the hues of that arch

“Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch—as distinct too, yet as intimately blended.”

—Edgar Allen Poe, Berenice.

free lectures

“If you have attended the free lectures at the College of Misery, for a short time even, and have paid attention to what you have seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears, you will reap a firm faith and learn more than you can express in words. He that hath eyes to see, let him see.”

—Vincent Van Gogh, July 1880.

the polychromatic hospital

“Color gives joy, it can also drive a person crazy. It can heal, in the polychromatic hospital. It is a formidable raw material, as indispensable to life as water or fire. . . . It can be dosed . . . in infinite degrees, beginning with the nuance and ending with the explosion.”

—Fernand L’ger, Painting and Reality, Transition, no. 25, 1936.

Blue plate.

The daily special.

—www.wordorigins.org, Diner Slang.

Bowl of red.

Chili.

—www.wordorigins.org, Diner Slang.

Brown stone front.

Porter house steak.

—www.wordorigins.org, Diner Slang.

Red lead.

Ketchup.

—www.wordorigins.org, Diner Slang.

Red, white, and blue.

Mixed ice cream.

—www.wordorigins.org, Diner Slang.

Sea dust.

Salt.

—www.wordorigins.org, Diner Slang.

Snowstorm, in a.

With powdered sugar.

—www.wordorigins.org, Diner Slang.