Lovely quote on the color "blue", Mosquito. Are you going for inadvertent irony again with the phrase "it really helps to get your facts straight..." ?
________________________________ From: turquoiseb <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 3:04 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sacre Bleu Just as a followup, the roach's claim that the blue in question as sacré bleu (the sacred blue) is "cobalt blue" is completely incorrect. Cobalt blue was made from cobalt sulfinate, was used primarily in ceramics and glassware, and was cheap. It was occasionally used as a paint pigment by poor painters, as a replacement for true ultramarine. The sacré blue (ultramarine) was made from lapis lazuli, at the time available only in Afghanistan, and this rather scarce. It was more expensive than gold. There are at least two Michaelangelo paintings that were left unfinished because he (or his patron) could not afford the sacré bleu necessary to finish them. That is the color Chris wrote his novel about. It's just a little detail, but I thought I'd throw it out as a warning to those who try to turn everything into an ego-battle to prove how smart they are, and how stupid the people they don't like are. If you're lame enough to waste your life doing petty shit like that, it really helps to get your facts straight *when* doing it. Just sayin'... "How do you know, when you think blue--when you say blue--that you are talking about the same blue as anyone else? You cannot get a grip on blue. Blue is the sky, the sea, a god's eye, a devil's tail, a birth, a strangulation, a virgin's cloak, a monkey's ass. It's a butterfly, a bird, a spicy joke, the saddest song, the brightest day. Blue is sly, slick, it slides into the room sideways, a slippery trickster. This is a story about the color blue, and like blue, there's nothing true about it. Blue is beauty, not truth. "True Blue" is a ruse, a rhyme; it's there, then it's not. Blue is a deeply sneaky color. Even deep blue is shallow. Blue is glory and power, a wave, a particle, a vibration, a resonance, a spirit, a passion, a memory, a vanity, a metaphor, a dream. Blue is a simile. Blue, she is like a woman." - Christopher Moore, from Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > Many thanks for these...uh...musings about "Sacre Bleu," > which I have not included because quoting is not working > this morning. Especially thanks for that quote from Henri, > which as you suspect was one of the high points of the > novel for me. Clearly, I have an indentification thang > going with artists like Toulouse-Lautrec and the Turquoise > Bee and Hokusai, all of whom celebrated the "floating > world" of brothels and the women who make them possible. > > Chris obviously feels the same way, and his character of > Henri is one of the most delightful I've ever encountered > in literature. He's funny, irreverent, drunk as a skunk > most of the time, raunchy, and just oozes talent and > brilliance from every pore. I had wanted to include some > quotes and some of the dialog from the book in my mini- > review, but my copy of the book is already making the > rounds among the other members of my family. I can hear > the chuckles from here. :-) > > Thanks also for the clips of Chris talking. He's one of > those rare writers who can talk in person nearly as well > as he writes. I've seen him a couple of times at book > signings, and used to have online conversations with him > on his website back when he did more of that, and he is > just a tremendous guy. He's also a complete journeyman > when it comes to writing...no sitting around "waiting for > inspiration" for him...he just writes, every day, until > the book is finished. > > Good luck on your journeys, and I hope you have time to > jot down a few impressions of the places your Road Trip > takes you. It would be good to hear about them. >
