The Facts on File Dictionary of Allusions - Green Valley High School

Mickey Mouse
314
“knockout” blow. <strong>The</strong>y slipped him a mickey fi nn and
then went through his pockets looking for anything of
value.
Mickey Mouse (mikee mows) Something that is
deemed to be on a derisorily small or insignifi cant
scale. <strong>The</strong> cartoon character Mickey Mouse was
the most famous creation of U.S. fi lmmaker Walt
Disney (1901–66). <strong>The</strong> fact that Mickey Mouse was
a staggering success and the foundation stone of
what became the Disney empire has not prevented
the character’s name from coming to represent
what is trivial and not to be taken seriously—
an association that may have arisen through
reference to the thousands of cheaply- made, unreliable
watches and other products bearing Mickey
Mouse’s image that were subsequently manufactured
to cash in on the character’s im mense popularity.
<strong>The</strong>ir grand plan was eventually exposed as a
Mickey Mouse project that lacked any proper funding.
Mickey Spillane (mikee spilayn) Archetype of a
writer of hard- boiled detective fi ction. Mickey
Spillane (b. 1918) became a best- selling author
with his combination of sex and violence, notably
in the novels featuring the tough detective Mike
Hammer. He was a crime novelist in the hard- hitting
Mickey Spillane tradition.
Midas touch (midbs) <strong>The</strong> ability to turn virtually
any project into a success; a golden touch.
<strong>The</strong> reference is to King Midas of Phrygia, who
was granted his wish to be able to turn anything
he touched to gold. His newfound talent backfi
red, however, when he found that his food and
drink (and even his daughter, according to one
version of the tale) turned to gold at his touch,
and soon he was begging to be returned to his
original condition. This was eventually achieved
by his bathing in the waters of the Pactolus, from
which time the river has always been edged by
golden sand. “So twenty years, with their hopes
and fears and smiles and tears and such, / Went
by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas
touch” (Robert Ser vice, Ballads of a Cheechako,
1909).
mighty fallen, how are the See how are the
mighty fallen!
mighty hunter See nimrod.
Mike Hammer See mickey spillane.
Milesian tales (mileezhebn) Short stories of a
characteristically obscene nature. <strong>The</strong> original collection
of such stories was compiled by and named
after the Greek writer Aristides of Miletus, who
lived in the second century b.c. <strong>The</strong> tales, which
have not survived to modern times, were ultimately
the work of one Antonius Diogenes. <strong>The</strong>
group at the bar was swapping Milesian tales in subdued
tones, broken every now and then by unsuppressible gusts
of delighted laughter.
milk and honey See land fl owing with milk
and honey.
millennium A period of 1,000 years, often referring
to the period before Satan’s fi nal overthrow
(Revelation 20) when Satan is bound and believers
are resurrected and reign with Christ. It has been
interpreted in different ways: “as a symbol of the
present time between Christ’s fi rst and second
comings (amillennialism), of a time when Christ
will return and reign on earth before the fi nal resurrection
(premillennialism), and of a period of
great success for the church and the gospel before