Reading/Red

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Reading/Red

“Throughout much of the world, red represents events and emotions at the core of the human condition: danger and courage, revolution and war, violence and sin, desire and passion, even life itself…It is one thing, however, to assign meaning to a color, quite another to create the color itself.” ~ from “A Perfect Red” by Amy Greenfield.

This is a bug biography, of sorts. But it's also a fascinating history of the "first" color. It’s the story of cochineal (co-chuh’-neel), the source of most red dye up until the late 19^th century. It’s still used extensively today to color textiles and a number of products including foodstuffs. That bright red slurpee you sucked down? Think bug juice colored sugar water.

--> From the Trousset encyclopedia, Paris, 1886 - 1891.

My favorite shirt in middle school was a bright, fire engine red, button down short sleeve. I wonder if it was cochineal colored? Somewhere I have a school photo of me wearing it when I was a pudgy and bespectacled nerdy 13-year-old.  I am vain enough to withhold that image from worldwide distribution (even if the only difference is that I'm no longer 13). 

But there are other reds around the house…

Yes, I do, I use a shaving brush

Growing up as a somewhat Southerner in S.E. Texas

I feel incompletely dressed without a pocket knife

 This is a cool little wind-up self charging flashlight. And since red is the most

 difficult color to see when it's dark, this works for me on many levels