robed in the pure sky blue
“Like most affluent lords, [the Duc de Berry] had a good library of classics and contemporary works; he commissioned translations from the Latin, bought romances from booksellers in Paris, and bound his books in precious bindings, some in red velvet with gold clasps. He commissioned from renowned illuminators at least twenty Books of Hours, among them two exquisite masterpieces, the Grandes Heures and Tr’s Riches Heures. His pleasure was to see illustrated his favorite scenes and portraits, including his own. Delicate multiple-towered cities and castles, rural occupations, knights and ladies in garden, hunt, and banquet hall, clad in garments of surpassing elegance, ornamented the prayerbooks. The Duke himself usually appears robed in the pure sky blue, whose pigment was so precious that two pots of it were listed in an inventory of Berry’s “treasures.””
—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.
a combination of Prince Charming and Einstein
“I don’t think I’d ever seen such a frump. The white wraparound uniform she wore, probably supplied by the restaurant, was about six sizes too large for her, and she appeared to be trying to fight her way out of it when she moved. Her hair was done up in what I can only describe as a wad. She wore a pair of tiny dime-store glasses which squeezed her eyes to the size of beans. Her severe little face was shiny, utterly free of so much as a little powder. Worst of all was her body, or perhaps her posture. . . .
I’ve said I was a not-so-much myself. Compared to her I was a combination of Prince Charming and Einstein. . . .”
—Jim Thompson, from Sunrise at Midnight; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.
the intrinsically cheap
“[I]t seemed unlikely that any metal but gold would have received so much careful workmanship.
It just wasn’t done, . . . Diamonds were not mounted in tin. Expert craftsmen did not spend their valuable time on the intrinsically cheap.”
—Jim Thompson, from The Cellini Chalice, 1956; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.
diamonds in a dime-store brooch
“Dawn, and the little flocks of silver-enameled tanks on every hill and the fifty-five thousand barrel tanks in the valley made you think of diamonds in a dime-store brooch—so much wealth in such an outlandish place.
The purple ribbons of oil splashed down every hill and turned brown and gold in the sun. Up the valley the lights on the drilling rig winked out.”
—Jim Thompson, from Character at Iraan, 1930; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.
‘Blackie’ White
“My name is White—“Blackie” White, to my friends. The nickname derives from the one I was actually given, which is Black. . . .
I’m a private detective.”
—Jim Thompson, from The Red Kitten; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.
your pretty pink butt
“‘I get you alone, and I’m going to pop every pimple on your pretty pink butt!’”
—Jim Thompson, the voice of Bobo Justus in The Grifters, 1963.
the rich refracted Ray
“Behold, ye Fair! how radiant Colours glow,
What dyes the Rose; what paints the heav’nly Bow,
The purpling Shade, the rich refracted Ray,
And all th’ unblended Beams of various Day.”
—Henry Jones, Philosophy, from Poems on Several Occasions, 1749; quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.
The Law of White Lead
“[W]ith a dash of white paint on your walls, you will be masters of yourselves. And then you will wish to be precise; to be right, to think clearly. You will surround yourselves with order when your work has created confusion. After work you will tidy up, you will see what it has produced. . . . The Law of White Lead would bring with it the joy of living, the joy of acting.”
—Le Corbusier; quoted in The Furniture of Gerrit Thomas Rietveld by Daniele Baroni, 1977.
an extraordinary beauty
“Limewash has been associated with man’s dwelling places ever since the birth of humanity; the stones are calcinated, ground, distempered in water, and the walls are made of a very pure white: a white which has an extraordinary beauty.
If the house is white all over, the form of things stands out without the possibility of confusion; the volume emerges sharply; the color of objects is categorical. Limewash is absolute, everything stands out against it and is inscribed on it absolutely. . . .”
—Le Corbusier; quoted in The Furniture of Gerrit Thomas Rietveld by Daniele Baroni, 1977.
a dome of many-coloured glass
“Life like a dome of many-coloured glass
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.”
—Shelley, from Adonais; quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.