a tawny brown
“His hair and his eyebrows and lashes are as black as the devil, and it needed a very bright ray of sunshine one day to show me that, beneath all that black, my admirer’s eyes are a tawny brown, and very deep set.”
—Collette, The Vagabond; translated by Enid McLeod, 1955.
a field of violets
“Gaston was not only a fierce lover, with endless wisdom and imagination, but he was also, perhaps, the first man in the history of the species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simply to make love in a field of violets.”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970.
the patina of the centuries
“He wore a large black hat that looked like a raven with widespread wings, and a velvet vest across which the patina of the centuries had skated.”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970.
the largest diamond in the world
“When it was opened by the giant, the chest gave off a glacial exhalation. Inside there was only an enormous, transparent block with infinite internal needles in which the light of the sunset was broken up into colored stars. Disconcerted, knowing that the children were waiting for an immediate explanation, Jos’ Arcadio Buendia ventured a murmur:
‘It’s the largest diamond in the world.’
‘No,’ the gypsy countered. ‘It’s ice.’”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970.
a red cloth
“On Saturday night, Jos’ Arcadio wrapped a red cloth around his head and left with the gypsies.”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970.
the tender yellow ponies of insomnia
“In the meantime . . . the candy animals made in the house were still being sold in the town. Children and adults sucked with delight on the delicious little green roosters of insomnia, the exquisite pink fish of insomnia, and the tender yellow ponies of insomnia, so that dawn on Monday found the whole town awake.”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970.
white, like a dove
“The new house, white, like a dove, was inaugurated with a dance.”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970.
little fishes
“With her terrible practical sense she could not understand the colonel’s business as he exchanged little fishes for gold coins and then converted the coins into little fishes, and so on, with the result that he had to work all the harder with the more he sold in order to satisfy an exasperating vicious circle.”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970.
the red ants
“One morning she saw that the red ants had left the undermined foundations, crossed the garden, climbed up the railing, where the begonias had taken on an earthen color, and had penetrated into the heart of the house.”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970.
Warm To The If In Life
A new collage by Paul Dean. The overall structure of this 30″ diameter piece is a frontal view of a brilliant cut (88 facet) diamond. Cutting an actual diamond in this manner is known as ‘brillianteering.’ Cutting paper and gluing it down is known as ‘collage.’ Posting these thoughts online is known as ‘blogging.’