A digression about the color blue: The atmosphere is right in front of you; you’re swimming in it. When you look up from rightinfrontofyou, the space near the horizon looks like blueberry milk. Above the horizon is sapphire. Higher = Darker. If there should be water nearby, it will soak up the sapphire, creating a triumvirate of blue. There is a mathematical explanation as well, but it doesn’t make the blue any bluer. Contrarily, blue is the color of choice for corporate America because of its masculinity and security. Blue is a paradox, but secure in its ambiguity. And the thing about the atmosphere is that you’re still swimming in it.
A digression about books: Since the popularity of Robinson Crusoe, the making of top “insert number here” lists of things to bring to a deserted island have been popular as well. Most summations name the Bible as the most popular choice in the list of books. In a short, unpublished essay by Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges, he offers his choices of books that would accompany him to an island. He calls his collection “Robinson’s Library.” He dismissed books he knew well already, famous novels, and anything involving human relationships. Brilliantly he began instead with books regarding “the relationship [between] man-God, man-numbers, man-Universe.” Borges chose an algebra text “with lots of exercises” as one of his three. He believed in the splendor of the numbers that subsume the universe, and seeing the unfettered expanse of space might make those numbers fall easily into place.
- Excerpts from a piece I wrote about islands...
