A New Blue
bright blue eyes
“Eli Watkins, Prophet of the Third Revelation, wore a cream white flannel suit, which made his tall figure conspicuous. He had adopted a pontifical air in these days of glory and power. He did not shake hands with you, but fixed you with a pair of large, prominent, bright blue eyes, and said, ‘The blessings of the Lord upon you.’ ”
—Upton Sinclair, Oil!, 1927.
MELODY
Elisa
beautiful silver and gold-plated trophies
“There were beautiful silver and gold-plated trophies with engraved inscriptions, which helped to hypnotize you into thinking that the hitting of little balls about a field was of major importance!”
—Upton Sinclair, Oil!, 1927.
the pinks are worse than the reds
“ ‘Hello, Ross,’ he said; ‘pleased-to-meecher. I got an uncle that’s spending a hundred thousand dollars to put you in jail.’
‘Is that so?’ said Bunny, a trifle startled.
‘Sure thing! He’s nuts about this red-hunting business, and the pinks are worse than the reds, he says. I’ve been worried about you.’ ”
—Upton Sinclair, Oil!, 1927.
Somewhere Here On Earth
a return to books
John M. Carrera’s Pictorial Webster’s
‘black gold’!
“The greatest oil strike in the history of Southern California, the Prospect Hill field! The inside of the earth seemed to burst out through that hole; a roaring and rushing, as Niagrara, and a black column shot up into the air, two hundred feet, two hundred and fifty—no one could say for sure—and came thundering down to earth as a mass of thick, black slimy, slippery fluid. It hurled tools and other heavy objects this way and that, so the men had to run for their lives. It filled the sump-hole, and poured over, like a sauce-pan boiling too fast, and went streaming down the hillside. Carried by the wind, a curtain of black mist, it sprayed the Culver homestead, turning it black, and sending the women of the household flying across the cabbage-fields. Afterwards it was told with Homeric laughter how these women had been heard to lament the destruction of their clothing and their window-curtains by this million-dollar flood of ‘black gold’!”
—Upton Sinclair, Oil!, 1927.