January 2007 Archives

'You push the door open: you don't expect any of them to be latched, you know thay all open at a push. The scattered lights are braided in your eyelashes, as if you were seeing them through a silken net. All you can make out are the dozens of flickering lights. At last you can see that they're votive lights, all set on brackets or hung between unevenly spaced panels. They cast a faint glow on the silver objects, the crystal flasks, the gilt-framed mirrors. Then you see the bed in the shadows beyond, and the feeble movement of a hand that seems to be beckoning you.'

'Carlos Fuentes, Aura, 1965.

'The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.

'They look like white elephants,' she said.'

'Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants, 1927.

'There was a fish jumping and a star shining and the lights around the lake were gleaming. . . .

'Go faster,' she called, 'fast as it'll go.'

Obediently he jammed the lever forward and the white spray mounted at the bow. When he looked around again the girl was standing up on the rushing board, her arms spread wide, her eyes lifted toward the moon.'

'F. Scott Fitzgerald, Winter Dreams, 1922.

'Walt Kelly, from the daily Pogo comic strip, May 12, 1951. Republished, as is the entire year, in Outrageously Pogo, 1985.

''Maybe it was just the way we felt then, but I think the sun set differently that night, filtering through the clouds like a big paintbrush making the top of the town all orange. And suddenly I thought what if the tops of our houses were that kind of orange, what a world it would be, Howard, and my God, that orange stayed until the last drop of light was left in it. . . . The feeling we had about that orange, Howard, that was ours and that's what I've tried to bring to every house, the way we felt that night.''

'Max Apple, from The Oranging of America, 1974. And so the orange Howard Johnson's roof was born.

'You move a few steps so that the light from the candles won't blind you. The girl keeps her eyes closed, her hands at her sides. She doesn't look at you at first, then little by little she opens her eyes as if she were afraid of the light. Finally you can see that those eyes are sea green and that they surge, break to foam, grow calm again, then surge again like a wave. You look into them and tell yourself it isn't true, because they're beautiful green eyes just like all the beautiful green eyes you've ever known. But you can't deceive yourself: those eyes do surge, do change, as if offering you a landscape that only you can see and desire.'

'Carlos Fuentes, from the short story Aura, 1965.

'Sitting on the bed, you try to make out the source of that diffuse, opaline light that hardly lets you distinguish the objects in the room, and the presence of Aura, from the golden atmosphere that surrounds them. She sees you looking up, trying to find where it comes from. You can tell from her voice that she's kneeling down in front of you.

'The sky is neither high nor low. It's over us and under us at the same time.''

'Carlos Fuentes, Aura, 1965.

'The moon was sailing higher and higher and the frost was tightening its grip in the bright snowy night.'

'Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1978; translated from the Russian by H.T. Willetts, 1991.

'All the lamps were dim, and the huts cast black shadows. The entrance to the mess hut was up four steps and across a wide porch, also now in the shadows. But a little lamp swayed above it, squeaking in the cold. Frost, or dirt, gave every lightbulb a rainbow-coloured halo.'

'Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1978; translated from the Russian by H.T. Willetts, 1991.

'The mist in the frosty air took your breath away. Two big searchlights from watchtowers in opposite corners crossed beams as they swept the compound. Lights were burning around the periphery, and inside the camp, dotted around in such numbers that they made the stars look dim.'

'Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1978; translated from the Russian by H.T. Willetts, 1991.

'It was still dark, although a greenish light was brightening in the east. A thin, treacherous breeze was creeping in from the same direction.'

'Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1978; translated from the Russian by H.T. Willetts, 1991.

'Many modern flags that include green are those of Muslim countries, since the cloak and banner of Mohammed were said to be green, and in the Qur'an . . . the Blessed in Paradise were to wear green silk robes. A fourteenth-century Persian theologian, Alaoddwa Semanani, held that Mohammed himself was a shining green in his role as the Divine Centre, since this was the colour most appropriate to 'the mystery of mysteries'.'

'John Gage, from Color in Art, 2006. Pictured is the national flag of Saudi Arabia. The Arabic text reads 'There is no God, but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet.'

'Shellfish purple was the most highly valued dyestuff in the ancient world because of its exceptionally laborious and hence costly processing, and its unrivalled light-fastness and durability. These characteristics made purple'at least in theory'for many centuries the legally enforced prerogative of the imperial household and government; and throughout the Middle Ages, and even in modern times, it has continued to be an emblem of royalty. But the colour purple remains a mystery, because the early literature suggests not only that it was classed as a type of red, but also that the best purple-red cloth looked dark by reflected light, but a fiery-red by transmitted light, and also had a much-admired surface sheen. . . . The erosion of the surface and modern lighting make this original sheen very hard to appreciate now.'

'John Gage, from Color in Art, 2006.

'And there on the dummy in the center of the room was the phosphorescent, the miraculously white-fired ghost with the incredible lapels, the precise stitching, the neat buttonholes. Standing with the white illumination of the suit upon his cheeks, Martinez suddenly felt he was in church. White! White! It was white as the whitest vanilla ice cream, as the bottled milk in tenement halls at dawn. White as a winter cloud all alone in the moonlit sky late at night. . . . Shutting his eyes, he could see it printed on his lids. He knew what color his dreams would be this night.'

'Ray Bradbury, from The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, 1958.

'''GREEN DUSK FOR DREAMING BRAND PURE NORTHERN AIR,'' he read. ''Derived from the atmosphere of the white Arctic in the spring of 1900, and mixed with the wind from the Hudson Valley in the month of April, 1910, and containing particles of dust seen shining in the sunset of one day in the meadows around Grinnell, Iowa, when a cool air rose to be captured from a lake and a little creek and a natural spring.'''

'Ray Bradbury, from Dandelion Wine, 1953.

'And here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly and startlingly real that you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and your mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated pelts, and the yellow of them was in your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite French tapestry, the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and the smell of meat from the panting, dripping mouths.'

'Ray Bradbury, from The Veldt, 1950.

'It was painted a very bright red, an odd color, I thought, for anything in space. There was some lettering on the side'apparently in English, though I couldn't make out the words at this distance. As the projectile slowly revolved, a black pattern on a white background came into view. . . .

Clearly painted on the side of the slowly approaching missile was the symbol of death'the skull and crossbones.'

'Arthur C. Clarke, Islands in the Sky, 1952.

'His use of colour is above all lyrical. He feels colours and he reveals his feelings through colours; he does not see them in isolation. He does not just see yellow, red and blue and violet; he sees sorrow and screaming and melancholy and decay.'

'Sigbjorn Obstfelder, on Edvard Munch, 1893; quoted by John Gage in Color in Art, 2006. Pictured above is The Lonely Ones (Two Human Beings), an Edvard Munch woodcut print from 1899.

'Van Gogh and Seurat occasionally spoke of 'unnameable' or 'indefinable' colours, which suggests how much the spread of colour-order systems in the late nineteenth century had led to the expectation that colours could indeed be defined. . . . The indefinable colours were of special interest to Gauguin, who was careful to avoid the strong contrasts of his friend Van Gogh, and who specifically exploited secondary and tertiary hues in the interest of what he called 'enigma.''

'John Gage, from Color in Art, 2006.

'In childhood [a man] loves bright colours and perceives them in their pure form'yellow, red, green, blue. This . . . is characteristic for all children, both in the town and in the country: their consciousness seems to be on the same level. The only difference we may note is that town children more often use pure colour from the darker end of the spectrum than village children.'

'Kazimir Malevich, (1878-1935); quoted in Color in Art, by John Gage, 2006.

'I am painting the sun, which is nothing but pure painting.'

'Robert Delaunay, April 1913; quoted in Color in Art, by John Gage, 2006.

'The possibility of producing light of a single wavelength (coherent light) by means of the laser, developed in the 1960s, made it possible for the first time to produce on a flat surface images of considerable depth. Coherent light is, of course, monochromatic, and all early holograms were likewise monochromatic, usually recorded and replayed with light of the longer wavelengths, red or yellow. But in 1969 the American holographer Stephen Benton devised a method for recording all the spectral colours in a single hologram, which he called the 'Rainbow Hologram', and it is this type, which can only represent a relatively shallow space, that is familiar to us from banknotes or credit cards.'

'John Gage, from Color in Art, 2006.

'I came to the shore of a waterway:
Dear God, what brave embellishment!

Embellishing those waters deep,
Banks of pure beryl greet my gaze;
Sweetly the eddies swirl and sweep
With a rest and a rush in murmuring phrase;
Stones in the stream their colors steep,
Gleaming like glass where sunbeam strays,
As stars, while men of the marshlands sleep,
Flash in winter from frosty space;
For every one was a gem to praise,
A sapphire or emerald opulent,
That seemed to set the pool ablaze,
So brilliant their embellishment.'

'the medieval Pearl, translated from the Middle English by Marie Borroff, 1977.

''I bid you turn from the world insane
And purchase your pearl immaculate.''

'the medieval Pearl, translated from the Middle English by Marie Borroff, 1977.

'The blue that is still the most expensive natural pigment is manufactured from the hard semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, until recently mined only in Afghanistan; and it is still generally called by the name given to it in late-medieval France and Italy, ultramarine, because it came to western Europe from 'beyond the sea'.'

'John Gage, from Color in Art, 2006.

'Through the woods they could see a long, low-eaved, weather-beaten building. Through the trees it was a faded yellow. Closer the window frames were painted green. The paint was peeling.'

'Ernest Hemingway, from In Our Time, 1925.

'He was sitting on his bed now, cleaning a shotgun. He pushed the magazine full of the heavy yellow shells and pumped them out again. They were scattered on the bed.'

'Ernest Hemingway, from In Our Time, 1925.

'One must respect black. Nothing prostitutes it. It does not please the eye or awaken another sense. It is the agent of the mind even more than the beautiful colour of the palette or prism.'

'French Symbolist Odilon Redon, (1840'1916); quoted in Color in Art, by John Gage, 2006. Pictured is Louise Nevelson's Sky Cathedral, 1958.

'No colors. 'Color blinds.' 'Colors are an aspect of appearance, so only of the surface.' Colors are barbaric, unstable, suggest life, 'cannot be completely controlled' and 'should be concealed.' Colors are a 'distracting embellishment.''

'Ad Reinhardt, Rule 6 of his Twelve Rules for a New Academy, 1957; quoted in Color in Art, by John Gage, 2006.

'[Grey] makes no statement whatever, it evokes neither feelings nor associations; it is really neither visible nor invisible. . . . To me, grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, non-commitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape.'

'Gerhard Richter, 1975; quoted in Color in Art, by John Gage, 2006.

'I spent whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to myself, in the most lively colors, how I must have acted if I had got nothing out of the ship.'

'Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719.

'How strange a checker-work of Providence is the life of man!'

'Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719.

'As John did name these stones is Scripture,
I knew each one in neat rotation.
The gem of jasper, the first to treasure,
I saw formed there on firm foundation;
It glistened greenly in lowest measure.
Sapphire was set in second station.
Chalcedony then, a spotless pleasure,
Glowed pale and pure, third in formation.
The emerald, the fourth, a green creation,
The sardonyx, the fifth, a stone put on,
The sixth, the ruby, he saw with elation
In the Apocalypse, the apostle John.

John then saw the chrysolite,
The seventh gem in ornament,
The eighth, the beryl, clear and white,
The twin-hued topaz, ninth in ascent,
The tenth, the chrysoprase, set there tight,
The jacinth, eleventh, heaven-sent,
The twelfth, the gentlest in that site,
The amethyst purple, with indigo blent.
The rising wall's embellishment
Was jasper pure; like glass it shone.
I knew it by his development
In the Apocalypse, the apostle John.

As John described, yet saw I there
These twelve, great steps were broad and steep.
The city above, completely square,
Was long and high, and of wide sweep,
With streets of gold, like glass so rare,
And jasper wall, like glair we keep.
The abodes within, adorned with flair,
Had every jewel one finds in a heap.'

'Pearl, a 14th-century medieval poem, author unknown; translated from the Middle English by William Vantuono, 1995.

'Hedgerows on lands, and rivers through lairs;
Their currents gleamed like fine gold filament.
I strolled to a stream displaying its wares;
Lord, dear was its adornment.

The adornments dear in depths that glow
Revealed fair banks of beryl bright.
Swirling freely, the stream did flow,
Whispering en route, whirling aright.
Biding at bottom, stones bestow
Glistening beams, void of blight,
Like stars which woodsmen sleep below,
Streaming in sky on winter's night;
For each jewel joined under floods in flight
Was emerald, sapphire, or pearl affluent,
Lending that brook its luminous light,
So dear was its adornment.'

'Pearl, a 14th-century medieval poem, author unknown; translated from the Middle English by William Vantuono, 1995.

'I'm old fashioned
I love the moonlight
I love the old fashioned things'

'I'm Old Fashioned, music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, 1942. Chet Baker's version springs immediately to mind, does it not'

'My Baltimore childhood was made out of bricks. Bricks. And more bricks. . . . Brick sunsets, brick picnics, brick newspapers delivered on frosty brick mornings. Everything the color of bacon and dried blood: brick.'

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

'When death finally sucks her down the drain, as it must suck everyone, Amanda will leave an iridescent ring around the tub.'

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

'There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.'

'from Little Boxes, words and music by Malvina Reynolds, 1962.

'It was one of those mellow October days that seem concocted from a mixture of sage, polished brass and peach brandy.'

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

'The afternoon sky looked like a brain. Moist. Gray. Convoluted. A mad-scientist breeze probed at the brain, causing it to bob and quiver as if it were immersed in a tank of strange liquids.'

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

'Most of the troupers were rolling their own ecstasy now. Dancing. Singing. Climbing trees. Moonwatching (it was mango orange and as thin as a tortilla).'

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

'For those of you who may have come to these pages in the course of a scholastic assignment and are impatient for information to relay to your professor (who, unless he is a total dolt, has it simmering in his brainpan already), the author suggests that you turn immediately to the end of the book and roust out those facts which seem necessary to your cause. Of course, should you do so, you will grow up half-educated and will likely suffer spiritual and sexual deprivations. But it is your decision.'

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

''The most important thing in life is style. That is, the style of one's existence'the characteristic mode of one's actions'is basically, ultimately what matters. For if man defines himself by doing, then style is doubly definitive because style describes the doing.''

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

''We breakfast at the All-Night Sanskrit Clinic and Sunshine Post. Phosphorescent toadstools illuminate the musicians. Ghost cookies sparkle with opium. We learn the language of the Dream Wheel.''

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

'It was a green sunset. The reds, the oranges, the purples which Amanda automatically associated with sunsets had been snuffed out in the soggy cloud pile, and the nearly invisible sun that sank'beyond the fields, sloughs, rock islands and tide flats'into Puget Sound, it looked like an unripe olive photographed through gauze.'

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

'[Y]et even the tortoise, dark and melancholy as it is upon the back, still possesses a bright side; its calapee or breast-plate being sometimes of a faint yellowish or golden tinge. . . . The tortoise is both black and bright.'

'Herman Melville, from The Encantadas, a description of those islands also known as The Galapagos; 1854.

'Below the waterline, the rock seemed one honey-comb of grottoes, affording labyrinthine lurking places for swarms of fairy fish. . . . Here hues were seen as yet unpainted, and figures which are unengraved.'

'Herman Melville, from The Encantadas, 1854.

'She saw all the glories of the camp'its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view, she saw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once.'

'Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice, 1813.

'Both changed color, one looked white, the other red.'

'Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice, 1813.

'In short, to the Spaniard's black-letter text, it was best, for a while, to leave open margin.'

'Herman Melville, from Benito Cereno, 1855.

'He was an old Dansker long anglicized in the service, of few words, many wrinkles and some honorable scars. His wizened face, time-tinted and water-stormed to the complexion of an antique parchment, was here and there peppered blue by the chance explosion of a gun-cartridge in action.'

'Herman Melville, from Billy Budd, 1924.

'Yet, upon an abrupt unforeseen encounter, a red light would flash forth from his eye, like a spark from an anvil in a dusky smithy. That quick fierce light was a strange one, darted from orbs which in repose were of a colour nearest approaching a deeper violet, the softest of shades.'

'Herman Melville, from Billy Budd, 1924.

'Claggart deliberately advanced within short range of Billy, and mesmerically looking him in the eye, briefly recapitulated the accusation.

Not at first did Billy take it in. When he did the rose-tan of his cheek looked struck as by white leprosy. He stood like one impaled and gagged. Meanwhile the accuser's eyes, removing not as yet from the blue, dilated ones, underwent a phenomenal change, their wonted rich violet colour blurring into a muddy purple. Those lights of human intelligence losing human expression, gelidly protruding like the alien eyes of certain uncatalogued creatures of the deep.'

'Herman Melville, from Billy Budd, 1924.

'Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange begins' Distinctly we see the difference of the colour, but where exactly does the first one visibly enter into the other' So with sanity and insanity.'

'Herman Melville, from Billy Budd, 1924.

'Now and then, in the eagerness of despatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers.'

'Herman Melville, from Bartleby the Scrivener, 1853.

'Now here's twenty pills, capsules actually . . . ten red and black and ten a light pink. 'Which ones did he say were the ups, Marc'' I casually ask. He gulps and says 'I never asked, I thought you knew.' This is very bad, as you must realize. So Lang butts in and says the reds and black are ups but he didn't say it too assuredly.

'You know for sure'' I ask.

'No, but I think so,' he answers.

'Well, I think the pinks are up,' says Neutron.

'How come''

''Cause I associate pink with lightness, and the others seem hard colored, like they might knock you out.'

'He's got a point,' chimes in Marc.

'Bullshit,' I yell, 'what kind of lamebrain theory is that' Nembutols are light yellow, and they knock you on your ass.''

'Jim Carroll, from The Basketball Diaries, winter 1965, published in 1978.

'Just such a pleasure to tie up above that mainline with a woman's silk stocking and hit the mark and watch the blood rise into the dropper like a certain desert lily I remember I saw once in my child's encyclopedia, so red . . . yeah, I shoot desert lilies in my arm.'

'Jim Carroll, from The Basketball Diaries, winter 1966, published in 1978.

'(you see one dangerous convenience of using junk over a period of years is that you eventually lose any paranoia over the possibility of getting bad dope, like you don't go through all that bull crap of taste on the tongue or 'better not shoot it all at once' etc. crap like when you were first starting. After a while you become such a drooling fiend it's just dump it all in, cook, main, and bingo! And if an abscess pops up like an oozing golf ball or if you o.d. or if it turns out it was 'Drano' you were banging into your arm, just send the flowers of your own choice . . . blue to match the skin color).'

'Jim Carroll, from The Basketball Diaries, winter 1966, published in 1978.

'Zelda [Fitzgerald] was very beautiful and was tanned a lovely gold color and her hair was a beautiful dark gold and she was very friendly. Her hawk's eyes were clear and calm. I knew everything was all right and was going to turn out well in the end when she leaned forward and said to me, telling me her great secret, 'Ernest, don't you think Al Jolson is greater than Jesus'''

'Ernest Hemingway, from A Moveable Feast, 1964.

'I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.''

'Ernest Hemingway, from A Moveable Feast, 1964.

'Any description of the main street of Fort Curtis can begin and end inside this very sentence. Beyond that I find only redundancy. The same six words identify the thing to be described and serve to describe it. The main street of Fort Curtis.'

'Don DeLillo, from Americana, 1971.

''I've just realized how few black faces I've seen since I got here.'

'Even the bibles in this town are white,' she said.'

'Don DeLillo, from Americana, 1971.

'Brand . . . as it turned out, was a writer of blank pages. That's how I think of him, definitely a novelist, by all means a craftsman of high talent'but one who chose words of the same color as the paper on which they were written.'

'Don DeLillo, from Americana, 1971.

'[T]he office itself seemed a special place, even in its pale yellow desperate light, so much the color of old newspapers; there was the belief that you were secure here, in some emotional way, that you lived in known terrain.'

'Don DeLillo, from Americana, 1971.

'The door of Quincy's office was orange and his sofa was dark gray. Some of us in Weede's group had doors of the same color but sofas of a different color. Some had identical sofas but different doors. Weede himself was the only one who had a red sofa. Weede and Ted Warburton were the only ones with black doors. But Mars Tyler's sofa was ecru, a shade lighter than Grove Palmer's door. I had all this down on paper. On slow afternoons I used to study it, trying to find a pattern. I thought there might be a subtle color scheme designed by management and based on a man's salary, ability, and prospects for advancement or decline. Why did no two people have identical sofas and doors' Why was Ted Warburton allowed to have a black door when the only other black door belonged to Weede Denney' Why was Reeves Chubb the only one with a primrose sofa' Why was Paul Joyner's perfectly good maroon sofa replaced by a royal blue one' Why was my sofa the same color as Weede's door' There were others who felt as I did.'

'Don DeLillo, from Americana, 1971.

'At work I dressed in the establishment manner, which, granted, was not without a touch of color, the establishment having learned that every color is essentially gray as long as everyone is wearing it. So I did not hesitate to show up for work in an orange tie, but never more orange than the orange others wore.'

'Don DeLillo, from Americana, 1971.

'In the evening we sat in the camper on Howley Road and listened to the radio. A war summary came on. I did not listen to the news, merely to the words themselves, the familiar oppressive phrases. It was like the graytalk of the network'not what something meant and often not its opposite.'

'Don DeLillo, from Americana, 1971.

''I want to be colorless.''

'Don DeLillo, from Americana, 1971.

'Tuesday afternoon, Reich left Monarch tower early and dropped in at the Century Audio-bookstore on Sheridan Place. It specialized mostly in piezo-electric crystal recordings . . . tiny jewels mounted in elegant settings. The latest vogue was brooch-operas for M'lady. ('She Shall Have Music Wherever She Goes.') Century also had shelves of obsolete printed books.'

'Alfred Bester, from The Demolished Man, 1951.

'The Mesopotamian seal has a peculiar shape, a small cylinder engraved on the outside, and thus impressing its distinctive design when rolled over the clay of a tablet or the sealing of a package of merchandise. . . .

The seal engravings, many times more numerous than all the other works of art that have come down to us, disclose most fully the richness and vigour of this first great phase of Mesopotamian culture.'

'Henri Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, fourth edition, 1970. The blank area of the cylinder seal pictured above was for further cuneiform inscription.

'There was a portrait of Maria centered in the star of a synthetic ruby enclosed in the message capsule. A nude portrait, naturally.'

'Alfred Bester, from The Demolished Man, 1951.

'Number 99 was an eviscerated ceramics plant. During the war a succession of blazing explosions had burst among the stock of thousands of chemical glazers, fused them, and splashed them into a wild rainbow reproduction of a lunar crater. Great splotches of magenta, violet, bice green, burnt umber, and chrome yellow were burned into the stone walls. long streams of orange, crimson, and imperial purple had erupted through windows and dooors to streak the streets and surrounding ruins with slashing brush stronkes. This became the Rainbow House of Chooka Frood.'

'Alfred Bester, from The Demolished Man, 1951.

'Twinkling in the sky is a diamond star of 10 billion trillion trillion carats, astronomers have discovered.

The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

It's the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk.

Astronomers have decided to call the star "Lucy" after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

"You would need a jeweller's loupe the size of the Sun to grade this diamond," says astronomer Travis Metcalfe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the team of researchers that discovered it.'

'Dr David Whitehouse, BBC News Online science editor, Monday, 16 February, 2004. Ran into this three year old news by way of Fark. An oldie, but a goodie.

'When de sun's goin down on de horizon, a turtler must look out to de sunset. Supposin you havin a red sunset, and when you look back into de east, you see red above de blue. Well, dat is good weather: moderate weather or calm. Blue above de red means blusterous weather, prob'ly squally or plenty of breeze, and if you see it real gray, dat means blusterous weather, too. Red evenin sky and underneath is dark'well, dat is good red weather.'

'Peter Matthiessen, from Far Tortuga, 1975.

'See dat silver light' Make me sad, someway.

Gloomy, mon. What de old people calls de Mouth of de Night. Cause de night hungry, mon.'

'Peter Matthiessen, from Far Tortuga, 1975.

'. . . a sundog'gale-wind bird, some of de old people calls it'cause it a sign dat a hurricane is approachin. What' Well, sundog is a little color, little piece of cloud look more like a rainbow, on one side of de sun or de other. You don't see it cept when de sun is going down and at de time of de sunrise. From July on, mostly August, September, October, you must watch for de sundog, in de mornin and in de evenin. By dat you can always tell in what direction dat hurricane is travellin. In days gone by, before dere was any wireless and all to tell'm things, de people used to use de gale-wind bird as a sign dat bad times was ahead.'

'Peter Matthiessen, from Far Tortuga, 1975.

'The spring flowers in a wet year were unbelievable. The whole valley floor, and the foothills too, would be carpeted with lupins and poppies. Once a woman told me that colored flowers would seem more bright if you added a few white flowers to give the colors definition. Every petal of blue lupin is edged with white, so that a field of lupins is more blue than you can imagine. And mixed with these were splashes of California poppies. These too are of a burning color'not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies.'

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

'As he lay in the darkness after the light was out he saw the green circle left in his eyes by the candle flame, and in its whirling, pulsing frame he saw the frantic, beseeching eyes of James Grew. He didn't go back to sleep for a long time.'

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

'The old thick walls sucked in coat after coat of whitewash made with lime in salt water, which, as it dried, seemed to have a luminosity of its own.'

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

'Liza poured thick batter from a pitcher onto a soapstone griddle. The hot cakes rose like little hassocks, and small volcanos formed and erupted on them until they were ready to be turned. A cheerful brown, they were, with tracings of darker brown. And the kitchen was full of the good sweet smell of them.'

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

''Hear now the pot blackguarding the kettle.'. . .'

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

'The two men rode slowly back toward the Trask house. The afternoon was golden, for the yellow dust in the sky gilded the light.'

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

''I want to open a bookstore in Chinatown in San Francisco. I would live in the back, and my days would be full of discussions and arguments. I would like to have in stock some of those dragon-carved blocks of ink from the dynasty of Sung. The boxes are worm-bored, and that ink is made from fir smoke and a glue that comes only from wild asses' skin. When you paint with that ink it may physically be black but it suggests to your eye and persuades your seeing that it is all the colors in the world.''

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

''In the war's red curse stands the Red Cross nurse. She's the rose of No Man's Land.'. . .'

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

'I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder.'

'John Steinbeck, from East of Eden, 1952.

'I like to take a very weak color and make it rich and beautiful by working on its neighbors. What's gloomier than raw sienna' Now look at what I've done to it there: It's gold. It's shining and alive, like an actor on the stage. Turning sand into gold, that's my life and aim.'

'Josef Albers, quoted in Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

'I think art parallels life. Color, in my opinion, behaves like a man'in two distinct ways: first in self-realization and then in the reallization of relationships with others. In my paintings I have tried to make two polarities meet'independence and interdependence, as, for instance, in Pompeian art. There's a certain red the Pompeians used that speaks in both these ways, first in its relation to the colors around it, and then as it appears alone, keeping its own face. In other words, one must combine both being an individual and being a member of society. That's the parallel. I've handled color as a man should behave. With trained and sensitive eyes, you can recognize this double behavior of color. And from all this, you may conclude that I consider ethics and aesthetics as one.'

'Josef Albers, quoted in Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

'[Joseph] Albers was animated by a powerful absorption in visual phenomena. At Black Mountain, he recalled that as a child he'd accompanied his mother to a bank where the floor was tiled in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. The young Albers feared that if he walked across the floor he might sink into the black squares and need to climb out onto the whites'an ordeal he mimed for his students' amusement by hobbling around on the floor. His classes were peppered with his analyses of such commonplace phenomena as New York City streetlights, monuments in the park, and insect anatomy. He'd point out what others had perhaps glanced at but not contemplated: the shape of the Yale football stadium, the spot of light that remained for a moment when a TV set was switched off, the way a red roof could merge with a blue sky, how the color of tea deepened in a glass.'

'Frederick A. Horowitz, from Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

'I never taught art, I think. What I have taught is philosophy. I have never taught painting. Instead I have taught seeing.'

'Josef Albers, quoted in Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

'[Josef] Albers's remarkable ability to use words to prize the character of color was a vital component of [his color] course. . . . 'This one smells like Cuban cigars,' he might say, or 'it tastes like a roast beef dinner with a nice Burgundy.' A brown, lacy study had 'a grandmother quality.' Albers praised one study in stripes [pictured above], saying it was like 'good aged mellow cheese.'

Along with this, Albers would concoct little melodramas to help his students see the color performances: 'Look here! This green is creeping in. It's a monster coming in from the edge and taking over. . . .' Or 'This purple knows about this pink. You see, it's happy to be next to it, and it keeps it from running away.' A certain red 'wants to take control, to be a fascist.'. . . One student recalls a conversation between yellow and orange: . . .

'Look! The color orange is at the door and says to the yellow, 'You go first.' But the yellow is also polite and says, 'No, you go first.' They are like good friends, and their conversation is very charming.''

'Frederick A. Horowitz, from Josef Albers: To Open Eyes, by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, 2006.

'Wish I was an English muffin
'Bout to make the most out of a toaster.
I'd ease myself down,
Comin' up brown.'

'Punky's Dilemma, words and music by Paul Simon, from the Simon & Garfunkel album Bookends, 1968.

'The invention of paper is usually ascribed to Ts'ai Lun . . . a prominent official under Ho Ti (A.D. 89-106). . . . He is said to have made paper out of tree bark, hemp, or fish nets. . . . The oldest examples of Chinese paper known to us today . . . show that at a very early date paper was being made that was thin, white, and of good quality. Since then, paper has been made from bamboo, mulberry, hemp, corn and rice stalks, cotton, flax, silk cocoons, reeds, moss, and a kind of water fungus. . . . The quality of papers varies; surfaces are smooth or rough, weight is thin or thick, and tints range from white through yellow, blue, and gray to quite dark tones. . . . The most famous paper was the kind called Ch'eng Hsin T'ang Chih (paper made at the Pure Heart Hall), a fine, thin, smooth sheet of high quality, considered by some authorities to the best ever made in China. It was perfected in the Later T'ang period (A.D. 923-934) and used by the great painters of the Sung and Yuan periods. Between this fine, smooth paper and the coarse, absorbent kinds are papers of innumerable degrees of smoothness and roughness. . . . Some well-known kinds are Wild Goose White paper, Kuan Yin paper, Blue Cloud paper, White Jade paper, Cicada Wing paper, Ice and Snow paper, and Six Times Lucky sized paper.'

'Mai-mai Sze, from The Way of Chinese Painting: Its Ideas and Technique, 1956.

'Chinese ink is made of carbon or soot, obtained by burning dry pine or fir wood in a kiln (sung yen mo: pine-soot ink), or by burning vegetable oils in an earthenware bowl (yu mo: oil or lampblack ink). The soot is then mixed with a little glue. . . . [T]he mixture is molded and dried into a stick or cake. For use, this is gently rubbed in a little water on an inkstone to produce the liquid ink. This procedure still yields the best ink, although liquid ink is now made and widely used. . . .

By T'ang times there were many ink makers, and the art of its manufacture was far advanced. Since those times, the best kind of ink by repute has been made from pine soot, a kind of sung yen mo that is also called chiao mo (glue ink). It is deep in tone and glossy, the degree of blackness and sheen depending on the species of pine and the method of preparation. . . . [I]t was used up to Yuan times and was easily distinguishable from the mat black ink made in the Ming period, which in use gave the same effect as lampblack ink (yu mo), lacking in depth as well as sheen. . . .

The process of making ink sticks . . . consist[s] of burning or cooking, mixing, pounding, stirring, sifting, shaping, setting in molds, and drying. Inscriptions or decorations are often engraved on the sticks. After the ink sticks are finished and completely dry, they are rubbed with a piece of rough cloth and polished with wax till clean and smooth, and then wrapped in paper for storage.

Among the experiments in inkmaking there were procedures to make it mat, an effect desireable for certain purposes. To dull the ink, pulverized oyster shells were sometimes added, or powdered jade, although jade was put in principally as a gesture of respect to the ink. So much care and skill were given to the production of ink that ink sticks became objects of art, prized for the variety of their shapes, their decoration, their inscriptions, and the names of their manufacturers and the places where they were made. They were collected and venerated. . . . Old sticks and cakes have a unique fragrance, which in the past was often heightened by adding musk, camphor, pomegranate bark, or the like, as the ink was being made. Besides giving the ink a fragrance, these ingredients were believed to improve its color and brightness and to help preserve the sticks. Old ink was and still is treated like vintage wine.'

'Mai-mai Sze, from The Way of Chinese Painting: Its Ideas and Technique, 1956.