Orangeness... again today.  I threw in a picture of Ellsworth Kelley’s Red, Yellow, and Blue just for the heck of it. It got me wondering, perhaps questioning... is anything ever pure?  On some days when I stand in front of Kelly’s painting at the San Diego Museum of Art, his red seems to have become slightly orange as if somebody fooled with it since I last saw it. I know the theory: mix the primary colors red and yellow and you get orange, but I can’t help feeling that there’s more to it than that.  I’ll try to remember to ask Tom or Clyde or R.D. how they know when the combination is just right.  

Picking a couple of oranges to take out on the back porch for today's picture, I stopped and grabbed another one remembering that in some Asian cultures it's customary to take three pieces of fruit, any fruit, when going for a visit to somebody else’s home. As I was placing the oranges for the photograph, I wondered if I was yielding to superstition. I settled the question by trying with three and then taking one away to get a picture of two.  No doubt about it, I find three more aesthetically pleasing than two... but that doesn’t settle the question of whether or not superstition affects my aesthetic sense?  In Singapore it’s acceptable to bring more than three, but never four or six or any even number of pieces. To bring blessing to the house, an odd number is required. Blessing or superstition... which is it?  

Blessing and superstition... I remember that my Father always put his shoes on the floor left shoe on the left and right shoe on the right.  He never put them down the other way; so that’s the way I always put mine down on the floor or in a shoe rack. I’ll never forget that when I came back home after my Father died, I went to a closet to hang up my coat and there were a pair of his shoes on the floor... the way he left them. I sat on the floor and sobbed. It moves me even now to think of that moment.  

Anyway...  Orange is important, however you get it. And what I do with my shoes after I take them off is also important.  

I like all of Prokofiev’s music, but I especially like his opera, The Love for Three oranges...  in whatever language it’s presented. 

L'Amour des trois oranges

Любовь к трём апельсинам