dark purple love
Listen to our bombs singing now
Their dark purple love is hailed by the dying
The drenched springtime the nightlamp the attack
Its raining my soul its raining, but it rains dead eyes
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), 1915 April Night, from The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Donald Revell, 2004.
windows of the mind
People observe the clothing and grooming of people in their surroundings, their speech, whether they are perspiring, their skin colour, and skin reactions, as well as their gait and movements. All these observations provide information about sex, race, income, education, social standing, personality, mental state, and health. Many peple also consciously and subconsciously observe the eyes of other people, regarding eyes as windows of the mind. They observe the subtle play of muscle movements around the eyes, the rate at which a person blinks, the level of the eyelids, the volume of tears round the eyelids, the colours of the whites of the eyes, the colours of the iris, and the directions a person is looking. Furthermore, pupil size also influences the reactions of people to each other. For example, a person with narrow pupils is often regarded as hard and unfriendly, while a person with wide pupils is regarded as warm and friendly.
—Dr. G.M. Woerlee, from Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near-Death Experiences, 2003.
the pupils of the dying person
Several people cluster around the bed of a dying person. The pupils of the dying person widen as their condition worsens. And as the pupils of the dying person widen, they notice that the lighting in the room becomes brighter, or even that the room is bathed in bright light. No-one else notices that the lighting in the room has changed, only the dying person, because only the pupils of the dying person widen. This is why dying people may say they see bright light, bright light that does not hurt the eyes, or even bright landscapes. . . .
The reduced focal depth of the eyes of a person with wide open pupils, means they see all people, and objects upon which they do not focus their eyes, as vague and blurred forms. Furthermore, more light enters the eyes of a person with wide open pupils, so they perceive people upon which their eyes are not focussed as vague blurred bright figures, or even as beings of light. The mental function of the dying and nearly-dead is abnormal, so they may interpret these bright forms and figures as being supernatural, ethereal, other-worldy beings of light, or even as personages and gods from their religion.
—Dr. G.M. Woerlee, from Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near-Death Experiences, 2003.
im a tree!
The premiere episode of Dragnet 67, . . . entitled The Big LSD, . . . drew on recent news reports about the hallucinogen (which remained legal until October 1966), as well as stories about the Sunset Strip scene. . . .
Friday and partner Gannon were called to the scene of a weirdly painted juvenile chewing the bark off a tree. The scene opened with the cops finding the young man lying on the ground with his head buried under leaves. As they pulled him up, there was a cut to a shocker close-up of the young mans facepainted blue on one side, gold on the other. Wide-eyed, he exclaimed, Reality, man, reality. I could see the center of the earth! As Friday attempted to read him his rights, the boy declared that he wasnt here, but thereand had green hair: Im a tree! Flipping out, he tore at Gannons suit, then started calling out various colors: I can hear them all!
—Aniko Bodroghkozy, from Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion, 2001.
the mod squad
One black, one white, one blonde.
—tagline of the ABC television series The Mod Squad, about three young cops: Linc Hayes, Pete Cochran, and Julie Barnes. The series aired from 1968 to 1971.
youre beautiful
You’re beautiful. Do you have to be pretty too?
—Pete to the young radical Daphne, on The Mod Squad. This episode, The Guru, aired on December 31, 1968.
diamond to graphite
Diamond is crystallized carbon, of density 35, and graphite is also crystallized carbon, but of density 22. . . . If a diamond is heated at ordinary atmospheric pressure to above 1,200C, then it turns black; it turns down to a graphitic powder. So the mere heating of graphite is of little help in trying to convert graphite to diamond. On the contrary, heat converts diamond to graphite.
—S. Tolansky, from The History and Use of Diamond, 1962.
the falling dew
Diamonds grow in India, some as big as a bean, some like a hazel nut. They are male and female and from the falling dew they multiply and bring forth small children.
—reporter Sir John Mandeville, writing in 1360. From The History and Use of Diamond, by S. Tolansky, 1962.
sympathetic magic
In the early Middle Ages the diamond was a rare, highly valued object, which was worn not as a decoration or as an object of beauty, but as a magical amulet. Indeed, since only natural unpolished stones were at first available and as these only occasionally have an attractive shape (and this only as a rule when they are small), it was not the appearance but other properties which gave the diamond its special position. As a decorative gem it was not at first rated as highly as the ruby or the pearl. Its real magical importance was due to its great hardness. Because of this hardness, by the simple and familiar process of sympathetic magic, it was firmly believed that diamond could endow its wearer with corresponding hardihood and manhood. . . . Diamonds were, therefore, often worn by knights and leaders on the battlefield.
—S. Tolansky, from The History and Use of Diamond, 1962.
the famous fire of the diamond
All transparent materials, in addition to refracting light, also exhibit what is called dispersion, that is, the refractive index is slightly more for the bluer component of daylight than for the redder. The different colours which constitute white light are differently refracted, i.e. dispersed, and this is of course why a glass prism shows the colours of the rainbow. In diamond, the dispersion is especially high, about five times that of glass. So what is the result when light falls on the well cut diamond First, 18 per cent is immediately reflected. Then the rest enters, but is largely reflected within the diamond and ultimately finds its way back to the eye of the beholder. But on its path it is strongly dispersed, i.e. split into brilliant, widely separated spectral colours. This, then, constitutes the famous fire of the diamond, the flash of spectral colour from the dispersed light spectrum.
It need only be added that fire is far more effective in flickering candlelight than in daylight or electric light. The changes in angle of incidence of light resulting from the flickering candles make a diamond jewel worn in such light appear to be virtually alive and flashing with fire. Truly the thousand candles at Versailles, before the days of gas or elecricity, must have brought out to perfection the brilliant fire of the diamonds worn by the ladies of the French Court.
—S. Tolansky, from The History and Use of Diamond, 1962.