prisms of no color
“Darkened rolling figures move thru prisms of no color.
Hand in hand, they walk the night,
But never know each other.”
—The Monkees, Daily Nightly, words and music by Michael Nesmith, 1967.
the silvery tinkling of half a hundred glasses
“The October sun shed a light like gold dust against the windows, but inside the air was all silver: silver of champagne and gin, silver of spoons, of the bars the young girls wore, tucked in their hair, and the silvery tinkling of half a hundred glasses, a gay and flimsy tintinnabulation.”
—William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness, 1951.
fading, dusty stars
“It was very quiet on the water, and chilly, and the moon, hung like a pale lamp above the rim of the bay, seemed to shed only the coolest light over a crowd of fading, dusty stars.”
—William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness, 1951.
The sparkle of your China
“Can you show me
The shine of your Japan
The sparkle of your China
Can you show me”
—Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen), Bodhisattva, 1973.
You wouldn’t know a diamond
“You wouldn’t know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious
I can’t understand”
—Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen), Reelin’ in the Years, 1972.
the diamond with the pearl
“Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl
You turned it on the world
That’s when you turned the world around”
—Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen), Kid Charlemagne, 1976.
Daddy Faith
“Perched on the seat of the Cadillac, Daddy Faith was bestowing grace upon the crowd. He was smiling; his face, black as night, was greasy with sweat. He made a wide arc with his hand, half a dozen diamond rings spun and glittered, and his shiny opera hat and diamond stickpin made beautiful flashes above the throng. A sigh, vast and reverential, went up from the crowd—Aaaaah!—and a shower of dollar bills, nickels, dimes and quarters cascaded over Daddy Faith, over the car and onto the ground.”
—William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness, 1951.
the word ‘lectern’
“[M]edieval readers most likely would be uncomfortable reading a book in a flat position, because the way they most often encountered books set out to be read was propped up on another book or on a slanted surface not unlike a modern lectern or music stand. Indeed, the word “lectern” comes from the Latin verb legere, “to read,” and even a modern lectern has a sloped surface to hold books or notes.”
—Hentry Petroski, The Book on the Book Shelf, 1999.
The earliest codices
“The earliest codices . . . apparently date from the early part of the Christian era (about the second century), and it has been speculated that the codex form might have been first adopted when the Christian Bible began to be copied on papyrus and circulated in book as opposed to roll form to distinguish it from the scrolled texts of Judaism and paganism.”
—Hentry Petroski, The Book on the Book Shelf, 1999.
the Greek word for book
“The word [papyrus] is believed to be of Egyptian origin, as is the plant. The Greeks referred to papyrus as byblos, after Byblus, the Phoenician city that was a center of papyrus exportation. Hence we have the Greek word for book, biblion, which in turn gave us the English word “bible,” “The Book.””
—Hentry Petroski, The Book on the Book Shelf, 1999.