The
Glass Alphabet
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A is for Abbé Suger, who wanted glass to be
the jewelled walls of Jerusalem;
is for acid, anneal and antique. |
B is for blasting with sand; for blowing into
mutable bulbs, and bricks, as in "There'll be a brick through that in the
first five minutes;"
is for brushes and bubbles and bevels. |
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C is for calmes, the willow strips of lead moulds that
hold the stained panes;
is for casting, as Phidias did
at the Parthenon and Ephesus;
is for colours, for crucibles and crowns. |
D is for danger, the sliver that slices, the
dry rain falling from a bombed-out building;
the insoluble drink;
is for Dalle de verre, where chunks are
set in resin concrete;
is for diamond, the writer on the pane. |
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E is for Egypt, birthplace of glass, where seaweed and
sand
made the 'stone that flows', and Tutankhamun wore glass as jewellery,
imitating
agate, obsidian and lapis lazula;
is for etched and enamel. |
F is for frame, the cradler of distances;
for fragile and fused and the boy's blunt cutter: a football. |
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G is for glasshouse: a greenhouse or a prison, where
all can see what they no longer touch;
the place which dare not lift a stone;
is for glass ceiling, a bruising bonnet for the female skull;
for gum arabic and grisaille and the grozing iron;
for gold, which turns glass pink. |
H is for Huguenot, the glassmaker; is for harmonica,
the instrument of bowls, for which Mozart composed,
a version of which
was patented by Benjamin Franklin. |
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I is for Iconoclast, the murderer of light;
is for iridised and ice, the mother of all windows. |
J is for Jarrow, where the first pane in Britain
was set in Bede's church. |
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K is for kaleidoscope, the twister of colours; for kiln
and Klein bottle, the one-sided surface. |
L is for light, the door which glass opens;
for lustre and laminate;
for lead, the perfect lover, who embraces and bends and never rusts. |
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M is for metals, the spectrum reachers, listen to their
dance:
copper and cadmium for green; cobalt and chromium for blue;
magnesium and cobalt for purple;
selenium chromium and cadmium for yellow;
is for monks, Murano and for Molotov. |
N is for Norman slab, where glass was blown
into a metal box,
then sliced in five for windows;
is for New York, the city of glass. |
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O is for openness, the gift of glass, and for opacity,
its opposite;
for opalescence, the Occhio and the oyster knife. |
P is for ponty, for painted and pressed;
for Pate de verre, its grinding and fusing. |
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Q is for quicksilver, the maker of mirrors; and quills,
the scratchers;
and quintessence of sand, the quality that glass shares with us. |
R is for reamy, the blowing together of two
viscosities;
for reflective and refractive and for Rupert's drop,
a cavalier's invention: the tailed bulb
a molten drip will make in water,
bursting when its tail is broken. |
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S is the letter that glass loves best: it stands for stained,
the only sullying that can depict the sinless saints;
for symbol and shard, and shish;
the mirrors sewn into linen or silk;
for semiliquid and silver compound,
which turns the glass yellow; for Sunderland
and solder and streaky and for slumping,
the leaning of a lump into a mould. |
T is for for toughened, for tracery and for
tallow;
for Tiffany, which means transparency,
from diaphanous, or possibly theophany:
a vision of the gods through art nouveau;
for Bruno Taut, who built an Expressionist house of glass
inscribed with verses by Scheerbart:
'Happiness without glass?
What an absurdity!' |
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U is for ulterior, the thing that's placed beyond;
is for undulate, as glass does, running with age;
and uranium glass, with its yellow fluorescence. |
| V is for viscous, vitrinous and Venetian. |
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W is for window, the wind's eye, where Pharaoh stood in
lieu of the sun:
at the Window of Appearances;
is for wax casting, or 'cire perdue';
for whiting, the chalk which sets the cement in stained glass;
or for the wheel that cuts. |
X is for xenogenesis, the myth of origins,
which tells us that Hephaestus tried to make a race of men
by mixing fire and sand, but his glass warriors were defeated
by a single hero with a hammer: the first of the shatterers. |
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Y is for yellow, the stain of a halo. |
Z is for Zeus, whose massive statue was the
wonder of the world,
which was clad in a chlamys of glass. |
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