant blacks and whites of Elizabeth's court . . . signaled, not only support for the queen (black as opposed to the vivid colors of European courts, white for the queen's virgin purity), but also 'England's determination to hold its own in the lively textile rivalries of the time.' Scarlets and crimsons were the ceremonial color, and according to a royal statute of 1552, 'true,' rather than false and deceiving. Other royally validated colors included '. . . brown-blue, orange-tawny, russet, marble, sheep's color, lion's color, motley or iron gray, something called 'new sad color' and something called 'puke.'' Other specifically English-made colors included 'rat's color,' 'horseflesh,' 'pease-porridge tawny,' and 'gooseturd.''

'Cynthia Sundberg Wall, fromThe Prose of Things: Transformations of Description in the Eighteenth Century, 2006. Quoting Jane Schneider, Fantastical Colors in Foggy London: The New Fashion Potential of the Late Sixteenth Century, from Material London, ca. 1600, edited by Lena Cowen Orlin, 2000.

'Her Hair, which was whiter, and more shining than silver, and hung down in Tresses below her Waste, was only kept from falling o'er her Face by a Fillet of Diamonds. . . . On the Middle of the Fillet there was fix'd a sort of a little Tree of Gold, on the Branches of which hung Jewels of a prodigious largeness, but such a Height above her head that (the Springs on which they were fastn'd being shaded by some loose Hair, which flew out as tho' disdainful of Restraint) made it seem to the Eye as tho' they were self-poiz'd, and form'd Constellation like Ariadne's Crown.'

'Eliza Haywood (1693'-1756), from Idalia: or, the Unfortunate Mistress, 1725. As quoted by Cynthia Sundberg Wall in The Prose of Things: Transformations of Description in the Eighteenth Century, 2006.

'The Eyes of a Fly in one kind of light appear almost like a Lattice, drill'd through with abundance of small holes. . . . In the Sunshine they look like a Surface cover'd with golden Nails; in another posture, like a Surface cover'd with Pyramids; in another with Cones; and in other posture of quite other shapes.'

'Robert Hooke, from Micrographia, 1665. As quoted by Cynthia Sundberg Wall in The Prose of Things: Transformations of Description in the Eighteenth Century, 2006.

Learning Study, a Chinese calendar card, designed by Xue Xi and available here!

'[T]he device of punctuation, which was known to the Hellenistic Greeks but lost with the barbarian invasions, was resurrected in the thirteenth century and was established in the fifteenth century with the advent of printing.'

'Loren K. Ruff, Imitation and Imagination: The Art of the Theatre, 1994.

'By the early thirteenth century, the demise of Latin forced the Church to resort to the vernacular in order to maintin its power and in order to reach the people. . . .

[B]ooks aided the rise of the vernacular. All books were written on parchment, papyrus, vellum or paper. It was done with a quill or reed pens using black or colored inks. Paper had been invented in China by . . . about A.D. 105 and was imported to the west from Islam. In 1190 paper mills were erected in western Europe and in the thirteenth century, paper was made from linen. The manuscripts were copied either by monks or scribes who were paid by monasteries, rich men wishing a library, or booksellers. Books were expensive and by today's standards (1993-4), the average book was [worth] roughly $800 - $1000.'

'Loren K. Ruff, Imitation and Imagination: The Art of the Theatre, 1994.

'Evidence indicates that Thespis was a professional actor from Icaria in Attica, who won the first tragedy contest in 534 B.C. . . . His major contributions include coloring his face with white lead, introducing linen masks, and creating a single actor (himself) who was distinct from the chorus.'

'Loren K. Ruff, Imitation and Imagination: The Art of the Theatre, 1994.

'[Edgar Allen] Poe's poetry and stories explore the Dionysian. His works delve into the unknown and the mysterious and are filled with symbolic overtones. Seeking to create emotional impressions through suggestion, Poe used color to render an almost psychedelic beauty which bombards the senses and creates a feeling of horrified fascination.'

'Loren K. Ruff, Imitation and Imagination: The Art of the Theatre, 1994.

'What good is music' Or painting' Who would be so mad as to prefer Mozart to a republican politician . . . or Michelangelo to the inventor of white mustard''

'Theophile Gautier (1811-1872), as quoted in Imitation and Imagination: The Art of the Theatre, by Loren K. Ruff, 1994.

Rick Nielson as a guitar god, by Mr. Squirrel.

'She was sitting on her sofa, which was very old . . . eight feet long, kidney-shaped, puffy and bald. An underlying pink shone through the green; the upholstered tufts were like the pads of dog's paws; between them rose bunches of hair. Here Hattie slouched, resting, with knees wide apart and a cigarette in her mouth, eyes half-shut but farseeing. The mountains seemed not fifteen miles but fifteen hundred feet away, the lake a blue band. . . .'

'Saul Bellow, Leaving the Yellow House, 1954.

'Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life. . . .'

'Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lift Not The Painted Veil Which Those Who Live, 1818.

'Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs shone smokily through the tranquil rain. It was late afternoon and the streets were in movement; the bistros gleamed.'

'F.Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited, 1931.

'It certainly made a blaze of light and colour, almost as if a rainbow had suddenly descended into the market-place, when, one fine morning, the shutters were taken down from the new shop, and the two windows displayed their decorations. On one side there were the variegated tints of collared and marbled meats, set off by bright green leaves, the pale rows of glazed pies, the rich tones of sauces and bottled fruits enclosed in their veil of glass'altogether a sight to bring tears into the eyes of a Dutch painter; and on the other, there was a predominance of the more delicate hues of pink, and white, and yellow, and buff, in the abundant lozenges, candies, sweet biscuits and icings, which to the eyes of a bilious person might easily have been blended into a faery landscape in Turner's latest style.'

'George Eliot (1819-1880), from Brother Jacob.

'When we were at Vienna her twentieth birthday occurred, and as she was very fond of ornaments, we all took the opportunity of the splendid jewellers' shops in that Teutonic Paris to purchase her a birthday present of jewellery. Mine, naturally, was the least expensive; it was an opal ring'the opal was my favorite stone, because it seems to blush and turn pale as if it had a soul.'

'George Eliot, The Lifted Veil, 1859.

'[O]pal . . . [is] traditionally associated with changeability because of the delicate play of colours (as in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: 'Thy mind is a very opal'). Eliot may also have known of the old story that an opal, wrapped in a bay-leaf, could make the bearer invisible.'

'Helen Small, editor, 1999, of George Eliot's The Lifted Veil, 1859.

'Our sweet illusions are half of them conscious illusions, like effects of colour that we know to be made up of tinsel, broken glass, and rags.'

'George Eliot, The Lifted Veil, 1859.

'Bertha was entering with a candle in her hand'Bertha, my wife'with cruel eyes, with green jewels and green leaves on the white ball-dress; every hateful thought within her present to me. . . . It was a moment of hell. . . . She came with her candle and stood over me with a bitter smile of contempt; I saw the great emerald brooch on her bosom, a studded serpent with diamond eyes. I shuddered. . . . She was my wife, and we hated each other. Gradually the hearth, the dim library, the candle-light disappeared'seemed to melt away into a background of light, the green serpent with the diamond eyes remaining a dark image on the retina.'

'George Eliot, The Lifted Veil, 1859.

'Darkness'darkness'no pain'nothing but darkness: but I am passing on and on through the darkness: my thought stays in the darkness, but always with a sense of moving onward. . . .'

'George Eliot, The Lifted Veil, 1859.

'As Goethe put it in his Theory of Colors, the visible is not defined as presence of light and absence of darkness, but as an ever shifting encounter of light and shadow. Eliane Escoubas explicates Goethe's theory in the following way: 'Without the contrast between light and dark, only dazzlement ['blouissement] is left'which is also blindness.''

' Andrea Goulet, Optiques, 2006, citing Eliane Escoubas, 'L'Oeil (du) teinturier,' Critique 37, 418 (March 1982).

[R]efers commonly to a state of astonishment, but its primary meaning is that of a visual effect: 'Condition of sight as affected by an excessively intense burst of light.'

'Optiques, by Andrea Goulet, 2006; citing Robert Le Grand, Dictionnaire de la langue francaise, 1985.

'One day at morning assembly the headmaster told us we were going to do eye exercises. He said Chairman Mao had observed that there were too many schoolchildren wearing spectacles, a sign that they had hurt their eyes by working too hard. He had ordered something to be done about it. We were all terribly moved by his concern. Some of us wept in gratitude. We started doing eye exercises for fifteen minutes every morning. A set of movements had been devised by doctors and set to music. After rubbing various points around our eyes, we all stared intently at the rows of poplars and willows outside the window. Green was supposed to be a restful color. As I enjoyed the comfort the exercises and the leaves brought me, I though of Mao and repledged my loyalty to him.'

'Jung Chang (b. 1952), Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. As quoted in Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Deborah Sommer, 1995.

'This may be the trip'you will experience wonders
and command flying dragons at the Cliff of Purple Sky.'

'Kao Ch'i (1336-1374), Saying Good-bye to Feng the Hermit. As quoted in Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Deborah Sommer, 1995.

'The Dragon is a green-eyed god, is given to suspicion;
His evil nature knows to bounds,
In his malice he can work all forms of harm.'

'Li Hao-ku, Chang Boils the Sea. As quoted in Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Deborah Sommer, 1995.

'To practice guarding the light of the One, when you have not yet attained concentration, just sit quietly with your eyes closed. There is no light seen in the inner eye.

Practice guarding the One like this for a long time and a brilliant light will arise. . . . Practice guarding the One and concentrate on the light. It will first arise like fire. Be careful not to let it slip! The light will initially be red; with prolonged practice it will turn white. After another long stretch, it will be green. As you penetrate these lights, they will come nearer and nearer and eventually merge into one brilliance. . . .

In guarding the light of the One, you may see a light as bright as the rising sun. This is a brilliance as strong as that of the sun at noon.

In guarding the light of the One, you may see a light entirely green. When this green is pure, it is the light of lesser yang.

In guarding the light of the One, you may see a light entirely red, just like fire. This is a sign of transcendence.

In guarding the light of the One, you may see a light entirely yellow. When this develops a greenish tinge, it is the light of central harmony. This is a potent remedy of the Tao.

In guarding the light of the One, you may see a light entirely white. When this is as clear as flowing water, it is the light of lesser yin.

In guarding the light of the One, you may see a light entirely black. When this shimmers like deep water, it is the light of greater yin.

In guarding the light of the One, you may see your own abdomen pervaded by light while the four directions are utterly in darkness. This is the light of great harmony, the Tao of great accordance.

In guarding the light of the One, you may perceive utter darkness without and total blackness within. There is nothing to hold on to, nothing to see. This is the light of human disease, disorder, and nervousness. Take medicines and drugs to remedy this, then try to see any of the seven lights described above.'

'Anonymous, the Taoist Secret Instructions of the Holy Lord on the Scripture of Great Peace. As quoted in Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Deborah Sommer, 1995.

'[I]n this our world no jewels make their appearance like those which exist in the world system Sukhavati.

[T]hat world system . . . is . . . adorned with jewel trees. . . . And these jewel trees, Ananda, have various colours, many colours, many hundreds of thousands of colours. They are variously composed of the seven precious things, in varying combinations, i.e. of gold, silver, beryl, crystal, coral, red pearls, or emerald. Such jewel trees . . . grow everywhere in this Buddha-field.'

'Scripture of the Pure Land (Sukhavatvyuha), third century B.C.E. As quoted in Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Deborah Sommer, 1995.

'Gaze far off from a distance:
she sparkles like the sun rising from morning mists;
press closer to examine:
she flames like the lotus flower topping the green wave.'

'Ts'ao Chih (192-232), Rhyme-Prose on the Goddess of the Lo. As quoted in Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Deborah Sommer, 1995.

'The jade's colors radiate, casting a luster on my face;
My subtle essences, purified, start to strengthen;
My material self melts and dissolves, frothing away,
And my spirit floats about, loose and free.'

'Anonymous, from the anthology The Songs of the South, gathered by Ch'u Yuan (340'-278 B.C.E.). As quoted in Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Deborah Sommer, 1995.

'Honorable persons say that learning must never cease. Blue comes from the indigo plant but is bluer than the plant itself; ice comes from water but is colder than water itself.'

'Hsun Tzu (born ca. 312 B.C.E), from Encouraging Learning. As quoted in Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Deborah Sommer, 1995. Hmmmm. To be pondered.

'In the legend of Shambhala, there is a family of beings called the Rigdens. who have never strayed from basic goodness, a pure radiance that has never been stained by ignorance, anger, jealousy, or pride. The Rigdens are not some celestial entities; they represent the ultimate ruler within us all. Tibetan paintings of the kingdom of Shambhala show the Rigdens conquering the negativity of the dark age. They are often depicted sitting on thrones of diamonds, indicating unshakable possession of the awareness of basic goodness, our primordial nature, which is also know as the Great Eastern Sun.'

'Sakyong Mipham, from Ruling Your World, 2005.

'The Shambhala flag has a white background representing basic goodness. It has a yellow circle representing the Great Eastern Sun, the inherent wisdom of all beings. It has four stripes, of orange, white, red, and blue, representing the four kinds of confidence'the tiger, the lion, the garuda, and the dragon. These represent the contentment joy, equanimity, and wisdom it takes to rule our world.'

'Sakyong Mipham, from Ruling Your World, 2005.

'There is a blue Buddha known as Samantabhadra, the all-good. Blue represents the basic nature of all beings, like a cloudless sky. That blue we see when we look high up'that's who we are. When we rest in the natural energy of our mind, doubt and hesitation evaporate, and we can experience that goodness. Like the sky, it's empty; therefore it can accomodate everything.'

'Sakyong Mipham, from Ruling Your World, 2005.

The wish-fulfilling jewel of wisdom, compassion, and courage. The mind of enlightenment.

'Ruling Your World by Sakyong Mipham, 2005.

Brilliant confidence.

'Ruling Your World by Sakyong Mipham, 2005.

'While he wept, the light grew brighter and brighter in his mind'an extraordinary light, a light at once transporting and terrible. . . . It seemed to him that he was looking upon Satan by the light of Paradise.'

'Victor Hugo, Les Mis'rables, 1862. Translated from the French by Charles E. Wilbour, 1961.

'Suddenly, a man was discovered clambering up the rigging with the agility of a wildcat. This man was clad in red'it was a convict; he wore a green cap'it was a convict for life. As he reached the round top, a gust of wind blew off his cap and revealed a head entirely white: it was not a young man.'

'Victor Hugo, Les Mis'rables, 1862. This man was Jean Valjean! Translated from the French by Charles E. Wilbour, 1961.

'Desiring always to be in mourning, he clothed himself with night.'

'Victor Hugo, on Marius, Les Mis'rables, 1862. Translated from the French by Charles E. Wilbour, 1961.

'A Dark Chase Needs a Silent Hound'

'Victor Hugo, chapter heading from Les Mis'rables, 1862. Translated from the French by Charles E. Wilbour, 1961.

Odalisque, a mixed-media collage by Charles Barbier and Paul Dean, 2006. This and the following piece are currently in the exhibition Sofa Art at the Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Showing from June 27 through July 30th, the reception is this Friday, July 14th, from 6 to 8pm. Don't miss it!

Katrina, mixed-media collage by Charles Barbier and Paul Dean, 2006.

'The face of truth is covered with a golden disc. Unveil it, O Pusan, so that I who love the truth may see it.'

'Isa Upanisad, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

'As from a blazing fire, sparks of like form issue forth by the thousands, even so, O beloved, many kinds of beings issue forth from the immutable and they return thither too.'

'Mundaka Upanisad, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

'Even as a mirror stained by dust shines brightly when it has been cleaned, so the embodied one when he has seen the (real) nature of the Self becomes integrated, of fulfilled purpose and freed from sorrow.'

'Svetasvatara Upanisad, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

'he who is hidden in yonder Sun is called splendour [Savitri] or he who is the pupil in the eye.'

'Maitri Upanisad, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

'The bird of golden hue abides in the heart and in the sun, a diver-bird, a swan, of surpassing radiance. Let us worship him in the fire.'

'Maitri Upanisad, to be recited before a sacrificial fire, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

'With a golden vessel is the face of the real covered. . . . He who is the yonder person in the sun, I myself am he. Verily, that which is the sunhood of the sun is the eternal real. That is the bright, the personal, the sexless. Of the bright power that pervades the sky, it is only, a portion, which is, as it were, in the midst of the sun, the eye and in fire. That is Brahman, that is the immortal, that is splendour.'

'the Maitri Upanisad, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

An illustration from Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development by Otto Rank, 1932. Nice, huh' But it's not mentioned directly in the text, and Egyptian ceiling is all the caption we get.

'You have filled every land with your beauty . . .
Though you are far away, your rays are on Earth.'

'Akhnaton, Egyptian hymn to the Sun, ca. 1370 B.C. As quoted by Carl Sagan in Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, 1997.

'Since all the colors that we see'on Earth and everywhere else'are a matter of which wavelengths of sunlight are best reflected, there is still more than poetic merit to think of the Sun as caressing all within its reach, of sunlight as the gaze of God.'

'Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, 1997.

'Sunlight is composed of a mixture of waves with frequencies corresponding to all the colors of the rainbow. There is slightly more yellow light than red or blue, which is partly why the Sun looks yellow.'

'Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, 1997.

'Perhaps the brightest natural material is freshly fallen snow. But it reflects only about 75 percent of the sunlight falling on it. The darkest material that we ordinarily come into contact with'black velvet, say'reflects only a few percent of the light that falls on it. 'As different as black and white' is a conceptual error: Black and white are fundamentally the same thing; the difference is only in the relative amounts of light reflected, not in their color.'

'Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, 1997.

'The world' Moonlit
Drops shaken
From the crane's bill.'

'Dogen (1200-1253), as quoted in Zen Poems of Japan: The Crane's Bill, Stryk & Ikemoto, 1973.

'I may recall here that the microcosmic foundaton of the seven-storeyed towers [of Balinese cremations] is to be found the the seven vertebrae of the neck which support the head'i.e., the seat of the soul.'

'Otto Rank, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932. The microcosmic origin of the historically quite significant number seven is revealed in a footnote.

'Here and there, dark-slated roofs giving off wisps of white smoke and the sharp-edged, silvery ditches left behind by the Couesnon's meandering streams caught the eye in an optical trap of the kind that, without our knowing why, render us irresolute and prone to reverie.'

'Balzac, from Les Chouans, 1828. As quoted in Optiques: the science of the eye and the birth of modern French fiction by Andrea Goulet, 2006.

'He had developed the curious phenomenon of being able to absorb ideas through reading; his eye took in seven or eight lines at a glance, and his mind took in their meaning at equal speed.'

'Balzac, from Louis Lambert, 1832. As quoted in Optiques: the science of the eye and the birth of modern French fiction by Andrea Goulet, 2006. Amazing . . . this is what happened to me in Amsterdam!

'It often happens that we look at a dress, a tapestry, or a blank sheet of paper so absentmindedly that we do not immediately perceive a shape or glittering spot thereupon that later strikes our eye all of a sudden, as if it had appeared there at the very moment we noticed it.'

'Balzac, from Le Bal de Sceaux. As quoted in Optiques: the science of the eye and the birth of modern French fiction by Andrea Goulet, 2006.

'For three days, in the camera obscura of his mind, Godefroid saw his Isaure with her white camellias, and her head's noble bearing, as when, after looking at a brightly-lit object for a long time, we see it again with our eyes closed in a smaller, radiant, and colored form, sparkling among the shadows.'

'Balzac, from La Maison Nucingen. As quoted in Optiques: the science of the eye and the birth of modern French fiction by Andrea Goulet, 2006.

'The only noteworthy thing about him was his eye, which flashed or dimmed at will like the on/off beam of a lighthouse.'

'Emile Gaboriau, from Monsieur Lecoq, 1869. As quoted in Optiques: the science of the eye and the birth of modern French fiction by Andrea Goulet, 2006.

'In order to understand phenomena such as afterimages . . . nineteenth-century scientists conducted various elaborate experiments involving looking into the sun and shining bright lights into the eye. In 1851, [Hermann von] Helmholz invented the ophthalmoscope, an optical instrument that reflects a bright light on the retina through the use of lenses so that an observer can see into the pupil. This mechanical illumination of the eye is interesting in its reversal of the usual relation between light and vision. Normally, we are able to see precisely because light rays enter our eyes, hitting the retina. In the case of the opthalmoscope, however, the angle of illumination intercepts the usual functioning of the eye, giving the observer access to visual percepts while in effect blinding the observed eye. The instrument thus effects a transformation of seeing subject into seen object.'

'Andrea Goulet, Optiques: the science of the eye and the birth of modern French fiction, 2006.

'The fantastic is not in the object, it is always in the eye.'

'Ernest Hello, Du genre fantastique, 1958. Quoted in Optiques: the science of the eye and the birth of modern French fiction by Andrea Goulet, 2006.

'If the light of a thousand suns suddenly arose in the sky, that splendour might be compared to the radiance of the Supreme Spirit.

And Arjuna saw in that radiance the whole universe in its variety, standing in a vast unity in the body of the God of gods.

Trembling with awe and wonder, Arjuna bowed his head, and joining his hands in adoration he thus spoke to his God.

I see in thee all the gods, O my God; and the infinity of the beings of thy creation. I see god Brahma on his throne of lotus, and all the seers and serpents of light. . . .

I see the splendour of an infinite beauty which illumines the whole universe. It is thee! with thy crown and sceptre and circle. How difficult thou art to see! But I see thee: as fire, as the sun, blinding, incomprehensible'

'The Bhagavad Gita, translated from the Sanskrit by Juan Mascaro, 1962. Published as Krishna's Dialogue on the Soul in 1995.

'Men of light worship the gods of Light; men of fire worship the gods of power and wealth; men of darkness worship ghosts and spirits of night.'

'The Bhagavad Gita, translated from the Sanskrit by Juan Mascaro, 1962. Published as Krishna's Dialogue on the Soul in 1995.

'Hast thou heard these words, Arjuna, in the silent communion of thy soul' Has the darkness of thy delusion been dispelled by thine inner Light''

'The Bhagavad Gita, translated from the Sanskrit by Juan Mascaro, 1962. Published as Krishna's Dialogue on the Soul in 1995.

'At a party, the young woman in mouse-gray is as difficult to see as a mouse, while the ones in brilliant reds and pinks and oranges draw suitors just as a highly colored flower does insects'and are sometimes as readily pollinated.'

'Allison Lurie, The Language of Clothes, 1981.

'That we should now think and speak of 'Whites' and 'Blacks' is an historical error. The actual skin color of most Britons and Americans, as anyone can observe, is a pinkish tan, fading to dun in age or illness; flushing to rose as a result of high blood pressure or alcoholism'or temporarily as a result of exertion, anger or embarrassment. It is the dubious achievement of these pinkish-tan persons to have designated themselves the 'White' race, and to have affixed the term 'Black' to people whose skin is some shade of brown or gold.'

'Allison Lurie, The Language of Clothes, 1981.

'With increasing years, human hair tends to lose its pigmentation and become first gray and then white. Gray hair has therefore always been a sign of age, though sometimes a deceptive one. In the eighteenth century, when both men and women powdered their hair or wore wigs, a white-haired beauty might be sixteen. White curls were believed to be becoming to the complexion, and to have a softening, youthful influence. During most other periods, however, the reverse notion has prevailed, and naturally white or gray hair has been dyed back to its original or some other hue to disguise the look of aging.'

'Allison Lurie, The Language of Clothes, 1981.

'She was dressed in rich materials'satins, and lace, and silks'all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. . . . [Then] I saw that everything . . . which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers.'

'Charles Dickins, Great Expectations, 1861. The description is of Miss Havisham, who, jilted on her wedding day, wore her bridal gown for the next thirty years.

'He was choked up tight in a white-on-white
And a cocoa front [suit] that was down [sophisticated],
A candy-striped tie hung down to his fly,
And he sported a gold-dust crown [hat].'

'Honky-Tonk Bud, from The Life: The Lore and Folk Poetry of the Black Hustler, Dennis Wepman, et al., editors. As quoted by Allison Lurie in The Language of Clothes, 1981.

'The Hollywood [cowboy hat] convention White Hat=Good Guy, Black Hat=Bad Guy still operates: men who wish to appear as rebels or desperate characters prefer the darker shades, and straight arrows the lighter ones. Ambiguous, subtle or secretive types may favor grayed hues, while the more common tans and brown that repeat the colors of the Western landscape are worn (or thought to be worn) by natural, down-to-earth men.'

'Allison Lurie, The Language of Clothes, 1981.

'During the second half of the nineteenth century, as Anne Hollander has pointed out, there were two sorts of black clothing, 'the conventionally sober, self-denying black and the dramatic, isolating, and distinguishing black. . . . '[E]motional' black could be of fragile velvet, superfine wool, or silk gauze, and intricately cut and trimmed, sometimes with black glitter. Null black was economical and hard-wearing and did not show stains, and looked it.''

'Allison Lurie, The Language of Clothes, 1981. Quoting from Seeing Through Clothes by Anne Hollander, 1978.

'Sex-typing in dress begins at birth with the assignment of pale-pink layettes, toys, bedding and furniture to girl babies, and pale-blue ones to boy babies. Pink, in this culture, is associated with sentiment; blue with service. The implication is that the little girl's future concern will be the life of the affections; the boy's, earning a living. As they grow older, light blue becomes a popular color for girl's clothes'after all, women must work as well as weep'but pink is rare on boys: the emotional life is never quite manly.'

'Allison Lurie, The Language of Clothes, 1981.

'Very light blond or red-gold hair (especially if curly) is a handicap for men professionally. . . . [S]ince these colors occur most often in small children, they suggest immaturity and impulsiveness.'

'Allison Lurie, The Language of Clothes, 1981.

''[N]othing could be as bad as red hair.''

'Anne of Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, 1908.

'As they watched the candle burn, they speculated as to whether light is found in the object or in our eye. Since stars may already have died out by the time their light reaches us, we may be admiring nonexistent things.'

'Gustave Flaubert, Bouvart et P'cuchet, 1881. Quoted in Optiques: the science of the eye and the birth of modern French fiction by Andrea Goulet, 2006.

'Now, the white light of the Sun is sa and the blue, exceding darkness, is ama. That makes Saman. Now that golden person who is seen within the sun, has a golden beard and golden hair. All is golden to the tips of the nails.

His eyes are even as a red lotus flower. His name is high (ut). He has risen above all evil. Verily, he who knows this, rises above evil.'

'Chandogya Upanisad, Section 6, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

'Now the light which shines above this heaven, above all, above everything, in the highest worlds beyond which there are no higher, verily, that is the same as this light which is here within the person.'

'Chandogya Upanisad, Section 13, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953. This is the closest I've come to 'as above, so below', the only quote I thought I knew from The Upanishads, the oldest of old books. Tom, is it in here'!'!'

'Now, of shapes eye is the source, for from it all shapes arise. It is their common feature for it is common to all shapes. It is their Brahman, for it sustains all shapes.'

'Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad, Sixth Brahmana: Three-Fold Character of the World, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

'The sun is (like) honey for all beings and all beings, are (like) honey for this sun. This shining, immortal person who is in this sun and with reference to oneself, this shining, immortal person who is in the eye, he is just this Self, this is immortal, this is Brahman, this is all.'
'Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad, Sixth Brahmana: Three-Fold Character of the World, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

''What light does a person here have' (What serves as the light for man')' 'He has the light of the sun, Your Majesty . . . for with the sun indeed as the light, one sits, moves about, does one's work and returns.' 'Just so, Yajnavalkya.'

'When the sun has set, Yajnavalkya, what light does a person here have'' 'The moon, indeed, is his light, for with the moon indeed as the light, one sits, moves about, does one's work and returns.' 'Just so, Yajnavalkya.'

'When the sun has set, Yajnavalkya, and the moon has set, what light does a person here have'' 'The fire, indeed, is his light, for with the fire, indeed as the light, one sits, moves about, does one's work and returns.' 'Just so, Yajnavalkya.'

'When the sun has set, Yajnavalkya, and the moon has set and the fire has gone out, what light does a person here have'' 'Speech, indeed, is his light, one sits, moves about, does one's work and returns. Therefore, Your Majesty, even where one's own hand is not discerned there when speech is uttered one goes towards it.' 'Just so, Yajnavalkya.'

'When the sun has set, Yajnavalkya, and the moon has set and the fire has gone out and speech has stopped, what light does aperson here have'' 'The self, indeed, is his light . . . for with the self, indeed, as the light, one sits, moves about, does one's work and returns.''

'Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad, Sixth Brahmana: Three-Fold Character of the World, from The Principal Upanisads, translated from the Sanskrit by S. Radhakrishnan, 1953.

'[The] battle for liberation from art, which has to be fought out again and again by every artist, received cultural expression in the Renaissance, in which the individualist artist-type saved himself, by the concept of genius, from threatened suffocation by Gothic and Classical. He had, indeed, to accept and employ the ideal forms . . . if only that he might assert himself positively as artist; but the cultural significance of the much-admired Renaissance lies not in the Classical form'which was developed to a higher level in Greece'but in this individual winning through, which equally raises it above the anonymous Gothic.'

'Otto Rank, The Artist's Fight With Art, from Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, translated from the German by Charles Francis Atkinson, 1932.

'Goldsmiths were the princes among the artisans of the Middle Ages, with a large scope to explore their numerous and varied talents. They could decorate a manuscript with gold leaf, set precious stones, cast metals, work with enamel, engrave silver, and fashion anything from a gold button to a shrine, reliquary, or tomb. It is no coincidence that the sculptors Andrea Orcagna, Luca della Robbia and Donatello, as well as the painters Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, and Benozzo Gozzoli'some of the brightest stars in a remarkable constellation of Florentine artists and craftsmen'had all originally trained in the workshops of goldsmiths.'

'Ross King, Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, 2000. This post is for my other nephew, Smith Dean.

'Filippo [Bruneschelli] . . . could have determined the height of columns or buildings with an upright rod. . . . Or he could have employed a quadrant or, even more simply, a mirror. . . . The surveyor placed the mirror on the ground some distance in front of the object to be measured, then moved himself into a position such that the top of the object appeared in the center of the mirror. The height of the building was then calculated by multiplying the distance between the object and the mirror by the height of the observer divided by his own distance from the glass.'

'Ross King, Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, 2000. This method came from Leonardo Fibonacci's Practica geometria, first published in 1220.

'Gothic builders had sought to fill their churches with plenty of light by designing enormous windows filled with stained glass, but the merits of 'light' or 'dark' churches were matters of considerable debate during the Renaissance. Alberti, for example, argued that churches should be dark inside, lit only by candles and lamps. . . . Michelangelo, taking over the construction of St. Peter's, criticized . . . Antonio da Sangallo, for designing a dome that would render the cathedral so dark inside that nuns would be raped and criminals concealed.'

'Ross King, Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, 2000.

My nephew, Nick Dean, among others, at Emerald Isle, North Carolina, just last week. Everyone had a very, very nice time.

'To head toward a star'this only.

To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky.'

'Martin Heidegger, The Thinker as Poet, from Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, 1971.

'To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This is why the poet in the time of the world's night utters the holy. This is why . . . the world's night is the holy night.'

'Martin Heidegger, What Are Poets For', from Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, 1971.

'like the moon, so life surely has a side that is constantly turned away from us, and that is not its opposite but its completion to perfection, to plenitude, to the real, whole, and full sphere and globe of being.'

'Rainer Maria Rilke, in a letter dated January 6, 1923, as quoted in What Are Poets For', from Poetry, Language, Thought, by Martin Heidegger, translated by Albert Hofstadter, 1971.

A thrift collage built on an antique computer punch card mailed from Emerald Isle, North Carolina, to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for the exhibition Do Not Fold, Bend, Spindle or Mutilate: Computer Punch Card Art, July 28'September 17th at the Washington Pavillion of Arts and Science.

'these are the kind of things that I wish to have'engraved amethysts, rosaries of black, amber and gold, blue cloth for a camora, black cloth for a mantle, such as shall be without a rival in the world, even if it costs ten ducats a yard; as long as it is of real excellence, never mind! If it is only as good as those which I see other people wear, I had rather be without it!'

'seventeen-year-old Marchioness of Mantua, April, 1491. From a letter to Girolamo Zigliolo, about to leave for France. Quoted and translated from the Italian by Evelyn Welch in Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy, 1400'1600, 2005.

'the few books from the sixth century that do survive are among the most carefully and expensively executed of any period. . . .

The sorts of books that were decorated and illustrated with images at this time were almost exclusively biblical'especially the Gospels, but also for some reason the Book of Genesis. Books were written by hand, by highly skilled calligraphers, on the specially treated animal skin known as parchment. . . . The most costly and ostentatious treatment a book could receive . . . was for it to be written in letters of silver or gold on parchment that had been dyed with the purpura dyestuff usually employed for textiles, and at this period reserved for imperial use. These books are generally referred to as 'purple codices' (Latin codex meaning book, as distinct from roll or scroll), which is misleading if we imagine that this describes a particular colour of parchment, for the purpura dye can produce a wide range of intense tones between a deep bue and deep red. . . . The pages of these books never equate with our modern notion of the single colour 'purple'.'

'John Lowden, Early Christian & Byzantine Art, 1997.

'the period after 843 was one of consolidation followed by slow but steady expansion in the political power of the Byzantine Empire. . . . The Bulgarian threat was neutralized by 1018 (a euphemism for Emperor Basil II's decision to blind the 14,000 Bulgarian soldiers captured in battle in 1014, leaving every hundredth man with one eye to guide his companions back to Tsar Samuel, who died of shock at the sight).'

'John Lowden, Early Christian & Byzantine Art, 1997.

'A few of the billboards, amazingly, are in that antique Socialist Realist style, flat reds and whites and grays overshot with the black of absolute authority.'

'William Gibson, Pattern Recognition, 2003.

'Strange but somehow familiar, the lighting consists of a few clear glass bulbs with dim, faintly orange filaments: reproduction Edison bulbs. Their light is inefficient, magical.'

'William Gibson, Pattern Recognition, 2003.

'she sees a crumpled military garment in a camouflage pattern that she seems to recall is called tarn'information garnered during her time in the skateboard-clothing industry. She knows most of the patterns, and even that the most beautiful is South African, smoky mauve-toned Expressionist streaks suggesting a sunset landscape of great and alien beauty. . . .

Flecktarn. That's what it's called. Like chocolate chips sprinkled on confetti the color of last autumn's leaves.'

'William Gibson, Pattern Recognition, 2003.

Flecktarn (also known as Flecktarnmuster, Flecktar, Flectar, or simply Fleck) is a 5-colour disruptive camouflage pattern, comprising black, dark green, grey-green and rust-red clumps and spots on a light green background. The use of spots creates a 'dithering' effect, which eliminates hard boundaries between the different colours in much the same way the squares in the newest digital camouflage patterns do. The pattern is designed for use in temperate woodland terrain. It has been adapted as desert camouflage by varying the colours.

In 1976, the Bundeswehr in Germany developed a number of prototype camouflage patterns, to be trialled as replacements for the solid olive-grey 'moleskin' combat uniform, which is sometimes also nicknamed 'Feldgrau' Field Grey. . . .

Of the patterns tested, that which is today known as Flecktarn was selected for adoption. The word is a composite formed from the German words Fleck (spot or blot) and Tarnung (camouflage).

'Wikipedia, the free [online] encyclopedia.

'The logical extension of light and sound as spectator events is the Light Sound Dimension, which follows the basic concept of Cinerama, if not mere cinema. Using rear projection to flood a wide screen with essentially liquid images, and large speakers to project highly amplified jazz-electronic improvisations, the L.S.D. is an intensely dedicated, highly gifted group of light artists and musicians who carry abstract light-sound art to perhaps its ultimate in purity and concentration. But it does not really involve the viewer in an environmental way, and for all the flashes of beauty in its use of visuals and sound, it has not fully solved the problem of structure extended in time, or, in more traditional terms, plot.'

'Thomas Albright, Light Shows: Beyond Rock, August 24, 1968. From The Rolling Stone Rock 'n' Roll Reader, edited by Ben Fong-Torres, 1974.

'Little girl blue, with the floppy hats and the brave attempt to be one of the guys. She took a little piece of all of us with her when she went. She was beautiful. That's not corny. It's true.'

'Ralph J. Gleason, remembering Janis Joplin in Another Candle Blown Out, October 29, 1970. From The Rolling Stone Rock 'n' Roll Reader, edited by Ben Fong-Torres, 1974.

'My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light.'

'Edna St. Vincent Millay.

'White collared conservative flashing down the street, pointing their plastic finger at me.'

'Jimi Hendrix, If 6 Was 9, from Axis: Bold As Love, 1967.

'Dress me in my silver garters, dress me in my diamond studs
Cause I'm going doe-me-doe-ing in my doe-me-doe duds!
I want my undulating undies with the maribou frills!
I want my beautiful bolero with the porcupine quills!
I want my purple nylon girdle with the orange blossom buds
Cause I'm going doe-me-doe-ing in my doe-me-doe duds!'

'Dr. Seuss, Doe-Me-Doe Duds!, from The 5,000 Fingers of Mr. T, the movie, 1953. Isn't today some obscure national holiday' Well, let's get fancy!

'Jeff Koons, 2004. What can I say . . . I love it!

In psychoanalysis, recognition of the causes of emotional distress.

'Essentials of Abnormal Psychology, third edition, V. Mark Durand & David H. Barlow, 2003.

In Singapore, a condition of mass hysteria or group delusion in which people believe their genitals are retracting into their bodies.

'Essentials of Abnormal Psychology, third edition, V. Mark Durand & David H. Barlow, 2003. Note to self: Is this what I have'!'!'!

Concept of the inner workings of the organism, such as thoughts and feelings that cannot be observed directly.

'Essentials of Abnormal Psychology, third edition, V. Mark Durand & David H. Barlow, 2003.

Also called unconscious vision; phenomenon in which a person is able to perform visual functions while having no awareness or memory of these abilities.

'Essentials of Abnormal Psychology, third edition, V. Mark Durand & David H. Barlow, 2003.

Sudden, intense reexperiencing of a previous, usually traumatic, event.

?Essentials of Abnormal Psychology, third edition, V. Mark Durand & David H. Barlow, 2003.

Hormone produced by the pineal gland that is activated by darkness to control the body?s biological clock and to induce sleep.

?Essentials of Abnormal Psychology, third edition, V. Mark Durand & David H. Barlow, 2003.