the signature of Cassiopeia

“He lay on his back in his blankets and looked out where the quartermoon lay cocked over the heel of the mountains. In that false blue dawn the Pleiades seemed to be rising up into the darkness above the world and dragging all the stars away, the great diamond of Orion and Cepella and the signature of Cassiopeia all rising up through the phosphorous dark like a sea-net.”

—Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, 1992.

he drank it black

“His father stirred his coffee a long time. There was nothing to stir because he drank it black. He took the spoon and laid it smoking on the paper napkin and raised the cup and looked at it and drank.”

—Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, 1992.

pure Mocha coffee

“. . . he invited the strangers in to his house, where his two sons and daughters offered them several kinds of sherbet which they had made themselves, as well as drinks flavoured with candied lemon peel, oranges, lemons, citrons, pineapples, and pistachios, and pure Mocha coffee unmixed with the bad coffee you get from Batavia and the West Indies.”

—Voltaire, Candide, or Optimism, 1759, translated by John Butt, 1947.

35 Years in 3-D

Gerry500px.jpg

35 Years in 3-D, a retrospective of stereoscopic 3-D art by Gerald Marks, will be on display September 3rd through September 17th at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. According to Greg Dinkins, the genius behind the New York Stereoscopic Society, the show will feature “early printed anaglyph work; polarizing projection of 3-D his photography, old and new; lenticular prints, transparencies, & computer screen; a Professor Pulfrich’s Universe shadow room; his computer generated hologram done at the MIT MedialLab; and excerpts from his 3-D videos for the Rolling Stones.” Wow. If I happened to be in the greater NYC area, I wouldn’t miss it.

X

“As a symbol, X is a strike in bowling and baseball, a defensive player in a football diagram, a kiss at the end of a letter or text message. On maps, X is infantry or mountaintop. X multiplies (2×2=4), relates dimension (2×4), and signifies the unknown algebraic quantity (2x-4x). X prescribes medicine (Rx), reacts chemically (rx), raises a musical note to a double sharp, and refers to pins and lamps in circuit diagrams. . . .
X is a blank placeholder, but it is THE blank placeholder. No other letter quite marks the spot like X. A cross. A double slash. A burning band. It’s the way it looks, the innumerable ways it can be replicated, but also the way it sounds in the mouth. Eks. Its sound is that of swords crossing, a fillet hitting the frypan, a curse. A hex.”

—David Barringer, There’s Nothing Funny about Design, 2009.

red and yellow

“Every culture imbues its colors with positive and negative connotations. Yellow is joy and cowardice, the color of oak-tree ribbons and jaundice, Asian spirituality and Egyptian mourning. Red is love and vengeance, valentines and spilled blood. In China and India, red symbolizes good luck and celebration, while in other countries, red stands for socialism and slasher films. Everywhere, red and yellow are the fireworks of autumn. Red and yellow can be as beautiful as the robe of a Chinese emperor and as ugly as the dollops of ketchup and mustard on a cold beef patty.”

—David Barringer, There’s Nothing Funny about Design, 2009.

Red Axanthic. Blonde Pastel. Lemon Blast.

“Red Axanthic. Blonde Pastel. Lemon Blast. Peach Ghost. Orange Ghost. Butterscotch Ghost. Caramel Albino. Yellow Belly. Snowball. Banana. Pastel Jungle. Lesser Platinum. Mojave. Calico. Sable. Pewter. Goblin. Clown. Bumblebee. Killerbee. Piebald. Pinstripe.
    These names do not refer to Pantone colors, paper stocks, fabric patterns, paint swatches, ice-cream flavors, or mixed drinks. they are the names of ball-python morphs. Ball pythons are popular because they’re calm, slow, rarely bite, and remain small, less than six feet in length. They eat mice and rats. One two-foot female inhabits a terrarium on my son’s desk.”

—David Barringer, There’s Nothing Funny about Design, 2009.

the “Chameleon”

“ ‘Changing my skin color was intoxicating at first. I changed my skin color in the middle of my first dinner with my girlfriend’s parents. I turned blue, then yellow. I went to the bathroom, came out naked, and disappeared into the wallpaper. After a while, they got used to it. They called me the “Chameleon” and said I should have a sitcom. I actually did want to be an actor, but I discovered I didn’t like being laughed at. I saw a D.C. want ad for a modified spy, and the rest, as they say, is classified.’ ”

—David Barringer, There’s Nothing Funny about Design, 2009.

the white summer

“Rising inside Grady was an ungovernable laughter, a joyous agitation which made the white summer stretching before her seem like an unrolling canvas on which she might draw those first rude pure strokes that are free.”

scraps of the sea

“. . . Grady, whose green estimating eyes were like scraps of the sea. . . .”

—Truman Capote, Summer Crossing, 2005.

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