a shadow
“‘Adios,’ she added in Spanish, ‘I have no house only a shadow. But whenever you are in need of a shadow, my shadow is yours.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Sank you.’
‘Not sank you, Señora Gregorio, thank you.’
‘Sank you.’”
—Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, 1947.
Drank
Now, let’s look at the package. The color palette is great: brooding violet and magenta bring us into the hooded figure in black. The white contrasts well with the darker background, but the outer border may be a little too bold, and I think the logo itself is . . . clunky. Oh, and I don’t like the letterspacing of “slow your roll”, although . . . I get it. (We’re supposed to read it s l o w l y. I get it, I get it!)
I definitely do like the bright Coca-Cola filigree below the shield. I can’t help but think that this is a sly jab the man of soft drink men, the Coca-Cola man, who jealously guards his patented “dynamic ribbon device” from an office that towers high above Atlanta. Will he stoop to a lawsuit against this fool?
sunlight, sunlight, sunlight
“Ah none but he knew how beautiful it all was, the sunlight, sunlight, sunlight flooding the bar of El Puerto del Sol, flooding the watercress and oranges, or falling in a single golden line as if in the act of conceiving a God, falling like a lance straight into a block of ice—”
—Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, 1947.
nights the color of grey hair
“Night: and once again, the nightly grapple with death, the room shaking with daemonic orchestras, the snatches of fearful sleep, the voices outside the window, my name being continually repeated with scorn by imaginary parties arriving, the dark spinets. As if there were not enough real noises in these nights the color of grey hair.”
—Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, 1947.
the forty shades of green
“At the end of her period of house arrest . . . Aurora invited Camoens inside, making him the second person on earth to see her work. Every inch of the walls and even the ceiling of the room pullulated with figures, human and animal, real and imaginary, drawn in a sweeping black line that transformed itself constantly, that filled here and there into huge blocks of colour, the red of the earth, the purple and vermilion of the sky, the forty shades of green; a line so muscular and free, so teeming, so violent, that Camoens with a proud father’s bursting heart found himself saying, ‘But it is the great swarm of being itself.’”
—Salman Rushdie, The Moor’s Last Sigh, 1995.
[M]uch is being nailed down
“[M]uch is being nailed down. Colours, for example, to the mast.”
—Salman Rushdie, The Moor’s Last Sigh, 1995.
Frosted
the distinctive “Bo Diddley Beat”
“The Bo Diddley beat has been used by many other artists, including Elvis Presley (“His Latest Flame”); Bruce Springsteen (“She’s The One”); U2Desire”); The Smiths (“How Soon Is Now?”); Roxette (“Harleys And Indians (Riders In The Sky)”); Dee Clark, a former member of the Hambone Kids (see above) (“Hey Little Girl”); Johnny Otis (“Willie and the Hand Jive”); George Michael (“Faith”); Normaal (“Kearl van stoahl”); The Strangeloves (“I Want Candy”); Ace Frehley (“New York Groove”); Primal Scream (“Movin’ on up”); David Bowie (“Panic in Detroit”); The Pretenders (“Cuban Slide”); The Police (“Deathwish”), Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders (“The Game of Love”); The Supremes (“When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes”); Jefferson Airplane (“She Has Funny Cars”); The White Stripes (“Screwdriver”); The Byrds (“Don’t Doubt Yourself, Babe”); Tiny Letters (“Song For Jerome Green”) and The Stooges (“1969”). The early Rolling Stones sound was strongly associated with their versions of “Not Fade Away” and “I Need You Baby (Mona)”. The Who’s “Magic Bus” also is based upon the distinctive “Bo Diddley Beat”.”
—Wikipedia, Bo Diddley.
the sacred vowels
“Hail to the sacred vowels! Supreme salutations to the holy consonants!”
—Prayer to the alphabet, Tibetan monks; quoted by John Stevens in Sacred Calligraphy of the East, third edition, 1995.
Meditation on the letter A
“A is the first and most important of the Siddham characters. . . .
Meditation on the letter A (ajikan) is an essential practice of esoteric Buddhism. Usually, the character is set on an eight-petaled lotus in the center of a round moon, and then mounted on a board or scroll. The mounted character is set against a wall in the meditation hall. After performing the prescribed ritual including prostrations, mantras, and mudras, the meditator sits in the lotus posture about one meter from the character.
Pronouncing the A sound with each breath, he visualizes the moon, drawing it into his heart and expanding it gradually until its brilliance permeates the universe. Now from the center of the moon A is perceived as the essence of Mahavairocana—the distinction between worshiper and worshiped is effaced. Near the end of the meditation the moon and the letter are returned to their original form.”
—John Stevens, Sacred Calligraphy of the East, third edition, 1995.