the Black Death
“Contemporaries did not call the plague the Black Death. Sometime in the fifteenth century, the Latin phrase atra mors, meaning, “dreadful death,” was translated “black death,” and the phrase stuck.”
—McKay, Hill and Buckler, A History of Western Society, sixth edition, 1999.
Her blacks
“Her blacks crackle and drag.”
—Sylvia Plath, from Edge; quoted by James McManus in Positively Fifth Street, 2003.
little towers of tinted clay chips
“I’ve fantasized for decades about having a World Series stack imposing enough to make brutal sport of my opponents, but I have zero actual experience in the role. Do I feel any pressure? Of course not. I . . . pour out my baggie of chips, stack them by colour, recount them. Not that I think anyone would have stealthily siphoned a pink or an orange this morning, but still: $276,000, all present and accounted for. Does it make sense to say that one loves little towers of tinted clay chips? Did Grandma Betsy shit in the woods? . . .
At $15,000 per round, the average stack would be blinded off in about seven rounds. I have more leeway, of course, with my four yellow five-hundreds, fourteen blue-and-white thousands, twenty-four orange five-thousands, and fourteen hot pink ten-thousands. (And yes, I’m convinced of it: love is exactly the word.) The floormen have requested that we keep all our pinks to the fore, this is to give opponents a fair chance to measure with whom they want to tangle. Or not.”
—James McManus, from Positively Fifth Street, 2003.
all blue.
A club flush.
—Positively Fifth Street, by James McManus, 2003.
flop.
First three community cards, exposed simultaneously.
—Positively Fifth Street, by James McManus, 2003.
flush.
Five cards of the same suit.
—Positively Fifth Street, by James McManus, 2003.
rainbow.
Flop with three different suits.
From the text (p. 204): “Raising to $1,200, I get three nasty callers, but the flop comes a ravishing K-J-8 rainbow. (The three different suits of a rainbow greatly reduce the chances of someone else’s making a flush.)”
—Positively Fifth Street, by James McManus, 2003.
shimmering, impalpable curtains of colour
“[With] the delicate brushwork, exquisitely subtle colour harmonies and expansive centreless compositions of the Water Lilies . . . Monet’s aim was still the presentation of an immediate experience of nature, but his water-lily garden at Giverny held for him intimations of infinity and his contemplative visions of it give the illusion of a glimpse into an endless whole. His almost spaceless views downwards, on to and through the surface of the pool become shimmering, impalpable curtains of colour. The natural world disappears into near-abstract patterns of vibrating light and atmosphere.”
—Hugh Honour & John Fleming, from The Visual Arts: A History, 1982.
marvelous, steady, caressing light
“An extraordinary golden light, delicate, radiant, transparent, suddenly flooded the room, softly but clearly outlining its walls, gleaming equipment, and the figure of my teacher himself. And, at the same moment, I felt on my face and hands something like a warm breath of air. This phenomenon lasted no more than a second or a second and a half. Then heavy darkness concealed everything from my eyes.
‘Lights, please!’ exclaimed Lord Charlesbury and once more I saw him emerging from the door of the glass chamber. His face was pale, but illuminated by joy and pride.
. . . ‘You saw that marvelous, steady, caressing light. Now do you belive in my project?‘
‘Yes,’ I answered heatedly, with profound conviction. ‘I believe in it and I bow before an invention of great genius.’”
—Alexander Kuprin, from Liquid Sunshine, 1913. Translated from the Russian by Lelant Fetzer in 1980.
universal light
“Hypocrites give attention to
form, the right and wrong ways of professing belief. Grow instead in universal light.
When that revealed itself out of nonexistence, God gave it a robe and a thousand different names,
the least of those sweet-breathing names being the one who is not in need of anyone.
When that comes, daylight looks dark, and when your foolishness, which doesn’t recognize
such beauty, becomes visible to you, night dark will seem glowing beside it. Let your eyes
get used to light. Don’t miss your own splendour!”
—Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–1273), from the Masnavi, Book IV. The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems, translated by Coleman Barks, 2001.