Lustrous and pure
“The jade hair-pin is thin and long like a bamboo shoot,
Delicate and white like an onion stalk,
Beautifully soft and smooth,
Lustrous and pure without a flaw.”
—Hsi Hsiang Chi, from The Romance of the Western Chamber, translated by S.I. Hiung, 1936.
the far green hills
“When you ask why I dwell here docile among the far green hills, I laugh in my heart. My heart is happy.”
—Li Po, from The Jade Flute: Chinese Poems in Prose, a Peter Pauper Press Book, published in 1960.
a mirror
“With this I send a mirror. . . . It is pure round and it is clear white, to remind you of the moon we gazed at when we were last together in the garden.”
—The emperor’s favorite, Pan Tie tsu, from The Jade Flute: Chinese Poems in Prose, a Peter Pauper Press Book, published in 1960.
black pearls
“Over the mist the sun sets far off in heaven. Only the hills are red: field, hollow and lake are blue with shadow.
Now islands in the lake are black pearls set in amethyst. Now that wooded hill, a head of waving woman’s hair, is black. And see, a crescent comb of silver moon.
Sad and happy, I pick up my lute and sing until the stars grow pale.”
—Tsiang-Tien, from The Jade Flute: Chinese Poems in Prose, a Peter Pauper Press Book, published in 1960.
in the moonbeam
“Gold, silver and gold
All you can hold is in the moonbeam
Poor, no one is poor
Long as love is sure on the street of dreams.”
—from Street Of Dreams, words & music by Victor Young & Samuel Lewis. Recorded by The Ink Spots in 1939 and by Peggy Lee in 1956.
the splendor of the creative mind
“The true Bohemian is a connoisseur of texture, color and sensation. While the bourgeoisie can experience excitement, a feeling of fulfillment only through consuming, the Bohemian is exhilarated by observation, by creation, by experience itself. . . .
Bohemians do not take comfort in consuming to fill the hollow emptiness of existence that rattles like small shattered bones; they find poetry in the free and everyday things: the pinked and silvered lights of Paris in early October, a spiderweb decked out in jewel-like dew, a nineteeth-century china tea set in an antique shop window next to a taxidermy fox, humble objects and books and paintings and conversations in a coffee shop, things overheard in a botanical garden or on a wharf. . . .
It is splendor in which the Bohemian lives, not squalor—the splendor of the creative mind—and it requires ingenuity, free-thinking and nerve.”
—Laren Stover, from Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge, 2004.
we used to stop and watch those signs
“We’d play a gig, then smoke and take a walk, and the streets were lit up with colors, neon signs, and we used to stop and watch those signs, we didn’t read them, just watched them glow.”
—Vic DiMeo, trumpet player, on his New York heyday. As quoted by step-daughter Laren Stover in Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge, 2004.
Black jeans
“Beats look cooler than any other Bohemian. They are the toughest, most tautly attired of all the Bohemians. Indigo, white, putty and black are the main colors, black being the most dominant. Black jeans, black jackets, black wingtips, black sneakers, black ballet slippers, black berets, black sweaters, black shirts, black coffee. . . .
Outerwear is generally the same for Beats of all sexes and will include a trench coat in black, navy or beige, a camel’s-hair coat from a thrift shop ar a navy blue peacoat. A corduroy jacket may appear from time to time in the academic as well as the non-academic Beat wardrobe. This will be brown, forest green or burgundy.”
—Laren Stover, from Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge, 2004.
The Bohemian version of a dimmer switch
“The Bohemian version of a dimmer switch is fabric—shawls and scarves thrown over a shade. This method may also be used to alter the color of the room to, say, rose or yellow. For special occasions, Bohemians bring out the colored lightbulbs. Pink, red, blue, yellow, amber, black. It would not be unusual to find black-light posters of Jimi Hendrix in the Gypsy/Psychedelic Bohemian home, as well as a Lava lamp bubbling away in a corner.”
—Laren Stover, from Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge, 2004.
a nice cool red dim scene
“I’d always put my red bandana over the little wall lamp and put out the ceiling light to make a nice cool red dim scene to sit and drink wine and talk in.”
—Jack Kerouac, from The Dharma Bums, as quoted in a footnote to Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge by Laren Stover, 2004.