Friday, December 6, 2013

An Exemplary Sentence #3/Marvelous Statements Concerning New York #3

At night, when the big Broadway lights go on, when the lights begin to run around high in the sky and up and down the sides of buildings, when rivers of lights start flowing along the edges of roofs, and wreaths and diadems begin sparkling from dark corners, and the windows of empty downtown offices begin streaming with watery reflections of brilliance, at that time, when Broadway lights up to make a night-time empire out of the tumbledown, makeshift daytime world, a powdery pink glow rises up and spreads over the whole area, a cloudy pink, an emanation, like a tent made of air and color.

                                                Maeve Brennan, "A Snowy Night on West Forty-Ninth Street"

4 comments:

annelies said...

I am dazzled by diadems in dark corners and the hopefulness in her words.

Alan said...

"The pallor of the so-called hours of darkness was remarkable. Directly to the north of the hotel, a succession of cross streets glowed as if each held a dawn. The taillights, the coarse blaze of deserted office buildings, the lit storefronts, the orange fuzz of the street lanterns: all this garbage of light had been refined into a radiant atmosphere that rested in a low silver heap over Midtown..."

Joseph O'Neill "Netherland"

Alan said...

Damn. I was so sure you'd like that quote.

Mark Doty said...

Tom, sorry it took me a while to catch this. I love the O'Neill quote, it's gorgeous -- especially "this garbage of light" and "a low silver heap over Midtown." Wonderful polarity adding tension to description of splendor.

And then I go back to the notion of each cross street holding a dawn -- such an image of promise.Thanks!