The History and the Future of Olympic Art

millions of gray hairs

“I act quite young for my age sometimes. I was sixteen then, and I’m seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen. It’s really ironical, because I’m six foot two and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head—the right side—is full of millions of gray hairs. I’ve had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve.”

—J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951.

red hair

“People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie never did, and he had very red hair.”

—J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951.

partly yellow

“It’s no fun to be yellow. Maybe I’m not all yellow. I don’t know. I think maybe I’m just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn’t give much of a damn if they lose their gloves.”

—J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951.

a people shooting hat

“ ‘Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake,’ he said. ‘That’s a deer shooting hat.’
    ‘Like hell it is.’ I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. ‘This is a people shooting hat,’ I said. ‘I shoot people in this hat.’ ”

—J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951.

death cab for cutie

The birds

The Color Wall

Mary Talbot

“Mary Talbot . . . was lovely. She had red hair with green lights in it. Her skin was golden with a green under cast and her eyes were green with little golden spots. Her face was triangular, with wide cheekbones, wide-set eyes, and her chin was pointed. She had long dancer’s legs and dancer’s feet and she seemed never to touch the ground when she walked. When she was excited, and she was excited a good deal of the time, her face flushed with gold. Her great-great-great-great-great grandmother had been burned as a witch.”

—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, 1945.

a great big woman with flaming orange hair

“Dora is a great woman, a great big woman with flaming orange hair and a taste for Nile green evening dresses.”

—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, 1945.