My Favourite Fairy

She has very delicate sparkly bright blue eyes
and a red red red red red red dress
That’s why I love her
so much




A small girl talks to her mother. Overheard on the street, 3 September 2014. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

The Nightingale

The color paintings were prepared on fine,
brilliant Wu silk, which were closely and wonderfully woven.

Traditional Chinese paints were used. The blues
and greens came from azurite, malachite, and indigo;

the reds from cinnabar, realgar, and orpiment, with the brilliant red
from coral and the pink-red from a flowering vine; umber from an iron oxide

called limonite; yellow from the sap of the rattan plant; and white from lead
or pulverized oyster shells. To all, powdered jade was added

for good fortune. These colors were mixed with stag horn, fish or ox
glue, or glue made from the pulp of the soap bean. The black

Chinese ink is ten parts pine soot, three parts powdered jade,
and one part glue made from donkey hides boiled

in Tang River water. The paints were mixed with boiling water. In
the first stage, the water looked like fish eyes; in the second,

like innumerable pearls strung together; and in the final stage,
like rolling breakers. The paints were applied with Chinese brushes made

of sheep, rabbit, goat, weasel, and wolf hairs picked in autumn,
as well as of mouse whiskers, with handles of bamboo and buffalo horn.

Where changes were required in the art, the paint was removed
by wiping the area with the juice of the apricot seed.



Illustration notes from The Nightingale by Demi (Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1985). Submitted by J.R. Solonche.

The Eye in Time

Keen lemon-yellow
Hurts the eye in time
As a prolonged and shrill trumpet-note
The ear.

Or white
Conveys a harmony of silence
Which works upon us negatively
Like many pauses in music
That break
Temporarily
The Mel-
-ody.



A Kandinsky quotation taken from 'Music and Jugendstil', Critical Inquiry, Autumn 1990. Submitted by Kate Guthrie.

The shade you chose

Apply section by section

Put on the gloves.
Wet the hair without washing it.
Towel dry.
Apply the mixture to the roots,
by parting the hair into sections
using the applicator nozzle.
Then spread it all over the hair.

Massage

Massage the hair gently. Work up a lather.
The colour of the product will become
darker and darker
Don't worry.
After the development time,
the colour will have developed fully:
that way you are sure to
obtain the shade you chose.
Let it develop for 30 minutes

Rinse

Pour a little warm water on the hair
and massage gently.
Rinse thoroughly
with warm water
until the water runs clear.



From the instructions for L'Oreal hair dye, 27th May 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Spectrum

Blue with a hint of your mother.
Unsure-whether-boy-or-girl baby room color.
What I'm sure was once nice wallpaper
before you stained it with your nicotine.

Red as the cute boy to my right's hoodie.
My dentist's office orange. I still remember
his dandruff slowly wafting into my gaping jaw.
Jesus Christ, what is with you and green?

Shark invested water blue. Sorry for
spazzing earlier, I had a seizure. Dark red.
Now I'm just getting freaked out.
Nothing looks like a proper color any more.

Maybe a half hour before the first stars start
showing up in the night sky … that awful color,
that forever remains a reminder that grandma
needs to be cut off after the third glass.

It's pink, but not totally pink,
but it's purple, but not totally purple.
We are a collaborative ice-cream cone.
The best color in the freakin' world.



Respondents' comments as they were asked to identify colours in an online survey, 5th March 2010. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Ecce homo

This is the man.
What does the man think of grey and white?
The man likes grey and white, of course.
"Man should be brave."
Ah oui. And what does he think of blue?
It's perfect.



From the windows of a French Connection shop in Leeds, 9th May 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.