Date:  Fri, 11 Feb 1994 17:58:23 -0500

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: blue laws, monkeys



guess: blue laws deal with blue matters, i.e., things smutty or off-color

(note persistent chromo-imagery), as in "blue movies" claimed to be so called

(back in the 8 mm porn days) because printed on blue-tinted film stock, but

I would guess more truly so called from the blue in such turn of the

century expressions as :his language was blue. Earlier 19th century had

given us the blue devils = bad humor, depression (whence I do believe our

feeling blue, got the blues, etc come). Somewhere between the feel-bad of

the latter and the feel-all-too-much of the former the blues we sing must

have come to be named. End of snowy surmises.



RK