And then fall will come
“‘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.
red-and-yellow retrograde
“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.
a diamond the size of a ping-pong ball
“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.
Lookin’ for the heart of Saturday night
“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.
word of the year
“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.
her eyes
“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
“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.
color TV
“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.
beige versus tan
“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.
Stale Beige
“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.