perpetual moonlight

“Then the darkness edges in and the street light comes on in front of Dora’s—the lamp which makes perpetual moonlight in Cannery Row.”

—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, 1945.

the hour of the pearl

“It is the hour of the pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.”

—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, 1945.

Brian Eno

Fred Hersch

RADIO LIBRE ALBEMUT

Why Do Late-Night Hosts Always Keep Their Desks on the Right?

old crocus-yellow neckties

“(I don’t suppose a writing man ever really gets rid of his old crocus-yellow neckties. Sooner or later, I think, they show up in his prose, and there isn’t a hell of a lot he can do about it.)“

—J.D. Salinger, Seymour—An Introduction, 1959.

very early-blooming parenthesis

“I privately say to you, old friend (unto you, really, I’m afraid), please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of very early-blooming parenthesis: (((()))).”

—J.D. Salinger, Seymour—An Introduction, 1959.

Plaintive Jewish Brown

“In one or two conveniently describable ways, his eyes were similar to mine, to Les’s, and to Boo Boo’s in that (a) the eyes of this bunch could all be rather bashfully described as extra-dark oxtail in color, or Plaintive Jewish Brown, and (b) we all ran to half circles, and, in a couple of cases, outright bags.”

—J.D. Salinger, Seymour—An Introduction, 1959.

the written word

“It was a day, God knows, not only of rampant signs and symbols but of wildly extensive communication via the written word.”

—J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, 1955.