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Sister Corita

what red looks like

“Mary knows everything there is to know about the colour red. As a scientist, it has been her life’s work. If you want to know why we can’t see infrared, why tomatoes are red or why red is the colour of passion, Mary is your woman.
    All this would be unremarkable, if it weren’t for the fact that Mary is an achromat: she has no colour vision at all. The world, for Mary, looks like a black and white movie.
    Now, however, all that is to change. The cones on her retina are not themselves defective, it is simply that the signals are not processed by the brain. Advances in neurosurgery now mean that this can be fixed. Mary will soon see the world in colour for the first time.
    So despite her wide knowledge, perhaps she doesn’t know everything about the colour red after all. There is one thing left for her to find out: what red looks like.”

—Julian Baggini, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005.

Liu Bolin

redlighted

“ ‘You heard Uncle Al. If anything happens to that horse, you’ll be redlighted.’

‘Which means what, exactly?’

‘Chucked from the train. When it’s moving. If you’re lucky, within sight of a train yard’s red lights so you can find your way to town. If you’re not, well, you’d just better hope they don’t open the door while the train’s crossing a trestle.’ ”

—Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants, 2006.

Fuck You

I don’t like to use dashes

“[W]hat vexes me is that Albert does not seem to be as delighted as he—hoped—as I—thought I was—when—I don’t like to use dashes, but here I can’t express myself any other way— . . . .”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774; translated by Burton Pike, 2004.

Does Herbert Matter?

what is the world to our heart without love?

“Wilhelm, what is the world to our heart without love? What a magic lantern is without light! As soon as you put the little lamp inside, the most colorful pictures appear on your white wall!”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774; translated by Burton Pike, 2004.

Track Meet

the reds and greens, the yellows and blues

“On 11 December 361 I entered Constantinople as Roman Emperor. Snow fell at slow intervals and the great flakes turned like feathers in air so still that the day was almost warm. The sky was low and the color of tarnished silver. There was no color that day in nature, only in man, but what color! It was a day of splendor. . . .

Quite alone, I passed through the gate and took possession of the City of Constantine.

Trumpets sounded. The people cheered. I was particularly struck by the brightness of the clothes they wore. I don’t know whether it was the white setting which made the reds and greens, the yellows and blues almost unbearably vivid, or the fact that I had been away too long in northern countries where all colors are as muted and as dim as the forests in which the people live.”

—Gore Vidal, Julian, 1964.

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