HELIATED

“[. . .] and then [. . .] into Gately’s personal mind, in Gately’s own brain-voice but with roaring and unwilled force, comes the term PIROUETTE, in caps, which term Gately knows for a fact he doesn’t have any idea what it means and no reason to be thinking it with roaring force, so the sensation is not only creepy but somehow violating, a sort of lexical rape. [. . .] Other terms and words Gately knows he doesn’t know from a divot in the sod now come crashing through his head with the same ghastly intrusive force, e.g. ACCIACATURA and ALEMBIC, LATRODECTUS MACTANS and NEUTRAL DENSITY POINT, CHIAROSCURO and PROPRIOCEPTION and TESTUDO and ANNULATE and BRICOLAGE and CATALEPT and GERRYMANDER and SCOPOPHILIA and LAERTES—and all of a sudden it occurs to Gately the aforethought EXTRUDING, STRIGIL and LEXICAL themselves—and LORDOSIS and IMPOST and SINISTRAL and MENISCUS and CHRONAXY and POOR YORICK and LUCULUS and CERISE MONTCLAIR and then DE SICA NEO-REAL CRANE DOLLY and CIRCUMAMBIENTFOUNDDRAMAMALEVIRATEMARRIAGE and then more lexical terms and words speeding up to chipmunkish and then HELIATED and then all the way up to a sound like a mosquito on speed, and Gately tries to clutch both his temples with one hand and scream, but nothing comes out.”

—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996.

a purple-and-tan windowpane check

“He [Pemulis] wore maroon paratrooper’s pants with green stovepipe
stripes down the sides. The pants’ cuffs were tucked into fuchsia socks
above ancient and radically uncool Clark’s Wallabies with dirty soles
of eraserish gum. He wore an orange fake-silk turtleneck under an
English-cut sportcoat in a purple-and-tan windowpane check. He wore
naval shoulder-braid at the level of ensign. He wore his yachting cap,
but with the bill bent up at a bumpkinish angle. He looked less
insolent than just extremely poorly dressed, really.”

—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996.

The night’s so clear

“The night’s so clear the stars shine right through people’s heads.”

—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996.

Mary had a little lamb

“‘Mary had a little lamb, its fleece electrostatic / And everywhere that Mary went, the lights became erratic.’”

—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996.

When green buds they are swelling

“In Scarlet town, where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwelling,
Made every youth cry ‘Well away!’
Her name was Barbara Allen.

All in the merry month of May,
When green buds they are swelling,
Young Jimmy Green on his death bed lay
For the love of Barbara Allen.”

—Barbara Allen, the first verses of a version from West Virgina, published in 1925; The Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-Speaking World, edited by Albert B. Friedman, 1956.

have you brought me silver?

“‘Dear girl, have you brought me silver?
Dear girl, have you brought me gold?
Have you walked these long, long miles
To see me hanged upon the hangman’s pole?’

‘Dear boy, I’ve brought you silver,
Dear boy, I’ve brought you gold;
I have not walked these long, long miles
To see you hanged upon the hangman’s pole.’

She took me from the scaffold;
She untied my hands;
The tears ran down the poor girl’s cheeks:
‘I love this highway man.’”

Fields of Hope

O, give me hold [of] your lily-white finger

“O, give me hold [of] your lily-white finger,

the nut-browne bride

“And he has till his brother gane:

Four and twanty siller bells

“The horse fair Annet rade upon,
He amblit like the wind;
Wi’ siller he was shod before,
Wi’ burning gowd behind.

Four and twanty siller bells
Wer a’ tyed till his mane,
And yae tift o’ the norland winde,
They tinkled ane by ane.”

—Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, a Scottish ballad, as published in 1765, The Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-Speaking World, edited by Albert B. Friedman, 1956.