Colors

One of the discourses that Oppermann and I began, was the discourse of colors in relation to certain philosophers. This was back to the first of my most recent period of renaissance with Oppermann, which began back in 1999 and 2000: when we were driving in my Green Honda Civic round Los Angeles.

The portraits of the philosophers and poets could be seen on our walls through any period of our Arcadian days still seem to clutter and complete our computer. No "web-log" would be complete without our way of knowing them... other than as we used to say to each other, "Shouting philosophers names at each other! Nietzsche! Hegel! Kant! Fichte! Schelling! Kleist! Oppermann! Beethoven! Ayres!" We were conceited bastards back then at that time and we still are to this day and we have put each other up there:

The dark green of Schubert,
The faded green of Schumann,
The royal blue of Goethe,
The faded black of Bob Dylan,
The invisible transparency of Bach,
The gray of my overcoat, Athena's eyes,
The orange red of Devorak and of certain Mexican food restaurants (The Casa Escobar).

There are many more colors, and I even advanced a story of a symbologist
"The Avatar's Apprentice" in Scroll from the Ninth Dimension (Jack Vance):

Struggling to the hill's crest, Marmaduke searched for
the blasted cypress which marked the hut of the
symbologist. There stood the tree, haggard and desolate,
and a hut nearby.
The symbologist gave him welcome. "A hundred leagues I
have come," said Marmaduke, "to put a single question: Do
the colors have souls?"
"Did anyone aver otherwise?" asked the perplexed
symbologist. He caused to shine an orange light, then,
lifting the swing of his gown, he cavorted with great
zest. Marmaduke watched with pleasure, amused to see an
old man so spry!
The symbologist brought forth green light. Crouching
under the bench he thrust his head between his ankles and
turned his gown outside to in, while Marmaduke clapped his
hands for wonder.
The symbologist evoked red light, and leaping upon
Marmaduke, playfully wrestled him to the floor and threw
the gown over his head. "My dear fellow," gasped
Marmaduke, winning free, "but you are brisk in your
demonstration!"
"What is worth doing is worth doing well," the
symbologist replied. "Now to expatiate. The colors admit
of dual import. The orange is of icterine humor as well as
the mirth of a dying heron."
"Green is the essence of second-thoughts, likewise the
mode of the north wind. Red, as we have seen, accompanies
rustic exuberance."
"And a second import of the red?" Marmaduke asked.
The symbologist made a cryptic sign. "That remains to
be seen, as the cat said who voided into the sugar bowl."
Amused and edified, Marmaduke took his leave, and he
was quite halfway down the mountain before he discovered
the loss of his wallet.


Oppermann repudiated this form of fiction as utterly puerile, but I enter it for the sake of completeness, and for the sake of my friend Ralph Trueblood, who is able to understand the meaning of Einstein's physics, and who was not afraid to be a soft lover of the arts of science fiction... (I believe Oppermann has always preferred detective novels for his reading dreck... to be closer to a crime scene).

This listing of colors is entirely limited: what after all would follow with pale yellow? what of Peach? What of Alizarine? What of Dusky red? What of the cold blue of ice upon a trumpet?

All this may be discussed, but later, not now.