Blue men #1

 

George Cruickshank, Blue Devils, 1835

The colour blue is often assigned to sadness in lands acculturated as European. This hue was not chosen arbitrarily from the visible spectrum. Blue is the colour of figures described accompanying delirium tremens and melancholy.

Early 19th century poet John Clare glimpsed blue men while walking near Maxey, a watery spot between Helpston and Market Deeping. Clare was a drinker, although he doesn’t say whether he was drunk at the time.

Sometime between the early and late 1800s, blue devils became the blues.

In the early 1980s, a school friend related a dream-state vision after a heavy weekend’s drinking. Unsure whether he was awake, he was both delighted and alarmed by a little blue man dancing above his feet. 

Neither my friend nor Clare perceived intent in these apparitions.

Blue men appear as impartial observers, witnesses, supernatural first responders. These witnesses to distress seem unconnected to its causes. They are players of separation or detachment in our performance of processing, as we respond to particularly keen experiences of emotional resonance. Generically specific figures of empathy with ourselves, accompanying and heralding our own witnessing and protection of ourselves at our most open and vulnerable.

The plain irrationality, explicable separation and supernatural detachment of blue men figure them as disinterested observers beyond intent.