red beans and ricely yours
“New Orleans natives hold red beans and rice closer to their hearts than any other of their many fabled dishesso much so that Louis Armstrong made his autograph Red beans and ricely yours.”
—Bill Neal, from Bill Neals Southern Cooking, 1989.
folding green
“Southerners may make resoutions for the New Year, but they know success (or lack of it) depends more on what is eaten on 1 January than on all the good intentions in the world. More black-eyed peas and collards are consumed on that day than any other time of the yearpart of an antique gastronomic insurance policy. Collards are for a steady suppy of folding green in the coming year; black-eyed peas for plenty of pocket change.”
—Bill Neal, from Bill Neals Southern Cooking, 1989.
he fired the blowtorch and approached the ice
“Farewell, cried Glaucus, absently. Farewell, my friends.
He fired the blowtorch and approached the ice.
Whereer he moved, the goddess shone before, he quoted, adding in a reverent whisper, Homer.”
—Colin Higgins, from Harold and Maude, 1971.
the colors are changing
“Look at the sky, said Harold, chewing thoughtfully. It’s so big.
And so blue.
Beyond the blue is the vast blackness of the cosmos.
Yes. But spreckled with uncountable stars. They’re shining right now. We just cant see them. I suppose thats just another instance of all thats going on that is beyond human perception.
. . . She turned and looked out at the setting sun. Theyre it goes, she said wistfully. Sinking over the horizon where were all going to go. The colors are changing and soon theyll be gone, leaving us with darknessand stars.”
—Colin Higgins, from Harold and Maude, the novel, not the movie, 1971.
three kinds of fairies
“There be three kinds of fairies, the black, the white, and the green, of which the black be the worst.”
—John Walsh, of Netherbury in Dorset, 1566, as quoted in Witchcraft by Pennethorne Hughes, 1952.
white magic
“It is important to remember that mere faith-healing and the peddling of unusual herbal remedies was not witchcraft. Or it was white; theologically reprehensible but probably merely a department of county medicine. Witchcraft proper exists only where the powers called upon are consciously felt to be evil ones.”
—Pennethorne Hughes, from Witchcraft, 1952.
black magic
“Magic and religion are co-terminous . . . in any given society. Both generate power. Wrongly directed, by any given convention, that power is Black Magic. Black magic, and dabbling in it, seeking to gain and not to give, to achieve and not to contribute, is what the addicts know as the Left-hand Path. They claim that it is very powerful, and (with the aid of the drugs and practices it imposes) practitioners indeed often end up out of their minds.”
—Pennethorne Hughes, from Witchcraft, 1952.
ruddy cheeks
“RUDDY CHEEKS
AND FACE
OF TAN
NEATLY SHAVEN
WHAT A MAN!
BURMA-SHAVE”
—from The Verse by the Side of the Road; The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs and Jingles by Frank Rowsome, Jr., 1965.
yellow below
“These are the banana docks, and the checkers are calling out the grades and qualities and ripeness of bananas. Theyre white men and theyre directing the whole operation. Occasionally youll hear a song from one of the Negro dock wallopers, theyre toting bananas. . . . Come over here, boy, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up / Come on, Charlie, take em down / Step along here now, step along / Red above, yellow below, green across, jumbo, white flag / Hey, white flag, white below, red below to the west, Chinee on the wharf / Hey, boy, on the wharf / Nine below, eight below, seven above / West to the west / Nine outside, yellow outside, nine across / Ching-ching-ching of the tabulating machines / The hum and the click and the roll and the bumpity thumpity clanking of the conveyors / The chanting of the checkers and the steady hum of the men toting bananas, and occasionally a fragment of a song / A long time sweet daddy, a long time sweet mama / Oh-h-h doo-da, doo-da, doodle-ah, doodle-ah, doodle-ah, doo-da-a-a / Green flag, black flag, a light nine, and a light nine, and a light nine, and another light nine, and a light nine, and another light nine / Medium nine and another medium nine and another medium nine, and another medium nine / And a heavy nine, and a heavy nine, and a light nine, and another light nine . . . [He keeps going] And another yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow / Hey, boy, Chinee to the warehouse / Green flag, red flag, a black flag / Light nine, heavy nine, black nine, yellow nine / Green flag, green, light nine, yellow, black flag / Walk Charlie, let your green, green, green, yellow / Go above, come above, come on in, come on in, going by, my my my my my my / Come and get your lovin daddy / Oh, I am so sad and so blue and I think about you more and more every day / Ah, lord, more and more every day / [Softly] Green flag, another green, another green, yellow, yellow, yellow / Get em green there, Johnny, get em green / Come on it, come on in, going by, going by, Chinee to the warehouse / Hey, boy, Chinee / Come on Charlie / [loud] Walk, Charlie, walk.”
—Julian Lee Rayford in 1973, interviewed in And They All Sang; Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey by Studs Terkel, 2005.
Blues Was In My Bread
“Woke up this mornin
Blues was round my bed
Ate my breakfast
Blues was in my bread.”
—Leadbelly, as paraphrased by Studs Terkel in And They All Sang; Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey , 2005.