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Prelude in Blue

This is a story about the color blue It e and weave, hide and deceive, take you down paths of love and history and inspiration, but it’s always about blue

How do you knohen 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

One

WHEAT FIELD WITH CROWS

Auvers, France, July 1890

ON THE DAY HE WAS TO BE MURDERED, VINCENT VAN GOGH ENCOUNTERED a Gypsy on the cobbles outside the inn where he’d just eaten lunch

“Big hat,” said the Gypsy

Vincent paused and slung the easel from his shoulder He tipped his yellow straw hat back It was, indeed, big