Topical Guide 455
Mark Dorset
Allusion
Matthew Barber, in Reservations Recommended, Chapter 2:
Sometimes, when a bit of undigested mutton awakens us at night, we lie in the dark, musing.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas:
“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.
“I don’t,” said Scrooge.
“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”
“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
B. W. Beath, in Reservations Recommended, Chapter 2:
The occasional black, brown, or beige diner is as surprising as pumpernickel would be in the breadbasket.
Black, Brown and Beige is an extended jazz work written by Duke Ellington for his first concert at Carnegie Hall, on January 23, 1943. It tells the history of African Americans and was the composer’s daring attempt to transform attitudes about race, elevate American music (Jazz) on par with classical European music and challenge America to live up to her founding principles of freedom and equality for all. […]
Music critics, mistakenly judging it by classical music standards, gave the 1943 concert mixed reviews. Ellington responded to critics, saying “Well, I guess they just didn’t dig it.” He never performed the entire work again, breaking it into shorter excerpts. Ellington reworked a partial version (“Black” only) of the suite for his 1958 album Black, Brown, and Beige, after which “Come Sunday” (featuring Gospel artist Mahalia Jackson on the album’s vocal version of that piece) became a jazz standard. The album notes for Wynton Marsalis’s 2018 performance states that Black, Brown and Beige has “received its overdue praise with the passage of time.”
B. W. Beath, in Reservations Recommended, Chapter 2:
This is the Wonder Bread of chowders.
Wonder Bread is a brand of sliced bread which originated in the United States in 1921 and was one of the first to be sold pre-sliced nationwide in 1930. […]
In the 1950s, Wonder Bread further expanded advertising of its nutrient enrichments. The company sponsored Howdy Doody with host Buffalo Bob Smith telling the audience, “Wonder Bread builds strong bodies 8 ways” referring to the number of added nutrients. By the 1960s, Wonder Bread was advertised with the slogan “Helps build strong bodies 12 ways,” with a list of health claims.
wonderbread
Etymology
From Wonder Bread, a brand of white bread.
Adjective
wonderbread (comparative more wonderbread, superlative most wonderbread)
(slang) Synonym of white bread, bland, boring; conventional.
(derogatory) Synonym of white bread.
See also: Allusion; Quotation TG 140
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