Related words.
Pigment: Adrianople red, Alice blue, Arabian red, Argos brown, Bordeaux, Brunswick black, Brunswick blue, Burgundy, Capri blue, Cassel yellow, Chinese blue, Chinese white, Claude tint, Cologne brown, Columbian red, Congo rubine, Copenhagen blue, Dresden blue, Dutch orange, Egyptian green, English red, French blue, French gray, Gobelin blue, Goya, Guinea green, India pink, Indian red, Irish green, Janus green, Kelly green, Kendal green, Kildare green, Lincoln green, Majolica earth, Mars orange, Mars violet, Mexican red, Mitis green, Montpellier green, Nile green, Paris green, Paris yellow, Persian blue, Persian red, Pompeian blue, Prussian blue, Prussian red, Quaker green, Roman umber, Saint Benoit, Saxe blue, Saxony green, Schweinfurt green, Spanish green, Spanish ocher, Tanagra, Titian, Turkey red, Turkey umber, Tyrian purple, Vandyke red, Vienna green, Wedgwood blue, Wedgwood green, absinthe, acid yellow, acier, acorn, air brush, alabaster, alesan, alizarin brown, amber, amethyst, amidonaphthol red, aniline black, aniline blue, annatto, anthracene brown, anthragallol, antique brown, antique gold, apple green, apply paint, apricot, aqua green, aquamarine, arsenic yellow, art paper, ash, ash gray, aureolin, autumn leaf, avocado green, azo blue, azo-orange, azulene, azure, azurite blue, baby blue, barium sulfate, bat, bedaub, bedizen, begild, benzoazurine, beryl, beryl green, besmear, bice, biscuit, bister, blanc fixe, bleu celeste, blond, blue black, blue turquoise, bone black, bone brown, bottle green, bracken, bright rose, brush, brush on paint, buff, bunny brown, burgundy, burnt Roman ocher, burnt almond, burnt carmine, burnt ocher, burnt rose, burnt sienna, butter, cadet blue, cadmium orange, cadmium yellow, cafe noir, calamine blue, calcimine, camera lucida, camera obscura, canary, canvas, carbon black, cardinal, carmine, carnation, carnelian, carotene, celadon, cerulean, chalk, chamois, champagne, charcoal, chartreuse, chartreuse green, chartreuse tint, chartreuse yellow, chestnut, chrome, chrome black, chrome lemon, chrome orange, chrome oxide green, chrome red, chrome yellow, chromogen, chrysophenin, chrysoprase green, ciba blue, cinder gray, cinnabar, citron green, civette green, claret, clematis, cloud gray, coat, coat of paint, coating, cobalt, cobalt green, cochineal, coconut, color filter, color gelatin, colorant, coloring, copper, copper red, coptic, corbeau, cordovan, cornflower, cover, cramoisie, crash, crayon, cream, cresol red, crimson, crocus, crystal gray, cucumber green, cyan, cyanine blue, cypress green, dab, dahlia, damask, damson, dandelion, daub, dead leaf, dead-color, deep-dye, delft blue, dip, distemper, doeskin, double-dye, dove gray, drab, drawing paper, drawing pencil, drier, drop black, duck green, dun, dyestuff, easel, eggshell, emblazon, emerald, emeraude, enamel, engild, exterior paint, face, faded rose, fast-dye, fiesta, fir, fire red, fixative, flat coat, flat wash, flax, flesh, flesh color, flesh red, floor enamel, foliage brown, fox, fresco, fuchsia, fuchsine, gamboge, garter blue, gild, glauconite, glaucous, glaucous blue, glaucous gray, glaucous green, glaze, gloss, golden pheasant, grain, grape, grass green, green ocher, grege, ground, gun metal, hazel, helianthin, heliotrope, henna, holly green, honey, honey yellow, hyacinth, hyacinth red, illuminate, imbue, imperial purple, incarnadine, indigo, indigo white, infrared, ingrain, interior paint, iron gray, iron red, isamine blue, ivory, ivory black, jade, japan, jockey, jonquil, jouvence blue, lacquer, lake, lampblack, lapis lazuli blue, lavender, lavender blue, lay figure, lay on color, lead gray, leaf green, leather, lemon chrome, light red, lilac, liver brown, livid pink, lobster, madder, madder blue, madder crimson, madder lake, madder orange, madder pink, madder rose, madder yellow, magenta, maize, malachite green, mallow, mallow pink, mandarin, maple sugar, marigold, marine blue, maroon, massicot, maulstick, mauve, meadow brook, medium, melon, metanil yellow, methyl green, methyl orange, methyl yellow, methylene azure, methylene blue, mignonette, milori green, moleskin, monsignor, moonlight, moss green, mouse gray, mulberry, mummy, murrey, myrtle, naphthol yellow, navy, navy blue, negro, neutral tint, new blue, ocher brown, ocher orange, ocher red, oil yellow, old blue, old gold, old ivory, old red, olive, olive brown, olivesheen, opal gray, opaque color, orange chrome yellow, orange lead, orange madder, orange mineral, orange ocher, orchid, orchid rose, oriole, orpiment, orpiment red, otter brown, oxblood, oxide brown, paint, paintbrush, palette, palette knife, palladium red, pansy, pansy violet, parget, parrot green, partridge, pastel, patina green, pea green, peach, peachblossom pink, peacock blue, pearl, pearl gray, pebble, pelican, pencil, pepper-and-salt, philamot, phosphine, pigments, platinum, plum, plumbago gray, pompadour green, ponceau, pontiff purple, poppy, powder blue, powder gray, prime, prime coat, primer, priming, primrose, primuline yellow, puce, pumpkin, purple lake, purree, pyrethrum yellow, quince yellow, raisin, raw sienna, raw umber, realgar, realgar orange, red lead, red ocher, red pink, regal purple, reseda, resorcin dark brown, roan, roccellin, rose, rose pink, royal pink, royal purple, rubine, ruby, ruddle, russet, saffron, salmon, sand, sap green, scarlet madder, scratchboard, sea blue, sea-water green, seal, serpentine green, shadow, shamrock, shell pink, shellac, shocking pink, siccative, silver, sketchbook, sketchpad, sky blue, slop on paint, smalt, smear, smoke blue, smoke gray, snapdragon, solferino, spatula, spray gun, stammel, steel blue, steel gray, stil-de-grain yellow, stipple, straw, strawberry, stump, sulfur, sunflower yellow, suntan, tangerine, tartrazine, taupe, tawny, tea rose, tempera, tenne, terra cotta, terra sienna, terra umbra, terre-verte, thinner, tinct, tinction, tinge, toast, toluidine red, tone, topaz, transparent color, trypan blue, turpentine, turps, turquoise, ultramarine, umber, undercoat, undercoating, varnish, vehicle, verd gay, verdant green, verdet, verdigris, vermilionette, violet, viridian, viridine green, wash, wash coat, white lead, whitewash, wine, wine purple, woad, xanthene, xanthin, yellow madder, yellow ocher, zaffer, zinc orange, zinc oxide, zinc sulfide, zinc white.
Some unsolicited advice.
Ang? Buddy? When you set out to make a controversial movie about a couple of gay cowboys, and you cast a couple of matinee bishonen like Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as the two romantic leads, well, you raise certain expectations in certain quarters. And then when you announce maybe you’re going to back off from any actual sex scenes, preferring a more metaphorical approach, because “two men herding sheep [i]s far more sexual than two men having sex on screen,” well, you pretty much fuck those expectations over, let me tell you. —People are going to think you’re a wimp, and a sissy, and a big ol’ fraidy-cat. You really want to take that hit after the Hulk?
Let ’em make with the man-love, Ang. Won’t hurt you a bit, and trust me: the ladies will love you for it.
Signs and wonders.
Hitting a paragraph like this in the introduction is either something very good or very, very bad:
To forestall uneasiness on the part of the reader when confronted with statements which are too shocking, primarily that we continue to live in a world in which magic still has a part to play and a place of honor, we have let the texts speak for themselves. We have, in the reader’s behalf, assumed the burden of understanding them in letter and in spirit. After all, the conclusions we have drawn seem to us adequate recompense for the painstaking study pursued for twelve years without interruption, study involving philology only as a means, not as an end in itself. The fact that unremitting concentration on the meaning of documents has here supplanted mere reporting of their contents suffices to explain the individuality of this work, an individuality for which we do not believe we must apologize.
Ioan Couliano wrote that in Chicago in May of 1986. In May of 1991, somebody climbed onto a toilet in the stall next to his and, reaching over the wall and down with a .25 caliber Beretta, put a bullet in the back of his head. —So he must have been onto something, right? Right?
?? whats iicf?
Matthew Baldwin strikes again:
This morning the authorities entered the home on Babson and found it deserted, the floors slick with mud and seaweed. On the computer was the LiveJournal of Zackary Marsh, with a notice reading “Update Successful.”
The theme of short and pithy posts shows no signs of abating:
I was quite amused by this joke.
Guess that whole hobbit thing has run its course.
Wanted to make sure you saw the tagline of the new ad campaign Air New Zealand is running on Yahoo:
A falling blossom
Returns to branch:
A butterfly
And that, boys and girls, is why we have DVDs.
Okay, some tiny good news—looks as though 20th is going to go through with Wonderfalls DVDs. The folks on the DVD marketing side love the 13 episodes and see great potential. We’re talking about extras and commentary and all that good stuff. December/Holiday release was mentioned. I’ll keep you updated. (BTW—a flood of “postcards” was mentioned. We were asked, “that’s not your families sending those, is it?” Um. In a way...)
Roz Kaveney knew Christopher Hitchens. And you, sir—
Oh, my. Here’s Andrew Sullivan quoting Christopher Hitchens, holding forth in Scarborough Country last night on the subject of Michael Moore:
But speaking here in my capacity as a polished, sophisticated European as well, it seems to me the laugh here is on the polished, sophisticated Europeans. They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they’ve taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities.
And here’s what Roz has to say about that:
This is, after all, a charming effete fop with an interest in alcohol who has become the house ex-lefty of a lot of American right-wingers who think that all European intellectuals are self-hating, effete wits.
Chin-chin.
Crying in the Wind, by Harold Applebaum.
The soldiers pass, the leaders pass, and war
Becomes a string of dates and foreign names
To feed the young for twenty years. Once more
The tide recedes and man resumes his games
Of blindman’s bluff, the savage make-believe
Of progress, peaceful tongue in cheek. Once more
The rich will prosper and the poor conceive
As each contributes to the common war.
The wise will clamor, as they always do
With warning, reason, truth and sense, but vain
As crying in the wind. A precious few
Will reach the mountains by the time the rain
Begins, and launch their frantic arks to find
That floods are endless and the doves are blind.
Spinooti found it, tucked inside an old Bible.
No one truly sensitive can hurt another human being.
I stood, stand, alone.
Hee. —Oh, one can, if one is forced, retreat behind the subtitle of what one is about (Imagining Fowles); one can point out that to dismiss an author utterly on the basis of their adolescent journals is as wrong-headed as to dismiss a neighborhood utterly because the houses are peeling and the children playing in the street are dirty; one should perhaps note that The Magus, for instance, isn’t at all important or good or even worthwhile for the reasons the book jacket says (then, what book is? —It would take too long to get into: suffice it to say that the Magus is only the first of the Major Arcana), and Fowles was an adolescent for such a terribly long time; even so, he is the sort of author that the world is better off having had.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a motherload of schadenfreude in Ian Sansom’s review of John Fowles: The Journals (and, almost incidentally, Eileen Warburton’s John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds)—
Basically, according to Fowles, everyone else is totally crap: useless, rubbish, a waste of time and not worth bothering about. He starts with his parents, as is traditional, and moves on from there. The parent-hate stuff is more Mole than Freud – not so much traumatising primal scene as terribly noisy hoovering. They tidy up, your mum and dad. ‘Spasm of hate. Trying to listen to Mozart 465 Quartet, when M[other] seems, almost deliberately, to spoil it.’ Every schoolboy knows that parents have no taste, but Fowles remains a pitiless adolescent into adulthood. ‘A new view on my parents, which embraces all their faults – or better, the qualities they lack. They have no sense of style. They can’t tell a stylish jug from a pretty jug, they don’t feel the style of things, of a book, of a piece of music, of a meal, of a flavouring, of life.’ ‘For some time,’ he concludes, ‘I feel willingly that I could like killing them.’ He does his best to analyse his parents’ apparent failings, compared to his own obvious excellence, and this is what he comes up with: ‘The difference in environmental norms accounts for much – a boarding-school, an officers’ mess, a university, all have led me into a much wider plane than 25 rather introvert years in the same quiet household, where the class has slipped.’ All that education didn’t go to waste, then. His poor sister, who is younger than him and who can therefore never catch up, comes off even worse: ‘Hazel is an interesting test-object for egotism. Financially it is to my benefit that she should not exist . . . She merely seems like a small pet.’
Nicholas Urfe, it seems, learned nothing. —Via The Minor Fall, The Major Lift.
New frontiers in comment spam.
First it was zombies; now it’s doppelgängers.
By way of an apology.
I know you told me at one point or another that I had to listen to the Magnetic Fields and I put you off. I know I did. I’ll get around to it, I said. I’ve heard the song about the bunnies; it was funny. I liked it. But I was too busy chasing after the Divine Comedy and Momus which, you know, I’m not going to give up, no, I’m committed, but that was what I was doing instead of going out of my way to track down something by Stephin Merritt, that and you remember the Hindu Love Gods cover of “Raspberry Beret”? I went looking for that, and there was this and that and some other stuff from the largehearted boy, and there was this great sci fi jazz album done by the guy who did the voice for Mr. Ed that Spinooti pointed out, and the wild 5/4 jiggy reel that Fairport Convention does on House Full that I think is “Toss the Feathers” which I’ve now got in a couple of different versions like the one by the Corrs but not that one. Though I did find the song Lindsey Buckingham does that’s in that Northern Exposure episode where the ice breaks, and I found that Joni Mitchell song from Ladies of the Canyon, and the last track from Welcome to the Pleasure Dome was on iTunes, can you believe it? And also I was looking for that song from Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack for The Mission where all the themes come together in this soaringly melancholic thing that Kim and I played over and over again and danced to on top of the tables in the upper lounge of Asia House for no reason now that I can fathom, and I was also looking for the Indigo Girls’ cover of “Tangled Up in Blue,” which I’m blasphemous enough to like even better than the live version Dylan does with the Band, so sue me. But that’s what I was doing instead of hunting down the Magnetic Fields until now, tonight, when I plugged the name into Limewire on a whim, since I do have the song about the bunnies, and it is funny, and here I am now and I’ve played the same four or five songs over and over again for, well, a while now, which is going to fuck up my Audioscrobbler profile, I bet, and anyone who tells you filesharing doesn’t sell records is a goddamn fool, and I’m sorry. You know. When you told me that I should listen to them, I should have listened to you, and I didn’t, not right away. —So when I tell you that you need to listen to the Books and the Aisler’s Set, you have to understand it’s just a start at trying to make it up to you.
Synchrondipity.
Yeah, it’s hardly an original insight, but all in one morning break, it amused. —On the one hand, I stumbled over Esquire’s septuagenarian attempt to figure out the best story they’d published, and while they liked Norman Mailer and Thomas Wolfe and John Sack (who? Oh—), the one that got the nod was Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra has a Cold.”
Yet it would have been unwise for anyone to anticipate his reaction, for he is a wholly unpredictable man of many moods and great dimension, a man who responds instantaneously to instinct—suddenly, dramatically, wildly he responds, and nobody can predict what will follow. A young lady named Jane Hoag, a reporter at Life’s Los Angeles bureau who had attended the same school as Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy, had once been invited to a party at Mrs. Sinatra’s California home at which Frank Sinatra, who maintains very cordial relations with his former wife, acted as host. Early in the party Miss Hoag, while leaning against a table, accidentally with her elbow knocked over one of a pair of alabaster birds to the floor, smashing it to pieces. Suddenly, Miss Hoag recalled, Sinatra’s daughter cried, “Oh, that was one of mother’s favorite …”—but before she could complete the sentence, Sinatra glared at her, cutting her off, and while forty other guests in the room all stared in silence, Sinatra walked over, quickly with his finger flicked the other alabaster bird off the table, smashing it to pieces, and then put an arm gently around Jane Hoag and said, in a way that put her completely at ease, “That’s okay, kid.”
And on the other hand, Friday is Poem in Your Pocket Day. From which I surfed on over to this little W.H. Auden ditty:
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
I loves me some Spinooti.
Just click through for a burst of Monday-morning joy.
(Camera Obscura is over at Girlamatic now. In case you were wondering. Is it a comic? Oh, go ask Alice or something, I’ve got to get back to work. —Joyfully, though. Thanks, Spinooti!)
Fix me another one a them baloney sandwiches.
Hot damn, but the new Loretta Lynn album is gonna fuckin’ rock.
(And I say this as someone who’s missed the whole White Stripes thing pretty much completely.)
Would the last one out turn off the lights?
No offense intended to Emma, but these are seventeen of the most chilling words I’ve ever read:
Emma, did you see the sample text from the Garfield movie novelization before Amazon took it down?
Though if you scroll upthread a bit, you’ll see Mr. Ford plying what he plies best, so all is perhaps not lost. (The ostensible subject is also worth your while, though its ostensible subject is not, which, I suppose, is the point, really.)
Thoughtfully, he sipped the hot, bitter liquid.
There’s a “Lyttle Lytton” contest! —Since 1983, the “official” Bulwer-Lytton contest has been awarding prizes for the best first sentences of the worst (thankfully nonexistent) novels imaginable, and while I still doff my hat in awe at the majesty of the very first winner:
The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails—not for the first time since the journey began—pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.
—I think I’m starting to agree with Mr. Cadre: they’re really starting to go on too long. Granted, the ur-sentence is guilty as charged:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
—but recent winners in their flabbiness are nonetheless violating the spirit of the thing, all-too-consciously setting up tics to be mocked rather than aped, or devolving into the sorts of puns that are grounds for manslaughter in 17 states:
The corpse exuded the irresistible aroma of a piquant, ancho chili glaze enticingly enhanced with a hint of fresh cilantro as it lay before him, coyly garnished by a garland of variegated radicchio and caramelized onions, and impishly drizzled with glistening rivulets of vintage balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic oil; yes, as he surveyed the body of the slain food critic slumped on the floor of the cozy, but nearly empty, bistro, a quick inventory of his senses told corpulent Inspector Moreau that this was, in all likelihood, an inside job.
—as a for instance, or:
Paul Revere had just discovered that someone in Boston was a spy for the British, and when he saw the young woman believed to be the spy’s girlfriend in an Italian restaurant he said to the waiter, “Hold the spumoni—I’m going to follow the chick an’ catch a Tory.”
Ack. Please. (Though 2000’s grand prize winner is quite good: “The heather-encrusted Headlands, veiled in fog as thick as smoke in a crowded pub, hunched precariously over the moors, their rocky elbows slipping off land’s end, their bulbous, craggy noses thrust into the thick foam of the North Sea like bearded old men falling asleep in their pints.”) But! I, for one, applaud the Lyttle Lytton’s stern but fair restriction: craft the best first sentence for the worst novel imaginable in 25 words or less. You’ve got to admire the economy of the Lyttle Lytton sample sentence:
Jennifer stood there, quietly ovulating.
Tennis being much more fun with a net. —The bad news, I’m afraid, is that the cut-off for participating in 2004’s contest was midnight on Wednesday. The good news is the winners have been posted. Those who’ve heard me rant about my writing peeves will a) recognize the title of this entry and b) understand why I wish the grand prize had gone to this particular contestant:
“Tasty waffle?” Jim suggested alluringly, prodding me with the aforementioned breakfast food.
Glorious, ennit?
