the Frisbie Baking Company
“Humans have always created new things by repurposing old ones. Like when some New England college kids began playing catch with empty cake tins in the late nineteenth century and invented a new sport (the tins all came from the Frisbie Baking Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut).”
—Matt Mason, The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism, 2008.
the prism of punk
“Despite the short-lived nature of this subversive shake-up, Hurricane Punk was one of the most powerful youth cultures the world ever endured, leaving a deluge of sounds, scenes, and movements in its path. The innovative ideas that traveled through the prism of punk illuminated every subculture that followed, wiping the slate clean of perceived limitations and introducing a range of new possibilities. Punk presented us with a new perspective, a perspective we can apply virtually anywhere.”
—Matt Mason, The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism, 2008.
the tuning knob
“He turned the tuning knob of the radio and tried the aerial at every angle its swivel allowed. His fingers moved in hesitant concentration, someone feeling out, listening for the combination that would spring a lock.”
—Nadine Gordimer, July’s People, 1981.
?
—Saul Steinberg, from Steinberg at the New Yorker, 2005.
Fontastic
There’s no other word for it, this type quiz is Fontastic! (Thank you Stephanie Clark.)
the colours were lovely
“‘Was the film good?’. . .
‘It was very sad,’ she said, ‘but the colours were lovely.’”
—Graham Greene, The Quiet American, 1955.
Smoky Sky
a message of good will
“There was starlight, but no moonlight. Moonlight reminds me of a mortuary and the cold wash of an unshaded globe over a marble slab, but starlight is alive and never still; it is almost as though someone in those vast spaces is trying to communicate a message of good will, for even the names of the stars are friendly.”
—Graham Greene, The Quiet American, 1955.
the red of porto, the orange of cointreau, the green of chartreuse, the cloudy yellow of pastis
“A curious garden sound filled the café—the regular drip of a fountain—and, looking at the bar, I saw rows of smashed bottles which let out their contents in a multi-coloured stream—the red of porto, the orange of cointreau, the green of chartreuse, the cloudy yellow of pastis—across the floor of the café.”
—Graham Greene, The Quiet American, 1955.
male plumage
“I noticed that his crew cut had recently been trimmed; was even the Hawaii shirt serving the function of male plumage?”
—Graham Greene, The Quiet American, 1955.