Jason Squiff
“Jason Squiff was a cistern cleaner. He had greenish yellowish hair. If you looked down into a cistern when he was lifting buckets of slush and mud you could tell where he was you could pick him out down in the dark cistern, by the lights of his greenish yellowish hair.”
—Carl Sandberg, from “The Story of Jason Squiff and Why He Had a Popcorn Hat, Popcorn Mittens and Popcorn Shoes,” one of his Stories from the Rootabaga Country, from a collected edition of 1973.
The Yellow Sound
“[Wassily] Kandinsky’s endeavor to reduce painting to its innate basic principles had led him, in 1909, to the creation of his first abstract painting, which he regarded as an equivalent to musical compositions. Sounds, like pure colors, were seen to be expression of an absolute spirit. However, the time dimension of music could only be insufficiently captured in the static, two-dimensional frame of a painting. Hence his move into “stage-compositions,” the first of which, The Yellow Sound, was published in 1912.”
—G’nter Berghaus, from Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-Garde, 2005.
il Poeta Pink
“’Dr F. T. Marinetti,’ as he proudly signed many of his early essays and theoretical reflections, conducted his surgical strikes against the perceived illnesses of the body politic, and earned himself the reputation of being il Poeta Pink, named after a popular medicine believed to ‘restore the weak organism and provide the best cure against anemia, sclerosis and general fatigue.’”
—G’nter Berghaus, from Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-Garde, 2005.
the verve that distinguishes you
“Have immediately printed, with your usual ultra-Futurist energy, 15,000 flyers like the one enclosed or even half that size, but keep the same proportion of letters. Take paper of different colors, but they must be bright, otherwise the print will be illegible. Then, take a car and . . . make a tour through the principal streets of Messina, throwing the flyers with the verve that distinguishes you.”
—F.T. Marinetti, from a letter of October 15, 1913, printed in Guiseppe Miligi, Prefuturismo e primo futurismo in Sicilia, 1900–1918, 1989. As quoted in Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-Garde by G’nter Berghaus, 2005.
a magical and dazzling glow
“In the evening, a flood of gas light streams through the windows, casting a warm color on the pale faces of passing women, making the copper shine like gold, and transforming crystals into diamonds. It makes the rich array of manifold and multicolored trinkets, knick-knacks, and toys appear like luxuries radiating a magical and dazzling glow. . . .”
—Auguste Luchet, from “Les Passages,” in Nouveau tableau de Paris, 1835. As quoted in Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-Garde by G’nter Berghaus, 2005.
permanent illumination
“Everywhere you see brilliant stores, ostentatious displays, gilded caf’s, permanent illumination: from rue Louis-le-Grand to rue Richelieu, the light flooding from the shops allows you to read your newspaper. . . . People stroll through the streets where commerce keeps a radiant illumination going all night and makes it as bright as day.”
—Julien Lemer, from Paris au gaz, 1861. As quoted in Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-Garde by G’nter Berghaus, 2005.
a white table, a white piano, and one hundred white pencils
“Grandson of a millionaire, [Cole] Porter spent his entire life surrounded by opulence, and his home at 13 re Monsieur was no exception.
In the entryway, black-and-white checked tile led from the front door to a finely cut marble staircase flanked on each side by columns. From the top of the stairs, a grand salon stretched out over much of the first floor, enclosing in its white paneling soft velvet couches, oriental-finished tables, and colorful rugs. Platinum paper coated the library walls, while elsewhere in the house zebra-skin rugs complemented ornate art deco furnishing. . . . Porter’s workroom . . . ,painted entirely in white, contained nothing but a white table, a white piano, and one hundred white pencils. The wall facing the courtyard was made of frosted glass with a small, clear porthole so that Porter could gaze outside for inspiration.”
—Luke Miner, from Paris Jazz: A Guide, 2005.
the Tabou
“For a brief period Tabou was the center of Saint-Germain’s existentialist youth movement, which married jazz culture with the intellectual life of the Latin Quarter. The extistentialist community was drawn to jazz, and in particular the new sub-genre of bebop, with its complex, lightning fast sounds. . . . These “existentialists” had their own dress code. The men wore multicolored cowboy shirts and canvas running shoes, while the women dressed in black shirts and pants. At its height, the Tabou was so poular that a membership card was required to gain entrance. Some of its more famous guests included Raymond Queneau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus.”
—Luke Miner, from Paris Jazz: A Guide, 2005.
a golden arm
“For he had the touch, and a golden arm. ‘Hold me up, Arm,’ he would plead, trying for a fifth pass with the first four still riding, kiss his rosary once for help with the faders sweating it out and zing—there it was, A Little Joe or Phoebe, Big Dick or Eighter from Decatur, double trey the hard way and dice be nice—when you get a hunch bet a bunch—bet a dollar and then holler—make me five to keep me alive—it don’t mean a thing if it don’t cross that string—tell ’em where you got it and how easy it was.”
—Nelson Algren, from The Man with the Golden Arm, 1949. He was a card dealer, of course, but he becomes a junkie.
Her evening gown
“Her evening gown was of an ivory-colored taffeta. The billowing skirt did justice to the effect of the stiff, cold, voluminous taffeta, on which the grain of shifting light flowed and opened up its quiet, silver, dead, long, slender eyes. Color was provided by a cattleya pinned to her bodice. The faint yellow, pink, and purple velum, surrounded by violet petals, imparted the coquetry and shyness peculiar to members of the orchid family. From her necklace of little Indian nuts strung on a yellow gold chain, from her loose lavender elbow-length gloves, from the orchid on her bodice, the fresh odor of perfume like the air after a rain wafted its charms.”
—Yukio Mishima, Forbidden Colors, 1953. Translated from the Japanese by Alfred H. Marks, 1968.