Nevada.

Spanish, meaning snow-clad.

—Many State Names Have Indian Origin, unknown and undated newspaper clipping, citing as its source the American Automobile Association. Found in an old dictionary.

Oklahoma.

Choctaw coined word meaning red man, proposed by Rev. Allen Wright, Choctaw-speaking Indian.

—Many State Names Have Indian Origin, unknown and undated newspaper clipping, citing as its source the American Automobile Association. Found in an old dictionary.

Oregon.

Indian name (Wauregon) means “beautiful water”, referring to the Columbia River.

—Many State Names Have Indian Origin, unknown and undated newspaper clipping, citing as its source the American Automobile Association. Found in an old dictionary.

Rhode Island.

Red Island, first named by Adrian Block because of its red clay.

—Many State Names Have Indian Origin, unknown and undated newspaper clipping, citing as its source the American Automobile Association. Found in an old dictionary.

Vermont.

Named after its famous Green Mountains—the French word for green being “vert” and for mountain, “mont.” . . . When the state was formed in 1777, Dr. Thomas Young suggested combining “vert” and “mont” and Vermont was the result.

—Many State Names Have Indian Origin, unknown and undated newspaper clipping, citing as its source the American Automobile Association. Found in an old dictionary.

Black boys in white suits

“They’re out there.

Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.”

—Ken Kesey, the opening lines of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962.

Funny orange

“She slides through the door with a gust of cold and locks the door behind her and I see her fingers trail across the polished steel—tip of each finger the same color as her lips. Funny orange. Like the tip of a soldering iron. Color so hot or so cold if she touches you with it you can’t tell which.”

—Ken Kesey, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962.

a cold moon

“There was a cold moon at the window, pouring light into the dorm like skim milk.”

—Ken Kesey, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962.

cave paintings

“In south-western France before about 25,000 to 20,000 BC animals were incised in bold outline on the walls of caves. From about 18,000 BC red, black and yellow pigments were also being used, especially for stencil impressions of hands, many of them with disturbingly mutilated fingers. Such “drawings” hardly prepare us, however, for the cave paintings. . . .
The earliest paintings in the most famous of the caves, Lascaux, seem to date from about 15,000 BC. During the following 5,000 years or so, cave painting continues with unchanging consistency, apart from slight local variations. . . . When the first examples were found at Altamira in northern Spain in 1879 most archeologists dismissed them as a hoax perpetrated by an artist friend of the caves’ owner: few were able to believe that they could be prehistoric. Subsequent discoveries, especially those at Lascaux made by accident in 1940, left no doubt that they are Paleolithic, and scientific methods of dating have now established their approximate age. Their technique has also been analyzed. The pigments were derived from natural minerals—reds, yellows and browns from ochre and hematite; black, dark brown and violet from various types of manganese. These substances were ground to powder and applied directly on to the damp limestone walls and ceilings of the caves. First the outlines were painted with pads of fur or mosss, with primitive brushes of fur, feather or chewed stick, or simply with a finger, and then the outlines were filled in by spraying powders thorugh bone tubes. (Such tubes with traces of colour have been found in the caves.)”

—Hugh Honour & John Fleming, from The Visual Arts: A History, 1982.

the largest work of art in the world

“Symbols of such a size that their imagery can be recognized only when seen from far above were created in . . . widely separated parts of America. In the north, between about 500 BC and AD 500, earthworks called “effigy mounds” were raised in the form of snakes and birds, presumably as ceremonial centres for the wandering tribes who lived by hunting and gathering on the great plains. . . . In southern Peru . . . the barren plateau between the Palpa and Ingenio rivers was used as a field for a gigantic network of inflexibly straight lines many miles long, zigzags and “drawings” of animals made by removing surface stones to expose the yellow soil—the largest work of art in the world. The lines . . . [transform] an area of several hundred square miles into a temple without walls, an architecture of two-dimensional space, of diagram and relation rather than mass.”

—Hugh Honour & John Fleming, from The Visual Arts: A History, 1982.