Shannon Wright - "Everybody's Got Their Own Part to Play"

As a metataxonomist I'm constantly asked which of the many fields of taxonomic endeavour draws the most profound geniuses to consider its problems. "Metataxonomy, of course!" I respond without exception. Many minutes later, after the laughter has died down and things turn serious, I explain that the deepest thinkers in our field tend to be those who are charged with the enumeration of all things blue. I know one man, for instance - an immortal by the name of Immanuel Kant (no relation) - who has been listing blue things since the late medieval period. How insane is that? I mean, his list includes, yes, cobalt, but also "my personal friend and contemporary, St. Thomas Aquinas." This is the guy who saw that 'blue' is an anagram for 'lube', a word with blue connotations.

Kant has written on the mundane ("the sky is blue, the sea is blue, and the earth is blue, too"), and of the mundane ("it is blue"). He's pointed out the existence of blue language and blue films and a certain four-chord progression that can be spread over twelve bars to a particularly blue effect. To this last point, Kant has dedicated much of his life's attention. From his book The Critique of Pure Reason (no relation): "The music called the blues is carried close to my heart (blue) for reasons besides the obvious. The blues are like an inoculation for the blues: they make us sick with a little sadness to prevent the otherwise inevitable deluge." A flood is blue and so is the blood of James Blood Ulmer, a royal in the world of the blues.

What makes the exhaustive listing of all blue things a seemingly intractable task is that though bleu is always blau, it can sometimes seem otherwise. I told Kant that I thought Shannon Wright seemed misplaced on his list. She appeared to me more white with anger than blue. I told him I was green with envy, humbled by Wright's ability to arrange her music with such subtle expressiveness (a distorted guitar, way in the back, mirrors her vocals; a tom drum smacks against each eardrum). In response, Kant added my name to his list.

Trust Immanuel Kant to distinguish between the real and the chimerical: "In the emotional spectrum, white and green are secondary," he explained. "Blue is always primary."