A page of text with a border that is made up of square blocks, numbered one to 48, snaking around the text. Each block is a slightly darker shade of blue, with 1 being almost white, and the blues ever deepening until 48, which is a very dark blue. The text reads as follows: A Theory of Blue Magali Duzant 48 Nuances & One Repeated Action I recently made a book about blue after becoming fascinated with the language of blue: melancholic, peaceful, sexually charged, awake, working class, somewhat holy, ever so fluid. Idioms that include the word blue are endless and include dreaming of almonds inPolish and walking dejected blues in Dutch. Yet in a world in which we have access to more perspectives than ever before there seems to be a shift towards the narrowing of possibilities. Perhaps being blue is a way of being open, aware, playful, connected? Language affects how we perceive the world. Perhaps speaking in blues is a way of giving life to language, inhabiting a color, knowing oneself more fully? Blue is an adjective, a verb, a noun. It is a way of seeing. In the 18th century the Swiss scientist Horace-Benedict de Saussure created a cyanometer to measure the "blueness" of the sky. A version of that beautifully subjective instrument is included here. Hold this object to the sky each day for a period of time, at the same time every day, find the nearest match to the corresponding squares, record the blue, at the end of a week or a month, average it out to find the blue you have inhabited, the many blues that make a whole. Temperatures / Texts ( some of these are bluest blues, some of these are related horizons ) On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry, William H. Glass Bluets, Maggie Nelson Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Color, Carol Mavor A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit Motherhood: A Novel, Sheila Heti Don't Let Me Be lonely, Claudia Rankine The Secret Life of Time, Alan Burdick Through the Language Glass, Guy Deutscher Sights and Sounds / Clips 1. In an episode of Arrested Development Tobias Funke goes to a Blue Man Group concert thinking it is a meeting for depressed people. Upon learning who the Blue Men are he attempts to join them by painting himself blue and auditioning for them, he is later run over by the family's lawyer at dusk, as he appears to blend into the sky. Action: Google the term "blue memes," scroll 2. At a dinner Europop was discussed, as a non European one of the few songs I was fully aware of, enough to roll my eyes and cringe about a bit was Blue (Da Ba Dee) by the Italian group Eiffel 65. The song is an earworm. Action: Listen to Blue (Da Ba Dee), listen to Blue Moon by Billie Holiday to get the first song out of your head 3. The Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kiewslowski directed Three Colours: Blue starring Juliette Binoche as a woman who loses her husband and child and attempts to cut herself off from her former life. Action: Watch Blue 4. The British artist Chris Ofili created a series of large scale blue paintings, "The Blue Rider" series and "Blue Devils" in response and influenced by a move to Trinidad and the latter in response to police brutality. Action: View these paintings, in person if ever possible 5. Homer wrote of the wine dark sea, never using the term blue in his works. Could he see blue? Does blue exist if we don't have a word for it? Who sees blue and who doesn't? Action: Listen to Why Isn't the Sky Blue? on Radiolab's Colors episode from May 21, 2012.

A Theory of Blue
by Magali Duzant