Big Blue Diamonds
“Big diamonds, big blue diamonds, how they sparkle
But what can they do to warm your soul?
When you’re lonesome in the moonlight, and need some lovin’
Big diamonds, big blue diamonds, are so cold.”
—Earl J. Carson, from Big Blue Diamonds, first recorded by Little Willie John in 1962. Covered by Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs in 1965, and Jerry Lee Lewis in 1973.
jets of transphysical unalloyed human connection
“‘Jesus loves you and so do I, God Bless You—a republican reader from Wake County’ wrote.
‘We pray for you in the house of Allah. We need you. Get better,’ another card said.
Old friends and total strangers wanted to hear my voice, establish I was actually alive and assist my recovery. A beautiful Italian cast silver Virgin Mary pendant arrived. Then I saw again what I’d seen from the darkened house on the edge: wormlike jets of pure gold powder and powdered tourmaline arcing across the sky toward me, presumably from other people. Some sling-shotted around the planet and out into the cosmos. The first time one came rocketing toward me, I estimated acceleration and mass. Wherever the thing hit, it was going to have the power of an artillery shell. Just before it struck, it disintegrated into a cone-shaped explosion of prismatic refracted light amid a snap of high-tension static.
I understood that these never before observed (by me) phenomena were jets of transphysical unalloyed human connection—OK, love, whatever. I understood what I was seeing, but the origin point was ubiquitously universal. That was the part that honestly spooked me.”
—Peter Eichenberger, on his recovery from a near-fatal bicycle accident in Raleigh, North Carolina. Published in the weekly Independent, March 1st, 2006. I know Peter, and I love him too.
Heterochromia.
Heterochromia (also known as a heterochromia iridis or heterochromia iridium) is an ocular condition in which one iris is a different color from the other (complete heterochromia), or where part of one iris is a different color from the remainder (partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia). It is a result of the relative excess or lack of pigment within an iris or part of an iris, which may be inherited or acquired by disease or injury.
—found at Wikipedia, the handy but anonymous guide to the Universe.
green days in forests and blue days at sea
“I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and me,
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), from Romance.
The glow-worm
“‘Tell me, thou bonnie bird,
When shall I marry me?’
‘When six braw gentlemen
Kirkward shall carry ye.’
‘Who makes the bridal bed,
Birdie, say truly?’
‘The grey-headed sexton
That delves the grave duly.
The glow-worm o’er grave and stone
Shall light thee steady;
The owl from the steeple sing:
‘Welcome, proud lady!’’”
—Sir Walter Scott, (1771–1832).
the sunlight to greet me
“Don’t pull down the blinds! I feel fine. I want the sunlight to greet me.”
—Rudolph Valentino, his last words.
you dirty yellow dog
“You dog, you dirty yellow dog, you! You ain’t no son of mine!”
—actress Marjorie Man, in the movie Dead End, 1937.
Security
“Security is having your socks match.”
—Charles M. Schultz, from Security is a Thumb and a Warm Blanket, 1963. It is Linus whose socks are matching.
translucent to the light of Wisdom
“Fire, light and the dazzling luminosity of the starry dimension are all images that were associated through the ages with the radiance of Wisdom, which, as a fusion of love and insight, or gnosis, expresses the union of queen and king, the highest feminine and masculine qualities of the soul. In the fairy-tale these are personified by Cinderella and the Prince. . . .
Cinderella’s dresses, her “robe of glory”, are described as “blue like the sky”, woven of the stars of heaven, of moonbeams, sunbeams, or made of all the flowers in the world. Sometimes the metaphor of the sea appears and her dress is “sea-coloured” or “like the waves of the sea” or “as the sea with fishes swimming it” and as the “colour of the sea covered with golden fishes”. . . . Sometimes her dresses shine like the sun or gold, covered in diamonds and pearls, “of spendour passing description”. . . .
Cinderella’s shoes or slippers are described as made of crystal, or gold or blue glass, or embroidered with pearls. Without her glass slipper, Cinderella would not have been recognized, and it could fit only her whose standpoint had become translucent to the light of Wisdom.”
—Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, from The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, 2005.
White on white translucent black capes
“White on white translucent black capes
Back on the rack
Bela Lugosi’s dead . . .
Undead undead undead”
—from Bela Lugosi’s Dead, by Bauhaus, 1979. Thank you Pat Vining for mentioning, at the opening last night, this great song.