kew gardens
Yellow and black, pink and snow white, shapes of all these colours, men, women and children were spotted for a second upon the horizon, and then, seeing the breadth of yellow that lay upon the grass, they wavered and sought shade beneath the trees, dissolving like drops of water in the yellow and green atmosphere, staining it faintly with red and blue.
—Virginia Woolf, from Kew Gardens.
the bright silent thousands of stars
The ripe grassheads bend in the starlight
in the soft wind, beneath them the darkness
of the grass, fathomless, the long blades
rising out of the well of time. Cars
travel the valley roads below me, their lights
finding the dark, and racing on. Above
their roar is a silence I have suddenly heard,
and felt the country turn under the stars
toward dawn. I am wholly willing to be here
between the bright silent thousands of stars
and the life of the grass pouring out of the ground.
The hill has grown me like a foot.
Until I lift the earth I cannot move.
—Wendell Berry, from On the Hill Late at Night, first published in the collection The Country of Marriage, 1973.
Bluebird
Bluebird blue as the sky-blue heart
Of my girl whose heart is the sky
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), A Bird is Singing, from The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Donald Revell, 2004.
the pretty redhead
Her hair is golden they say
Like an hour of lightning
Or like the strut of fires
In small dying roses
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), The Pretty Redhead, from The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Donald Revell, 2004.
dark purple love
Listen to our bombs singing now
Their dark purple love is hailed by the dying
The drenched springtime the nightlamp the attack
Its raining my soul its raining, but it rains dead eyes
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), 1915 April Night, from The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Donald Revell, 2004.
windows of the mind
People observe the clothing and grooming of people in their surroundings, their speech, whether they are perspiring, their skin colour, and skin reactions, as well as their gait and movements. All these observations provide information about sex, race, income, education, social standing, personality, mental state, and health. Many peple also consciously and subconsciously observe the eyes of other people, regarding eyes as windows of the mind. They observe the subtle play of muscle movements around the eyes, the rate at which a person blinks, the level of the eyelids, the volume of tears round the eyelids, the colours of the whites of the eyes, the colours of the iris, and the directions a person is looking. Furthermore, pupil size also influences the reactions of people to each other. For example, a person with narrow pupils is often regarded as hard and unfriendly, while a person with wide pupils is regarded as warm and friendly.
—Dr. G.M. Woerlee, from Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near-Death Experiences, 2003.
the pupils of the dying person
Several people cluster around the bed of a dying person. The pupils of the dying person widen as their condition worsens. And as the pupils of the dying person widen, they notice that the lighting in the room becomes brighter, or even that the room is bathed in bright light. No-one else notices that the lighting in the room has changed, only the dying person, because only the pupils of the dying person widen. This is why dying people may say they see bright light, bright light that does not hurt the eyes, or even bright landscapes. . . .
The reduced focal depth of the eyes of a person with wide open pupils, means they see all people, and objects upon which they do not focus their eyes, as vague and blurred forms. Furthermore, more light enters the eyes of a person with wide open pupils, so they perceive people upon which their eyes are not focussed as vague blurred bright figures, or even as beings of light. The mental function of the dying and nearly-dead is abnormal, so they may interpret these bright forms and figures as being supernatural, ethereal, other-worldy beings of light, or even as personages and gods from their religion.
—Dr. G.M. Woerlee, from Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near-Death Experiences, 2003.
im a tree!
The premiere episode of Dragnet 67, . . . entitled The Big LSD, . . . drew on recent news reports about the hallucinogen (which remained legal until October 1966), as well as stories about the Sunset Strip scene. . . .
Friday and partner Gannon were called to the scene of a weirdly painted juvenile chewing the bark off a tree. The scene opened with the cops finding the young man lying on the ground with his head buried under leaves. As they pulled him up, there was a cut to a shocker close-up of the young mans facepainted blue on one side, gold on the other. Wide-eyed, he exclaimed, Reality, man, reality. I could see the center of the earth! As Friday attempted to read him his rights, the boy declared that he wasnt here, but thereand had green hair: Im a tree! Flipping out, he tore at Gannons suit, then started calling out various colors: I can hear them all!
—Aniko Bodroghkozy, from Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion, 2001.
the mod squad
One black, one white, one blonde.
—tagline of the ABC television series The Mod Squad, about three young cops: Linc Hayes, Pete Cochran, and Julie Barnes. The series aired from 1968 to 1971.
youre beautiful
You’re beautiful. Do you have to be pretty too?
—Pete to the young radical Daphne, on The Mod Squad. This episode, The Guru, aired on December 31, 1968.