an effluvium of pomade
“Horace met Snopes emerging from the barbershop, his jowls gray with powder, moving in an effluvium of pomade. In the bosom of his shirt, beneath his bow tie, he wore an imitation ruby stud which matched his ring. The tie was of blue polka-dots; the very white spots on it appeared dirty when seen close; the whole man with his shaved neck and pressed clothes and gleaming shoes emanated somehow the idea that he had been dry-cleaned rather than washed.”
—William Faulkner, Sanctuary, 1931.
Tommy’s eyes glowed again
“Tommy’s eyes glowed again, the pale irises appearing for an instant to spin on the pupils like tiny wheels.”
—William Faulkner, Sanctuary, 1931.
The Ego Tunnel
Thank you Natalie Smith!
Is That an Emoticon in 1862 (or Are You Just Happy to See Me)?
Hight Street, Blackstable
“Though there was an east wind blowing, the sky was blue and there was a feeling of spring in the air. The High Street, with its colours washed clean by the wind and its lines sharp as though drawn with a new pen, looked like a picture by Samuel Scott, quiet and naive and cosy: now, looking back; then it looked like nothing but High Street, Blackstable.”
—W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale, 1930.
a strip of blue sky
“And sometimes the road was only a lane, with thick hawthorn hedges, and the green elms overhung it on either side so that when you looked up there was only a strip of blue sky between. And as you rode along in the warm, keen air you had a sensation that the world was standing still and life would last for ever.”
—W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale, 1930.
The sun’s beams
“The sky was blue and the air, warm and yet fresh, crackled, as it were, with heat. The light was brilliant without harshness. The sun’s beams seemed to hit the white road with a directed energy and bounce back like a rubber ball.”
—W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale, 1930.
We can’t touch this
a pansy purple
“He moved along and stood finally in a room filled with images of Chairman Mao. Photocopy Mao, silk-screen Mao, wallpaper Mao, synthetic-polymer Mao. A series of silk screens was installed over a broader surface of wallpaper serigraphs, the Chairman’s face a pansy purple here, floating nearly free of its photographic source.”
—Don DeLillo, Mao II, 1991.
black and shaped like bats’ wings
“I have the sort of eyelashes, black and shaped like bats’ wings, that imply I’m wearing eyeliner, and the good fortune this has occasionally wrought is nothing compared to the grief, the stares, the constant Robert Smith comparisons.”
—Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity!, 2002.