“black sleep”
“Psychiatrist and cult watcher Dr. John Clark reports that ex-members have more than the normal number of nightmares, many of which are about their past in the cult. He also thinks that cult members frequently experience what has been called “black sleep,” sleep without dreams or without the usual form of dreams. Experiencing black sleep is like falling into utter blackness, into a pit, and coming out of it with a start, whout any consciousness of even having been asleep.”
—Willa Appel, from Cults in America: Programmed for Paradise, 1983.
white letters on a black background
“In [some] cults, as in the Third Reich, safety rests in utter conformity—in self-abnegation. The fate of individuals subjected to this environment is expressed simply in the following dream of a German woman in 1933: ‘In place of the street signs which had been abolished, posters had been set up on every corner, proclaiming in white letters on a black background the twenty words people were not allowed to say. The first was Lord—to be on the safe side I must have dreamt it in English. I don’t recall the following words and possibly didn’t even dream them, but the last one was I.’”
—Willa Appel, from Cults in America: Programmed for Paradise, 1983.
isochronous vibrations (pulsus) of the aether
“Assuming with Euler that colours are isochronous vibrations (pulsus) of the aether, as tones are of the air set in vibration by sound, and, what is most important, that the mind not alone perceives by sense their effect in stimulating the organs, but also by reflection, the regular play of the impressions, (and consequently the form in which different representations are united,)—which I, still, in no way doubt—then colour and tone would not be mere sensations. They would be nothing short of formal determinations of the unity of a manifold of sensations, and in that case could even be ranked as intrinsic beauties.
But the purity of a simple mode of sensation means that its uniformity is not disturbed or broken by any foreign sensation. It belongs merely to the form; for abstraction may there be made from the quality of the mode of such sensations (what colour or tone, if any, it represents). For this reason all simple colours are regarded as beautiful so far as pure. Composite colours have not this advantage, because, not being simple, there is no standard for estimating whether they should be called pure or impure. . . .
To say that the purity alike of colours and of tones, or their variety and contrast, seem to contribute to beauty, is by no means to imply that, because in themselves agreeable, they therefore yield an addition to the delight in the form and one on a par with it. The real meaning rather is that they make this form more clearly, definitely, and completely intuitable, and besides stimulate the representation by their charm, as they excite and sustain the attention directed to the object itself.”
—Immanuel Kant, “Analytic of the Beautiful” from The Critique of Judgement, 1790. Translated by James Creed Meredith.
are then the beautiful red and purple we see on yonder clouds really in them?
“HYLAS. Each visible object hath that color which we see in it.
PHILONOUS. How! is there anything visible but what we perceive by sight?
HYLAS. There is not. . . .
PHILONOUS. My reason for asking was, because in saying, each visible object hath that color which we see in it, you make visible objects to be corporeal substances; which imples either that corporeal substances are sensible qualities, or else that there is something beside sensible qualities perceived by sight: but, as this point was formerly agreed between us, and is still maintained by you, it is a clear consequence, that your corporeal substance is nothing distinct from sensible qualities.
HYLAS. You may draw as many absurd consequences as you please, and endeavor to perplex the plainest things, but you shall never persuade me out of my senses. I clearly understand my own meaning. . . .
PHILONOUS. What! are then the beautiful red and purple we see on yonder clouds really in them? Or do you imagine they have in themselves any other form than that of a dark mist or vapor?
HYLAS. I must own, Philonous, those colors are not really in the clouds as they seem to be at this distance. They are only apparent colors.
PHILONOUS. Apparent you call you them, how shall we distinguish these apparent colors from real?
HYLAS. Very easily. Those are to be thought apparent which, appearing only at a distance, vanish upon a nearer approach.
PHILONOUS. And those, I suppose, are to be thought real which are discovered by the most near and exact survey.
HYLAS. Right.
PHILONOUS. Is the nearest and exactest survey made by the help of a microscope, or by the naked eye?
HYLAS. By a microscope, doubtless.
PHILONOUS. But a microscope often discovers colors in an object different from those perceived by the unassisted sight. And, in case we had microscopes magnifying to any assigned degree, it is certain that no object whatsoever, viewed through them, would appear in the same color which it exhibits to the naked eyes.
HYLAS. And what will you conclude from all this? You cannot argue that there are really and naturally no colors on objects: because by artificial managements they may be altered, or made to vanish.
PHILONOUS. I think it may evidently be concluded from your own concessions, that all the colors we see with our naked eyes are only apparent as those on the clouds, since they vanish upon a more close and accurate inspection which is afforded us by a microscope.”
—George Berkeley, from Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, 1713.
the freshest and most beautiful pictures
“On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful characters can be written, the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted.”
—Chairman Mao, April 15, 1958. Found in Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse’Tung, the famous little red book (with the beautiful plastic cover) of China. From an English translation published by Bantam Books in 1967.
a purple castle
“His heart was a purple castle.”
—Patrick S’skind, from Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, 1986.
Golden Silence
“Slam your Doors in Golden Silence”
—product slogan at a design exhibition in Jacque Tati’s greatest film, Playtime, 1967. If you have not seen it, I can only highly recommend this rare and brilliant gem!
candy by the pound
“At about age ten, during a late summer visit to Sears to buy school clothes, I became aware of the concept of candy by the pound. This was revolutionary. Here were entire stalls of candy, naked as the day they were born, piled up two feet high and God knows how deep, glittering behind glass windows. . . .
What it was—beauty. The sheer, entropic plenitude of gumdrops, jelly beans, orange slices. I might buy any of these, merely for the joy of watching the clerk dig her shiny little silver scoop into the bin, pouring out my portion first in a great plinking rush, then one by one (plunk, plunk) as the green numbers on the electronic scale blinked up.”
—Steve Almond, from Candyfreak, 2004.
ORANGE BUBBLE YUM BUBBLE GUM
“HELP ME, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I NEED TO FIND ORANGE BUBBLE YUM BUBBLE GUM. NOT SHERBERT. ORANGE. I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR 2 YEARS. THIS IS MY BOYFRIENDS FAVORITE. IF I FIND IT HE MAY ASK ME TO MARRY HIM. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFO, PLEASE PLEASE CONTACT ME!!!!!”
—posted on the CandyDirect.com message board, cited in Candyfreak by Steve Almond, 2004.
the Bolshevists or “Reds”. . . and the counterrevolutionaries or “Whites”
“There were the Bolshevists or “Reds,” rulers of Russia and fully on the defensive, and the counterrevolutionaries or “Whites,” divided into many incoherent groups of former officials, nobles, military men, Westernized liberals, and moderate socialists. . . .
The Boshevist government managed to survive only because of the lack of co-ordination of its enemies—the natural consequence of their utterly divergent aims. On the side of the Soviets were patriotism, enthusiasm, and fear—patriotism to defend the country against foreign invaders, enthusiasm to promote a “classless society,” fear (on the part of the masses, and particularly the peasants) of losing the economic advantages gained throug the Revolution. On the side of the Whites were expert military men, zeal for constitutional freedom, and the vast resources of the foreign interventionists. But the Whites lacked a common objective.”
—Walther Kirchner, on the Russian Civil War, 1918–1920. From A History of Russia, 1948.