streamlined pictographic script
“The Minoans . . . evolved their own distinct script, following the old pattern that had developed thousands of years before: from seals on goods to pictograms, from pictograms to streamlined pictographic script. The earliest form of this script survives on a scattering of tablets and stone engravings across Crete, and is generally called “Linear A” to distinguish it from its more sophisticated descendent: “Linear B,” the version of Minoan script which spread north to the Mycenaeans.”
—Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World, 2007.
a black stone stele
“[A]ll of the old Sumerian cities . . . were part of the empire centered at Babylon. . . .
This was no unruly empire; it was ruled by law. Hammurabi managed his growing conquests, in part, by enforcing the same code over the entire extent of it. The only surviving copy of this code was discovered centuries later in Susa, carved onto a black stone stele. Clearly the laws were intended to embody a divine code of justice (the top of the stele shows the god of justice, bestowing his authority on Hammurabi), but their showy presence in conquered cities also kept control over the conquered people. According to the stele itself, the laws were observed faithfully in Nippur, Eridu, Ur, Larsa, Isin, Kish, Mari, and other cities.”
—Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World, 2007.
the white city
“According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Menes/Narmer celebrated his victory by building a brand new capital at Memphis, the central point of his brand new kingdom. Memphis means “White Walls”; the walls were plastered so that they shone in the sun. From the white city, the ruler of united Egypt could control both the southern valley and the northern delta.”
—Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World, 2007.
black was the color of life and resurrection
“The Egyptians gave their country two different names. The land where the yearly flood laid down its silt was Kemet, the Black Land; black was the color of life and resurrection. But beyond the Black Land lay Deshret, the deathly Red Land. The line between life and death was so distinct that a man could bend over and place one hand in fertile black earth, the other on red, sun-baked desert.”
—Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World, 2007.
the red of lies and deals and greed
“[I]n Washington, D.C., . . . the President was having a little hand trouble of his own. Which is to say, the President had been caught red-handed, hands redder than a travel poster sunset, pimp red, a red that could enrage bulls and stop locomotives, but not blood red, for blood is sacred and the red that ran off the President’s hands was the red of lies and deals and greed and arrogant megalomania.”
—Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, 1977.
the wildest edge of edges
“If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill, take it and push it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edge of edges, then you force it into the realm of magic. And it doesn’t matter what it is that you select, because when it has been pushed far enough it contains everything else. I’m not talking about specialization. To specialize is to brush one tooth. When a person specializes he channels all of his energies through one narrow conduit; he knows one thing extremely well and is ignorant of almost everything else. That’s not it. That’s tame and insular and severely limiting. I’m talking about taking one thing, however trivial and mundane, to such extremes that you illuminate its relationship to all other things, and then taking it a little bit further—to that point of cosmic impact where it becomes all other things.”
—Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, 1977.
Literal light
“Buddha and Rama and Lao-tzu brought light into the world. Literal light. Jesus Christ also was a living manifestation of light, although by the time his teachings were exported into the West, Saint Paul had trimmed the wick, and Jesus’ beam grew dimmer and dimmer until, around the fourth century, it went out altogether.”
—Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, 1977.
Violet hills and burnt umber buttes
“Violet hills and burnt umber buttes rested in their still American places like novels on Zane Grey’s bookshelf.”
—Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, 1977.
rosy-fingered dawn
“Homer referred in The Odyssey to “rosy-fingered dawn.” Homer, who was blind and had no editor, referred over and over again to “rosy-fingered dawn.” Pretty soon, dawn began to think of herself as rosy-fingered: the old doctrine of life imitating art.”
—Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, 1977.
Difficulties
“Difficulties illuminate existence, but they must be fresh and of high quality.”
—Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, 1977.