A Blue-porcelain Night Sky
“The sky was alight—a blue-porcelain night sky where countless stars twinkled, like snowflakes frozen before they could fall.”
—Yukio Mishima, Forbidden Colors, 1953. Translated from the Japanese by Alfred H. Marks, 1968.
deepest black
“Shunsuk’ entered the study and looked for something on the shelf of original works in French literature, which was up fairly high. He soon found the book he was looking for. It was a special edition with rice-paper pages of Musa Paidica in French translation. Musa Paidica is a collection of poems by the Roman poet Straton, of the time of Hadrian. He followed in the steps of the Emperor Hadrian, who loved Antinous, and he wrote poems only about beautiful boys:
Let the cheek be fair
Or dipped in honey shades,
Of flaxen hue the hair
Or black with every grace;
Let the eyes be brown
Or let me disappear
Into those flashing pools
Of deepest black.
He of the honey-colored skin, the black hair, and the jet-black eyes must have been born in Asia Minor, as was the famous Eastern slave Antinous. The ideal youthful beauty dreamed of by second-century Romans was Asian in nature.”
—Yukio Mishima, Forbidden Colors, 1953. Translated from the Japanese by Alfred H. Marks, 1968.
nirvana
“Death will be unlike TV documentaries showing us life from outside
Death will be unlike the Buddhist nirvana the moth seems to seek in the light
Death will be unlike the Cities of crystal they build in a few grains of smack
Death will be unlike the long picture window the coffin looks through to a widow in black”
—Momus, What Will Death Be Like?, from the album Monsters Of Love (Singles 1985-90), 1990. This guy is a genius.
“white art”
“Earlier in the year [1968], John Lennon—under the new influence of his relationship with Yoko Ono—had staged a London art exhibition at the Robert Frazer Gallery of his “white art”. Called You Are Here, the show consisted of items like a huge circular white canvas with “you are here” appearing microscopically, and a machine that continuously inflated white balloons to be released over London with “you are here” labels attached.”
—Mike Evans, from The Art of the Beatles, 1984.
The “white” album
“The “white” album . . . was the ultimate . . . “art” album sleeve, minimalist in its plain white with “The Beatles” embossed subtly, and conceptual in that the Beatles decided that the first two million copies should bear individual “edition” numbers.
Inside the sleeve, however, there was ample concession to a more representational approach, with the inclusion of four colour photographs and a collage composition by Richard Hamilton.”
—Mike Evans, from The Art of the Beatles, 1984.
The Beatles Red Album (1968).
Mainly inspired by John, who happened to be on acid while watching the Paris student riots in the summer of ’68, this collection was recorded in one night between dusk and dawn, in a “very collective” session (John speaking). Its release was blocked by Yoko One, who, being a Jap, doesn’t like Chinks. Main cuts: Love Mao Do, (Won’t You) Please Police Me, The Long and Winding Capitalist Roaders, Happiness Proceeds Out of the Barrel of a Warm Gun, Rice Paddies Forever.
—National Lampoon, the magazine, from a special “Beatles Edition”, October 1977.
a great black shadow
“At last the time came when her strength failed her; she lay in the hut unable to drag herself out to search for food. The fire in the corner that had smouldered so long between the three great stones was out. In the day the hot air eddied through the hut, hot with the breath of the wind blowing over the vast parched jungle; at night she shivered in the chill dew. She was dying, and the jungle knew it; it is always waiting; can scarcely wait for death. When the end was close upon her a great black shadow glided into the doorway. Two little eyes twinkled at her steadily, two immense white tusks curled up gleaming against the darkness.”
—Leonard Woolf, from The Village in the Jungle, 1935. As found in the newly revised and annotated edition edited by Yasmine Gooneraine, 2005.
evil eye.
Sinhala: aes-vaha, literally, “eye-poison”, the malevolent and destructive gaze which has the power to make a victim sicken and die. Children in particular are instructed to avoid the presence of those who are believed to possess either aes-vaha or kata-vaha (literally, “mouth-poison” or “evil tongue”).
—Yasmine Gooneraine, 2005, in the newly revised and annotated publication, of The Village in the Jungle by Leonard Woolf, 1935.
the American Dream turned belly up, turned green
“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. . . . Thus the American Dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.”
—Kurt Vonneget, Jr., from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, 1965.
Everything went black
“Everything went black . . . , as black as what lay beyond the ultimate rim of the universe.”
—Kurt Vonneget, Jr., from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, 1965.