December 2006 Archives

''Human existence, beg to report, sir, is so complicated that the life of a single individual is nothing more than a bit of rubbish in comparison.''

'Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, translated from the Czech by Cecil Parrot, 1973.

'They went down to the village after general acceptance had been accorded to Svejk's doctrine that dogs in the night fear the lighted points of cigarettes. Unfortunately none of them were smoking cigarettes, so that Svejk's advice had no positive effect.'

'Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, translated from the Czech by Cecil Parrot, 1973.

"'Dogs can't dye their hair like ladies do. This always has to be done by the person who wants to sell them. If a dog is so old that it's completely grey and you want to sell it as a year-old puppy or pretend that the old dodderer is only nine month old, then you must buy some silver nitrate, dissolve it and paint the dog black so that it looks quite new.'"

'Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, translated from the Czech by Cecil Parrot, 1973.

'I am not a doctor, or a lawyer or critic but an advertising man. As a profession advertising is young; as a force it is as old as the world. The first four words ever uttered, 'Let there be light,' constitute its charter. All Nature is vibrant with its impulse. The brilliant plumage of the bird is color advertising addressed to the emotions of its mate. Plants deck themselved with blossoms, not for beauty only, but to attract the patronage of the bee and so by spreading pollen on its wings, to insure the perpetuation of their kind. . . .

I propose to speak of the advertisements of Jesus which have survived for twenty centuries and are still the most potent influence in the world.'

'Bruce Barton, co-founder of the BBDO agency, from The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus, 1926; quoted by James B. Twitchell in Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism, 1999.

'Pop art is popping up on product packages. The brightly colored cartoon and comic strip images are in every aisle. Just look at soft drink cans, for instance: Pepsi-Cola, Cherry Coke, Diet Cherry Coke, and Hawaiian Fruit Punch are splashed with pop pictures of surfers, sunglasses, and lips outlined in cherry-red lipstick. Better yet, look at the supercaffeinated, pick-me-up drinks like Mountain Dew, Mellow Yello, Jolt, or Surge and you will think you are in an explosion in a pop factory. Perhaps it is linguistic justice that soda pop and pop art should finally come together in one tribute to the enduring allure and cultural primacy of the package.'

'James B. Twitchell, Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism, 1999.

'Advertisers demand color; it leads to better product recall.'

'James B. Twitchell, Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism, 1999.

'Scholars have long noted that the medieval peasant could not move far from the iconography of Catholicism. . . . Just as we may recognize the difference between Coca-Cola red and Marlboro red, the medieval audience knew well that Christ's robe was a distinct shade of red. Commercial speech is here for the same reason Christian iconography was there. It is how we sort through things.'

'James B. Twitchell, Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism, 1999.

'The gentleman of the criminal type ground his teeth:

'What you're accused of and you've committed proves you've got all your wits about you.'

And now he proceeded to enumerate to Svejk a whole series of different crimes, beginning with high treason and ending with abuse of His Majesty and members of the Imperial Family. The central gem of this collection was Svejk's approval of the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand, from which there branched out a string of fresh crimes, among which the shining light was the crime of incitement, as it had all happened in a public place.

'What do you say to that'' the gentleman with features of bestial cruelty asked triumphantly.

'There's a lot of it,' Svejk replied innocently. 'You can have too much of a good thing.''

'Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, translated from the Czech by Cecil Parrot, 1973.

Black Maria.

'translators footnote from The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War by Jaroslav Hasek, translated from the Czech by Cecil Parrot, 1973.

'The clean, cosy cubicles of the regional criminal court made the most favorable impression on Svejk'the white-washed walls, the black-painted bars and the fat Mr Demartini, the chief warder for the prisoners on remand, with his purple facings and purple braid on his government-supplied cap. Purple is the colour prescribed not only here, but also at religious services on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

The glorious times of Roman rule over Jerusalem were coming back.'

'Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, translated from the Czech by Cecil Parrot, 1973.

''Jesus is here, and he wants
to resurrect somebody!''

'Rumi, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'The only way to measure a lover
is by the grandeur of the beloved.

Judge a moth by the beauty of its candle.'

'Rumi, Judge a Moth by the Beauty of Its Candle, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'We are the night ocean filled
with glints of light. We are the space
between the fish and the moon,
while we sit here together.'

'Rumi, The Private Banquet, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'There's the light gold of wheat in the sun
and the gold of bread made from that wheat.
I have neither. I'm only talking about them,

as a town in the desert looks up
at stars on a clear night.'

'Rumi, Unmarked Boxes, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it.

It will turn to gold. Resurrection
will be now. Every moment,
a new beauty.

And never any boredom! . . .

Sleep in the spirit tree's peaceful shade,
and never stick your head out from that green.'

'Rumi, Green Ears, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'Queen Sheba loads forty mules with gold bricks
as gifts for Solomon. When her envoy and his party
reach the wide plain leading to Solomon's palace,
they see that the top layer of the entire plain
is pure gold. They travel on gold
for forty days!

What foolishness to take gold
to Solomon, when the dirt of his land
is gold.'

'Rumi, Sheba's Gifts To Solomon, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'So these two were lost in their sexual trance.
They did not care anymore about feasting
or wine. Their eyes were closed like
perfectly matching calligraphy lines.'

'Rumi, Breadmaking, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'I am a naked man standing inside a mine of rubies,
clothed in red silk.
I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean,
billions of simultaneous motions
moving in me.
A circle of lovely, quiet people
becomes the ring on my finger.'

'Rumi, I Have Such A Teacher, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'He says, 'There's nothing left of me.
I'm like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness' It has no resistance
to sunlight.'

This is how Hallaj said, I am God,
and told the truth!

The ruby and the sunrise are one.'

'Rumi, The Sunrise Ruby, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'The love-religion has no code or doctrine.
Only God.
So the ruby has nothing engraved on it!
It doesn't need markings.'

'Rumi, Moses And The Shepherd, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

''Like the moon when it's getting
smaller, yet knowing the fullness to come.
Like a seed pearl ground in the mortar for medicine,
that knows it will be the light in a human eye.''

'Rumi, Childhood Friends, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'When someone is counting out
gold for you, don't look at your hands,
or the gold. Look at the giver.'

'Rumi, Omar and the Old Poet, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'We began
as a mineral. We emerged into plant life
and into the animal state, and then into being human,
and always we have forgotten our former states,
except in early spring when we slightly recall
being green again.'

'Rumi, The Dream That Must Be Interpreted, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'A certain rich man was accustomed to honor a sufi
by giving him pieces of silver.

'Would you like one piece of silver now,
O Lord of my Spirit, or three at breakfast
tomorrow morning''

The sufi answered,
'I love the half a coin that I have already in my hand
from yesterday more than the promise of a whole one
today, or the promise of a hundred tomorrow.
A sufi is the child of this moment.''

'Rumi, The Long String, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.'

'Rumi, Quietness, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.

'Sovereign Plumed Serpent,
Heart of the Lake, Heart of the Sea,
Maker of the Blue-Green Plate,
Maker of the Blue-Green Bowl,'

'Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, translated by Dennis Tedlock, 1985.

'There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, forest. Only the sky alone is there; the face of the earth is not clear. Only the sea alone is pooled under all the sky; there is nothing whatever gathered together. It is at rest; not a single thing stirs. . . .

Whatever might be is simply not there: only murmurs, ripples, in the dark, in the night. Only the Maker, Modeler alone, Sovereign Plumed Serpent, the Bearers, Begetters are in the water, a glittering light. They are there, they are enclosed in quetzal feathers, in blue-green.

Thus the name, 'Plumed Serpent.''

'Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, translated by Dennis Tedlock, 1985.

'And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am.'

'The Bible, Exodus 3: 2-3; quoted by Thorkild Jacobsen in The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.

'Whereas the power speaking to Moses in the desert disassociates itself from the bush, and identifies itself as the god of Moses' fathers, numinous power speaking to the Mesopotamian Enkidu in the Gilgamesh Epic does not choose to disassociate itself from its locus and so needs no introduction. The Gilgamesh Epic simply states: 'The sun god heard the word of his mouth; from afar, from the midst of heaven, he kept calling out to him.' The power is here seen as immanent in the visible sun, it is what animates it and motivates it, is the god who informs it.'

'Thorkild Jacobsen, from The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.

'Sometimes the form-giving imagination reads details and meaning into a form beyond what is given in simple observation: the numinous power in the thunderstorm, Imdugud, developed from the dark thundercloud into an enormous black eagle floating on outstretched wings; but since the mighty roar of the thunder could not well be imagined as issuing from other than a lion's maw, this bird was in time given a lion's head.'

'Thorkild Jacobsen, from The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.

'A last pale phosphorescence in the evening light outside, over the trees; . . .'

'John Fowles, from The Ebony Tower, 1974.

'An obscure vision, obscure because he dared not free it from his consciousness and examine it; he was content to half look at it, and seek no explanation.'

'Miguel Angel Asturias, from Men of Maize, translated from the Spanish by Gerry Martin, 1988.

'Tojil, in his own natural darkness, struck the leather of his sandal with a stone, and from it, at that very moment, came a spark, then a flash, followed by a flame, and the new fire burned in all its spendour.'

'Popul Vuh: Antiguas leyendas del Quich', translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1977.

'We believe (and this has been passed down to us by our ancestors) that our people are made of maize. We're made of white maize and yellow maize. We must remember this.'

'Rigoberta Menchu, from I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1983.

'We pray to our ancestors, reciting their prayers which have been known to us for a long time'a very, very long time. . . . For the sun, we say: 'Heart of the sky, you are our father, we ask you to give your warmth and light to our animals, our maize, our beans, our plants, so that they may grow and our children may eat.' We evoke the colour of the sun, and this has a special importance for us because this is how we want our children to live'like a light which shines, which shines with generosity. It means a warm heart and it means strength, life-giving strength. It's something you never lose and you find it everywhere. So when we evoke the colour of the sun, it's like evoking all the elements which go to make up our life. . . . We must respect the one God, the heart of the sky, which is the sun.'

'Rigoberta Menchu, from I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1983.

'The little bags round [children's] necks and the thread used to tie their umbilical cord are both red. Red is very significant for us. It means heat, strength, all living things. It's linked to the sun, which for us is the channel to the one god, the heart of everything, of the universe. So red gives off heat and fire and red things are supposed to give life to the child.'

'Rigoberta Menchu, from I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1983.

'Pillars of gray-brown smoke from Exxon's vast complex ventilated a sweet blue sky. Across the Mississippi River Bridge, green flatlands stretched on toward Acadiana. . . .'

'Jason Berry, Last of the Red Hot Poppas, 2006.

'At Metro Airport, he paid the cabby and got in his car. . . . The dashboard went luminous as he drew a puff on his stogie, paid the attendant and glided past a string of no-tell motel neon signs.'

'Jason Berry, Last of the Red Hot Poppas, 2006.

'I can stand the sight of worms
And look at microscopic germs
But technicolor pachyderms
Is really too much for me'

'Pink Elephants On Parade, words and lyrics by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace, from Disney's Dumbo, 1941.

'We would go on between the fields until we hit a town. The houses would be lined up along the street, under the trees, with their lights going out now, until we hit the main street, where the lights would be bright around the doorway of the movie house and the bugs would be zooming against the bulbs and would ricochet off to hit the concrete pavement and make a dry crunch when somebody stepped on them. The men standing in front of the pool hall would look up and see the big black crate ghost down the street and one of them would spit on the concrete and say, 'The bastard, he reckins he's somebody,' and wish that he was in a big black car, as big as a hearse and the springs soft as mamma's breast and the engine breathing without a rustle at seventy-five, going off into the dark somewhere. Well, I was going somewhere. I was going back to Burden's Landing.'

'Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men, 1946.

'And all of a sudden I remembered once how into a room where I was sitting one night, a big pale apple-green moth, big as a bullbat and soft and silent as a dream'a Luna moth, the name is, and it is a wonderful name'came flying in. Somebody had left the screen door open, and the moth drifted in over the tables and chairs like a big pale-green, silky, live leaf, drifting and dancing along without any word under the electric light where a Luna moth certainly did not belong. The night air coming into the room now was like that.'

'Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men, 1946.

'I could sleep late, and then wake up and not move, just watching the hot, melted-butter colored sunlight pour through the cracks in the shade, for my hotel was not the best in town and my room was not the best in the hotel.'

'Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men, 1946.

'. . . the lemon-pale sun of late autumn. . . .'

'Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men, 1946.

'He stopped on the steps and waited, a not very tall old man, and thin, wearing blue jean pants and a blue shirt washed so much that it had a powdery pastel shade to it and a black bow tie, the kind that comes ready-tied on an elastic band. . . . The blue of the eyes was pale and washed out like the blue of the shirt.'

'Robert Penn Warren, describing Willie Stark in All the King's Men, 1946.

''A diamond ain't a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot.''

'Robert Penn Warren, Willie Stark wisdom from All the King's Men, 1946.

'How life is strange and changeful, and the crystal is in the steel at the point of fracture, and the toad bears a jewel in its forehead, and the meaning of moments passes like the breeze that scarcely ruffles the leaf of the willow.'

'Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men, 1946.

'' Rhubarb leaves make a light-green-colored dye.

' Saffron makes the brightest of golds.

' Dandelion greens make magenta.'

'Amy Sedaris, some delightful color trivia from I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, 2006.

'The candy-striped pole, which indicates nobility proud and ancient along the palace-bordered canals of Venice, indicated merely the humble barber shop along the main street of Dawson's Landing.'

'Mark Twain (1835-1910), Pudd'nhead Wilson.

'If anybody had noticed Tom's face at that time, the gray-green color of it might have provoked curiosity; but nobody did.'

'Mark Twain (1835-1910), Pudd'nhead Wilson.

'The second convict was short and plump. Almost hairless, he was quite white. He looked like something exposed to light by turning over rotting logs or planks. . . .'

'William Faulkner, Old Man, 1939.

'. . . presently it was May and the warden's newspaper began to talk in headlines two inches tall'those black staccato slashes of ink which, it would almost seem, even the illiterate should be able to read: . . . '

'William Faulkner, Old Man, 1939.

Various squiggles used to denote cussing in comic books.

'33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names.

The symbol '#' on a telephone handset. Bell Labs' engineer Don Macpherson created the word in the 1960s by combining octo-, as in eight, with the name of one of his favourite athletes, 1912 Olympic decathlon champion Jim Thorpe.

'33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names.

The lights you see when you close your eyes hard. Technically the luminous impressions are due to the excitation of the retina caused by pressure on the eyeball.

'33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names.

'The sky was a miracle of purity, a miracle of azure. The sea was polished, was blue, was pellucid, was sparkling like a precious stone, extending on all sides, all round to the horizon'as if the whole terrestrial globe had been one jewel, one colossal sapphire, a single gem fashioned into a planet.'

'Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Youth.

'The sea was white like a sheet of foam, like a caldron of boiling milk; there was not a break in the clouds, no'not the size of a man's hand'no, not for so much as ten seconds. There was for us no sky, there were for us no stars, no sun, no universe'nothing but angry clouds and an infuriated sea.'

'Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Youth.

'He had grog-blossoms all over his face, an indomitable energy, and was a jolly soul.'

'Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Youth.

'Tarot cards are believed to have originated in Italy about five centuries ago for several purposes: to provide a pictorial presentation of the times, to play a card game involving suit trumps, and to read and fortell the future. . . .

During the fourteenth century in Italy a tarot pack was used to play a game called tarocco. The word tarot is the French adaptation of the word tarocco. The ancient 78-card tarot decks generally comprised fifty-six regular playing cards known as the Lesser Arcana, divided into four suits numbered 10 to 1 (or Ace) with a King, Queen, Cavalier and Page. Suit signs were the forerunners of today's suits:

Swords or Epees = Spades
Batons, Scepters or Wands = Clubs
Cups or Coupes = Hearts
Coins, Deniers or Pentacles = Diamonds

In addition to the fifty-six cards, the tarot decks contained twenty-two pictorial cards known as Trump, Triumph, Atouts, Greater Arcana, or the Major Arcana cards, numbered from XXI to I plus an unnumbered card known as 'The Fool.' Most people today are unaware that the ordinary pack of playing cards is a direct descendant from the fourteenth century tarot deck. As card playing increased in popularity the trump cards were dropped, the Cavalier and Page cards were combined into today's Jack, and 'The Fool' became the Joker, thus giving us the standard deck of fifty-two cards plus joker.'

'S.R. Kaplan, Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling, 1970. The French cards pictured above are Major Arcana from the Tarot IJJ deck.

'The classic pen was not a point, it was an edge; and a stiffish one too, and was not pressed upon appreciably. . . .

This tool was certainly established by the third century B.C, and was most usually made of reed (though metal pens of Roman make have been found), or of quill. . . .

Preceding either was no doubt a tool for scratching or cutting stone or bone, which became that chisel with which the magnificent Greek and Roman inscriptions were executed. . . . In only one detail of their draughtmanship is the chisel's effect now evident, in what we call the serifs, or little finishing touches to heads and feet. . . . There was no occasion for the chisel to make strokes thin and thick except to conform to the standard set by the pen; and, indeed, we see that in the earlier Greek inscriptions, before this standard was acknowledged, the strokes are . . . fairly uniform in thickness.'

'Graily Hewitt, Lettering For Students & Craftsmen, 1930. Figure 9: 'Rustic' Roman capitals from the third or fourth century.

'[H]e (the old man) had recovered from his debauch, back in banks again, the Old Man, rippling placidly toward the sea, brown and rich as chocolate between levees whose inner faces were wrinkled as though in a frozen and aghast amazement, crowned with the rich green of summer in the willows; . . .'

'William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, 1939.

''And then fall will come, the first cold, the first red and yellow leaves drifting down, the double leaves, the reflection rising to meet the falling one until they touch and rock a little, not quite closing. . . .''

'William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, 1939.

'But the days themselves were unchanged'the same stationary recapitulation of golden interval between dawn and sunset, the long quiet identical days, the immaculate monotonous hierarchy of noons filled with the sun's hot honey, through which the waning year drifted in red-and-yellow retrograde of hardwood leaves sourceless and going nowhere.'

'William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, 1939.

'Then he began to watch Charlotte and now they all watched her . . . as she . . . began to draw swiftly . . . an enormous man . . . sitting behind a table heaped with glittering coins which the man was shovelling into a sack with a huge hand on which glittered a diamond the size of a ping-pong ball.'

'William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, 1939.

'Stoppin' on the red
You're goin' on the green
'Cause tonight'll be like nothin'
You've ever seen
And you're barrelin' down the boulevard
Lookin' for the heart of Saturday night'

'Tom Waits, (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night, 1974.

'SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - After 12 months of naked partisanship on Capitol Hill, on cable TV and in the blogosphere, the word of the year for 2006 is . . . 'truthiness.'

The word'if one can call it that'best summed up 2006, according to an online survey by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.

'Truthiness' was credited to Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, who defined it as 'truth that comes from the gut, not books.'. . .

Colbert, who once derided the folks at Springfield-based Merriam-Webster as the 'word police' and a bunch of 'wordinistas,' was pleased.

'Though I'm no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honor me,' he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.'

'Adam Gorlick, Associated Press Writer, Friday December 8, 2006.

'He told her and now she looked at him and he saw that her eyes were not hazel but yellow, like a cat's, staring at him with a speculative sobriety like a man might, intent beyond mere boldness, speculative beyond any staring.'

'William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, 1939.

'The Bayeux Tapestry [c. early 11th century] is not, in the strict sense of the term, a tapestry at all, for it is not woven but embroidered. . . .

The embroidery is stitched on a strip of greyish linen averaging about fifty centimetres in width. . . . The seams between the sections are skilfully sewn and exceedingly hard to make out. . . .

The embroidery is done in woolen thread of eight different colours. The original dyes were of the highest quality and have not undergone any significant deterioration. . . . The colours used are: red, two shades of yellow, two of green, and three of blue (one of them almost black). . . .

The Tapestry is now about 64.38m long, but has obviously lost at least a little material at the beginning, and rather more at the end. . . . A reasonable estimate might be that the wear and tear of centuries have eroded some 1.50m. . . .

The Tapestry's scenes are accompanied almost thoughout by a kind of running commentary in Latin, sewn in large capital letters. . . . In the first two thirds of the Tapestry, these texts are sewn in a dark blue thread which verges on black. In the final section, red and yellow are used, often in alternation and sometimes even within single words. Right at the end, around Harold's death, green thread is also used.'

'Lucien Musset, The Bayeux Tapestry, 2002, translated from the French by Boydell and Brewer Limited, 2005. This book documents the whole Tapestry, much of it in great detail.

'The best time to choose a color TV is on Saturday morning when the cartoons are on. That way you can tell which TV has the best color for your money.'

'Amy Sedaris, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, 2006.

'Never ask [a gay man] for advice, such as his opinion on beige versus tan. He will go on for hours.'

'Amy Sedaris, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, 2006.

'5406 Nut Meat Beige 5406

1812 Dries Darker Beige 1812

727 Beigier Beige 727

690 Stale Beige 690

224 Thin Gravy Beige 224

1020 Barely Beige 1020

40 Lighter Than The One Above This One 40'

'Amy Sedaris, color swatches from I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, 2006.

''That, my dear, is the Sahara. Empty, yes; barren, yes; fierce and deceptively featureless, but, I assure you, unforgettable.'

'Yeah, I suppose. If you like beige.''

'Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994.

'[T]he sky is all huckleberry and nasturtium, the color of God's linoleum. . . .'

'Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994.

'Sliced sweet peppers, yellow and red, vaulted and naved, like cross sections of Caribbean cathedrals.'

'Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994.

'Onions with their pearl-skin layers, like the pages of newspapers published by oysters.'

'Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994.

''Goethe said, and some famous architect built a career on it, 'God is in the details.'. . .''

'Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994.

'It's erythrophobia time. And as usual, your fear of blushing causes you to blush. But there's no pigment of guilt in the puccoon that reddens your cheeks. Instead of shame, you feel resentment.'

'Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994.

'It is night now, no longer evening but fully night, as in 'black as,' if not precisely 'dead of.' Evening usually has the afternoon hanging on its coattails, has actual flecks of daylight clinging like lint to its lapels, but night is solitary, aloof, uncompromised, extreme. The safe margins of the day, still faintly visible during eventide, have been erased by night's dense gum, obscured by its wash of squid squirtings, pajama sauce, and the blue honey manufactured by moths. Is the night a mask, or is day merely night's prim diguise' Most of us are born in the night, and by night most will die. Night, when tangos play on the nurse's radio and rat poison sings its own hot song behind the cellar door. Night, when the long snake feed, when the black sedan cruises the pleasure districts, when neon flickers 'Free at Last' in a dozen lost languages, and shapes left over from childhood move furtively behind the moon-dizzy boughs of the fir.'

'Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994.

'Oh, when I die, please bury me
In my ten dollar Stetson hat;
Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain
So my friends'll know I died standing pat.'

'St. James Infirmary Blues, traditional American folksong, famously covered by Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and many many more.

'Don't hang your head when you see those six pretty horses pullin' me.
Put a twenty-dollar silver piece on my watch chain,
Look at the smile on my face,
And sing a little song to let the world know I'm really free.
Don't cry for me, 'cause I'm going to Kansas City.'

'Parker's Mood, by King Pleasure, 1954; this popular song was a vocalized transcription of a Charlie Parker saxophone solo. Charlie Parker hated this song. Quoted by Ross Russell in Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

'Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men' The Shadow knows.'

'the opening line of The Shadow, the radio play, heard regularly from the 1930s through the early 1950s.

'The new underground required a new linguistics. To 'broom' meant to travel by air. . . . Money was gold. Eyes meant willingness or enthusiasm. A pad was a bed, therefore someone's room or apartment. . . . Out of the world became gone. . . . Blow your top became flip your wig, leading to flipped, flipped out, wigged, wig, and wiggy. Knocked out yielded gassed, as in an old-fashioned dentist's chair. The verb gas gave the noun gas, a delighful experience. . . . Cool and dig served as verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns. . . .

Pod, more commontly pot, first appeared to describe cannabis, standard drug since jazz began in New Orleans, heir to a lengthy list of names: hay, golden leaf, cool green, gage, muggles, [and] mezzirolls (after Chicago jazzman Milton Mezzrow). . . .'

'Ross Russell, from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

''When Fate deals you one from the bottom of the deck, fall by the Sunshine Funeral Parlors. Your loved ones will be handled with dignity and care, and the cats at Sunshine will not lay too heavy a tab on you.''

'Symphony Sid, 'radio's Mister Hip,' broadcasting from Birdland in the late 1940s; quoted by Ross Russell in Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

'The word bebop was thought to be onomatopoetic in origin, like klook-a-mop, and in fact may have been drived from the latter. Others said it had been invented by the jivey, irrepressible Fats Waller. Nobody liked it much, least of all the new jazzmen. But it stuck.'

'Ross Russell, a footnote from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

'To lead the house band at Minton's [Playhouse] Teddy Hill hired the very man he had fired less than a year before. Kenny 'Klook' Clarke. . . . 'Klook,' Clarke's nickname, had arisen from the onomato-poetic klook-a-mop, a kind of double bomb, one of Clarke's favorite percussion figures. . . . Now . . . Teddy Hill though about the bombs, the jagged zigzaggy rhythms that somehow worked, and . . . offered him the contract. . . .'

'Ross Russell, from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.