Of Midlengths, pigments, and atmosphere

Words I’m not really that stoked about right now: Zillow. Drought. Romney. Mayonnaise. Lana del Rey.

Words I can really get behind: Dungeness. Pliny the Younger. Leonard Cohen. Caol Ila. WNW Swell. Blue.

I’ve been pondering this last one while looking at the pics of Adam’s new 8ft Broadsword. It’s a lovely color. Tony Mikus—master of pigments and one of the best laminators on the planet—calls it medium blue. I like that, too. Simple.

We’ve seen a lot of blue up here this winter. Mostly in the sky, but in the water, too. Etymologically, the word blue is loaned to us by the French: belle, for beautiful, and eau, meaning water.

The Thai word for blue translates literally to sky.

And there we have it. Air and water.

And if you’re a California surf enthusiast, like Adam, it makes perfect sense: blue for the immersion, the submergence, the surfacing. Blue for the melding of sky and sea and experience, and the endless cycles of light and ocean and paddling back out for another.

Then, maybe cracking, a PBR in the parking lot—it doesn’t get the blue ribbon for nothing.