gold and sapphires
“The day was like gold and sapphires: there was a swift flash and sparkle, intangible and multifarious, like sunlight on roughened water, all over the land.”
—Thomas Wolfe, from Look Homeward, Angel, 1929.
Darkness melted over the town
“Darkness melted over the town like dew: it washed out all the day’s distress, the harsh confusions.”
—Thomas Wolfe, from Look Homeward, Angel, 1929.
October
“The sun had gone, the western ranges faded in chill purple mist, but the western sky still burned with ragged bands of orange. It was October.”
—Thomas Wolfe, from Look Homeward, Angel, 1929.
revolving black disks
“If it weren’t for you Mr Jukebox with yr aluminum belly roaring & thirty teeth eating diry drx.
yr eyes starred round the world, purple diamonds & white brain revolving black disks
in every bar from Yokamama to Pyraeus winking & beaming Saturday Nite
what silence harbor Sabbath dark instead of boys screaming and dancing wherever I go’”
—Allen Ginsberg, Seabattle of Salamis Took Place Off Perama, from Planet News, 1961–1967.
observe Minerva nerveless in Nirvana
“Oh say can you see in the dark you
observe Minerva nerveless in Nirvana because
Zeus rides reindeer thru Bethlehem’s blue sky.
It’s Buddha sits in Mary’s belly waving Kuan
Yin’s white hand at the Yang-tze that Mao sees,
tonge of Kali licking Krishna’s soft blue lips.”
—Allen Ginsberg, Holy Ghost on the Nod over the Body of Bliss, from Planet News, 1961–1967.
the Sun the Sun the Sun
“And the Sun the Sun the
Sun my visible father
making my body visible
thru my eyes!”
—Allen Ginsberg, The Change: Kyoto-Tokyo Express, from Planet News, 1961–1967.
the Nilch’i Dine’’
“Alk’idaa’ jini. . . . In the beginning there was only darkness, with sky above and water below. Then by some mysterious and holy means, sky and water came together. When they touched, that’s when everything began. That was the First World, which was like an island floating in a sea of mist. It was red in color and it was an ancient place. There were no people living there, only Nilch’i Dine’’, who existed in spiritual form. . . . There was no sun or moon, and there were no stars. The only source of light was the sky, which comprised four sacred colors and glowed with a different hue and lit the world from a different direction according to the time of day. When the eastern sky glowed white, it was considered dawn, and the Nilch’i Dine’’ would awaken and began to stir in preparation for the day. When the southern sky glowed blue, it was considered day, and the Nilch’i Dine’’ went about their daily activities. When the western sky was yellow, it was considered evening, and the Nilch’i Dine’’ put away their work and amusements. When the northern sky turned black, it was considered night, and the Nilch’i Dine’’ lay down and went to sleep.”
—Irvin Morris, the opening passages of From the Glittering World: A Navaho Story, 1997.
luminous, metaphoric sequences
“Rebel Without a Cause’s uniqueness rests more in its cinematic syle and [James] Dean’s performance than in its script. [Nicholas] Ray uses a variety of camera angles, a dislocated mise-en-sc’ne, tight close-ups, point-of-view shots, intense color, and rapid, turbulent cutting to successfully project the tension, anger, and sense of almost metaphysical alientation that permeates the film. There are also luminous, metaphoric sequences: the “chicken run,” with a pinkish-white specter, Judy, signalling the beginning of the race in the center of a pitch-black runway lit by car headlights—an initiation rite or journey confronting death; and the scene shot in the vastness of the planetarium (which is located on a precipice) with its apocalyptic, end-of-the-world images of the galaxy exploding as the three alientated kids sit alone in the dark watching—all providing a powerful metaphor for the insecurity and isolation of adolescence.”
—Leonard Quart and Albert Auster, from American Film and Society Since 1945, 1991.
Life’s purple tide
“She wept.—Life’s purple tide began to flow
In languid streams through every thrilling vein;
Dim were my swimming eyes—my pulse was slow,
And my full heart was swell’d to dear delicious pain.”
—early Wordsworth, as quoted in The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century, by John Brewer, 1997.
The humblest literature
“The humblest literature—chapbooks, cheap abbreviated novels, almanacs and ballads—could be bought from itinerant pedlars and chapmen who travelled the coutryside selling reading matter, trinkets, gifts, household goods and toys. Inside his heavy pack the chapman carried traditional stories, first widely printed in the sixteenth century, moral tales with such forbidding titles as The Drunkard’s Legacy and Youth’s Warning Piece, joke and riddle books like Joaks upon Joaks, and severely abbreviated versions of such novels as Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. . . . These slim, small volumes, often printed execrably, were popular staples among all classes. What they lacked in substance they made up in good value: their greatest virtue was that they were cheap.
Itinerant salesmen carried only these sorts of book because any others would have been too bulky or heavy for them. But in the bookshops these small or penny “histories” shared the shelves with books of every size—from slim duodecimos (one twelfth the size of a printing sheet), octavos (an eighth of a sheet), quartos (a quarter of a sheet) to large folios (the size of a sheet with a single fold).”
—John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century, 1997.