Robin Hood

Creating Robin Hood

Announcing a book about the Jewish origins of Robin Hood and creating hope in a time of despair.

Darkness

The Color of Darkness

Why is Kṛṣṇa blue, what was the color of Biblical creation, and some other (un)related questions

Lithuania

Color Researcher Develops Theory to Solve Millennia Old Mystery about Lithuanian Blue

How did they make blue glass beads in Lithuania in the 1st century?

Pasta

Pastel / Macaroni

The relationship between pastels and macarons.

Religion

Misreading the Absurd

I found a small error on a placard in the Jewish Museum in Rome.

Cheese

Cheesy Flowers

Thoughts about cheese in Italy.

Laundry

A Guide for the Perplexed (about Laundry)

Contains no practical advice or useful information.

Pink

Rethinking Pink.

A dispatch from Madrid, about Vilnius, Paris and Toulouse.

Personal Update

Ghosting, Apparitions & Spectra

A flash sale and a reexamination of different types of spectra.

Notes

Personal Updates & Curiosities

Today is my birthday and I'm leaving Chicago in June.

Etymology

Some Bizarre Questions

No answers guaranteed.

Polka

Semiotics and Semaphores: A History of the Polka-Dot

The Polka-Dot was inspired by the musical notation used by composers of polkas to create a staccato effect which mimicked the newly invented telegraph.

Holiday

Half-Baked Reinterpretations

Several half-baked ideas.

Indigo

Science, Commerce, and Why Indigo is not a Color.

Indigo is a pigment, not a color.

Sermons

Stardust and Hope

An exploration into the phrase "salt of the earth" in Matthew 5:13.

Blue

50 Shades of Blue

Venus, the Renaissance, salty language, and the color blue.

yellow

An Ephemeral Color

Why is "amarilla", the Spanish word for yellow so different from all other words for yellow?

math

An Etymology of Pie

Featuring shapes, colors, pastries, mathematicians, birds, and priests.

Tulips

Oh, Sušana!

A (hopefully) final newsletter about tulips.

Tulips

Tulips: the first 3000ish years

Tulips have a much longer and more illustrious history than we previously thought.

Tulips

Tulipmania was not irrational.

In February 1637, the Dutch futures market had a reset on all outstanding contracts for tulips. The prices had reportedly been growing an unprecedented rate, and there was risk of systemic collapse of defaulted contracts.

Tulips

King Midas - The Tulip's Forgotten Namesake

King Midas voted for Pan, and Apollo became so enraged, he turned Midas' ears into donkeys' ears. Midas was embarrassed and tried to hide up the ears by wearing some sort of head covering, which likely resembled the tulip in a closed state.

Tulips

Panic! in the Garden

This month on Colorphilia, each week, we will be focusing on a different aspect of tulips. This week, I share the likely original meaning of the flower, and how the etymology became so tortured, convoluted, and misunderstood.

Family

Endless Waves of Love

Some thoughts about my new niece's name.

Robin Hood

Was Robin Hood Jewish?

I began researching this week's newsletter with a simple question: did Robin Hood wear a red hat? It led me down an existential rabbit-hole, and led to a conclusion which posed a completely different, albeit outlandish and preposterous, question.