A Committee for the Beautiful

“The sleaving up of chimneysmoke; the rich lifting of the voice of a train along the darkness; the memory of a phrase of an inspired trumpet; the odor of scorched cloth, of a car’s exhaust, of a girl, of pork, of beeswax on hot iron, of young leaves, of peanuts…the stiffening of snow in a wool glove; the odor of kitchen soap … waking sleepless in a high industrial daybreak and needing coffee, the taste of cheap gin mixed with cheap ginger ale without much ice: the taste of turnip greens; of a rotted seed drawn from between the teeth …. the breath that comes out of a motion-picture theater … the mulled and branny earth…”—Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee