HUES ON FIRST – Rallying Against Chromophobia

When I was a first grader I adored crayons. Those elegant little, translucent cylinders of pure color. I’ll bet you did too.

At school I had to scrounge stumps of them in various lengths from a cardboard box. Soon, though, I got my very own set of Crayolas. I was happy to have them, but it was only an eight-pack, just the basics. So I kept going back to that ratty remnant box because that’s where I could find the subtler, more complex colors.

Then my mom—once a commercial artist, by the way—bought me the big 48-color box, the one with neatly stepped tiers of crayons, some in shades falling in between the basic, primary colors: blue-green, gold ochre, red violet…oh, and the metallics. These, I thought, were colors worthy of keeping within the lines.

I was tickled pink. Even then, as a six-year-old, I knew the power of color to tap into one’s creativity and express one’s temperament.
 
        Purple might be risky and brown was
        to be avoided at all costs.

GOING PRO
Much later, as a graphics designer—thanks, I’m sure, to the encouragement of that first-grade teacher, Miss Whittier—I applied my way with color to the design solutions I crafted for clients, from mom-and-pop furniture stores, to dentists, to universities and symphony orchestras.

Part of my stock in trade was just knowing which colors from my trusty PMS swatch book* would and wouldn’t work for each project. Knowing that you don’t use pink for a bank, olive drab for a restaurant or blood red for a hospital.

I don’t know that anyone actually taught me those rules; it just seemed intuitive. You know, that for a more staid client, purple might be risky and that, for most any client, brown was to be avoided at all costs.

RULES FOR THE BREAKING
As instinctive as that color sense was for me, there’s also lots of research to back it up. It confirms that yellows suggest brightness, cheer and hope. Reds can evoke energy, urgency, anger and danger. Blues portray calmness and trust; greens, freshness and serenity.

While they know these “rules” very well, designers in nearly every field occasionally find value in breaking them for shock value or when they want to push the boundaries of “taste.”

PHOTO: Beautiful Stitches

For example, an edgy tech client (like Yahoo) or one that wants to connote luxury (like Crown Royal whisky), might find a shade of purple quite effective. (That latter interpretation may derive from purple dye’s having been so rare and expensive in ancient cultures that it was affordable only to royalty.)

               UPS has exploited one of the
               least desirable colors: brown.

BRANDING
It’s fascinating, isn’t it, how the color landscape has been mined to identify various companies and causes, each of them appropriating a hue they hope will distinguish them in the marketplace.

IBM grabbed blue a long time ago—in 1947. Later, Verizon claimed red; Heineken, Starbucks and Holiday Inn all took green; while Home Depot and Dunkin’ Donuts have seized on orange.

In what I’ve always felt was one of those gutsy, outside-the-lines moves, UPS has successfully exploited what’s considered one of the least desirable colors for any entity’s branding: brown. All the better, I guess, to ensure no one steals it.

(The only client I remember identifying with brown was the Cornucopia Society, the elite giving club that helps fund the Wells Fargo Family Farm at the Minnesota Zoo. The cover of my brochure for them featured a wavy brown background suggesting a furrowed field.)

SOCIAL CAUSES
In 1979, a Jaycees ladies service organization in Leitchfield, Kentucky organized what became a hugely popular campaign to "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" around trees in yards and public spaces to show support for the U.S. hostages being held in Iran.

Since then scores of other organizations have adopted colors for their causes, among them: red for heart disease and AIDS; orange for leukemia; violet for Hodgkins lymphoma; teal for sexual assault; pink for breast cancer; and green for almost anything related to the environment.

STOP AND GO
And just think of all the other aspects of our culture we’ve come to associate with colors. Often they’re so ubiquitous that we no longer even notice. The iconic red, yellow and green of traffic lights; warning signs; status lights on machines; wire and piping identification; filing tabs… I could go on.

Some brilliant planner realized that even the most confusing mazes of floors and hallways of buildings or building complexes can be color coded to simplify navigation. Someone else must have decided that blue and pink should identify the gender of babies.

And now, more than ever, color has come to define our politics. God forbid any respectable MAGA republican get caught wearing a blue cap; no democrat, a red one! And for the dwindling number of “independent” voters, maybe there should be a color for that too, perhaps a nice red-blue shade of violet.

      Fear and disappointment
      have sucked the color out of our spirits.

ZEITGEIST
Have you noticed what’s happened over the past few decades to the colors of some of American culture’s key expressions of personal identity: clothing, housing and cars? It’s as if the flame of color has just gone out.

First of all, what’s this dark attachment we have with black? Apparently folks need to display various shades of “attitude”—you know, “Hey, I’m outrageous, don’t fv<& with me!”—as if that’s a good thing. Show me 100 heavy metal band tour t-shirts and I’ll show you 95 black ones. For goth shirts, I’ll show you 100—these poor folks are even afraid of the color of their own skin.

This love affair with black is complicated, though; the color does suggest sadness and depression, but in fashion it can also come across as pure elegance, the perfect backdrop for colorful accessories.

Here in Minnesota, where we starve for Nature’s show of color during our long, cold, monochrome winters, you’d think we’d want to pump up our parkas with shades of optimism and joy. Alas, most winter days we’re a sea of sad, drab fiberfilled nylon puffballs.

And our homes; they run the gamut from white to gray to—if you're really adventurous—perhaps a nice, muted tan. Thank God Sally and I can spend a month in Mexico every year, soaking up their delicious colors.

And cars. Cars are half as colorful as they were 20 years ago. According to the website iSeeCars.com, only 20 percent of today’s cars are non-grayscale colors (white, black, gray, and silver) compared to 40 percent in 2004.

CUES FROM NATURE
So, where did this chromophobia come from? For what it’s worth, I think it may have started as far back as Richard Nixon’s brazen betrayal of Americans’ trust. I think that's when we really started doubting ourselves and each other.

That was the first in a series of dispiriting events that have left many with a kind of dystopian view of our prospects—most noteworthy 9/11, the pandemic, and lately our political polarization. Fear and disappointment have sucked the color out of our spirits.

PHOTO: AP

We can do better. Let us be more aware of the colors that gladden our lives…and those sad voids they might once have inhabited. And let us take our cues from Nature, whose palette has always inspired us at our happiest.

* PMS stands for the Pantone Matching System, a proprietary numbering system for colors used by artists, designers worldwide for accurate color identification, design specification, quality control and communication.

CAST IN A NEW LIGHT – The Real Reason for the Blue-mination of City Streets

An opinion piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune the the day caught my eye. It's by Paul Bogard, a fellow Minneapolitan, author of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light.

The piece is Bogard's reaction to a July 17 Strib news article headlined "LED streetlight change puts cities in new (harsher?) light." The essence of his commentary is that the growing embrace of high-color-temperature LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology for street lighting by cities across the U.S.—including his and my home base, Minneapolis/St. Paul—is an ill-considered, shortsighted decision with far-reaching effects on those cities' inhabitants, both human and otherwise.

Click on image to see Madrid street lighting 2011 vs. 2015 – IMAGE: Tech Insider

He cites research by the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization showing that light emitted by the types of LEDs being adopted— those with the bluish-white light of Kelvin color temperatures over 4,000 degrees—compromises human health, causing sleep disorders, confusing circadian rhythms and even increasing risks for some types of cancers.

He makes an equally compelling argument for the adverse effects on non-human nocturnal critters, including 30 percent of vertebrates, 60 percent of invertebrates and insects we depend on for pollination.

All this in the name of safety—one of several LED selling points Bogard refutes.

   Are there really folks who 
   enjoy seeing the view ahead impaled on those 
   slashing swords of ice?

A BUSLOAD OF ALIENS
What Bogard fails to mention is the effect the icy stare of high-Kelvin-color lighting on the human psyche. It would be bad enough if we were choosing it just for city streets. But the soulless glare also emanates from folks' back-yard security lights, lighting in public spaces and transit vehicles, and even from newer LED flashlights.

One evening this past spring, as I drove home from work well after dark, I passed a city bus. The lighting inside it was that cold, bluish color. I imagined myself riding that bus, and, barring an exceptionally friendly conversation with a fellow passenger, how utterly alien it would feel.

And don't get me going on car headlights. Are there really folks who enjoy seeing the view ahead impaled on those slashing swords of ice? I know it's judgmental, but the easiest answer is that, along with the renewed trend toward bigger, "badder" cars and trucks, this is an act of pure aggression. In your face, buddy!

PHOTO: PaulTech Network

Back in my college days I flew quite often back and forth between Minnesota and the East Coast. I witnessed, from the air, the first mass experiments in mercury vapor street lighting, another technology challenged by unfortunate coloring.

In the New York City megalopolis, one city or borough might have been awash in indifferent, blue light; another, separated by just a street, train tracks or river, in much warmer, supposedly color-corrected, but still unnatural-looking pink or yellow. And a few neighborhoods still basked in their good-old, cozy incandescent lights. I remember how those stood out, like islands of humanity in a dead sea. I thought that's where I'd live if I were down there.
 
   The fear has reared its Chicken-Little head 
   in advertising, music, politics, and a seemingly 
   endless series of zombie, dystopian-world novels 
   and films.

US VERSUS THEM
Perhaps it will shed some, well, light on this "blue-mination phenomenon to see it in its larger context.

We’re living in a world the media, along with some shameless, demagogic politicians, has convinced some of us is more dangerous than at any time in memory. Radical Muslims beating down our door; immigrants stealing our jobs and corrupting our culture; cops (or African Americans, if you're on that side of the "war") making a mockery of Amurican justice.

It seems anyone with an outsize ego or a buck to make is trying to capitalize on the amorphous, baseless fear. It's reared its Chicken-Little head in advertising, where folks are portrayed lying, intimidating and stealing—even from loved ones; in music, with aggressive, take-no-prisoners sound and lyrics, in neurotic, polarizing politics, and in a seemingly endless series of zombie, dystopian-world novels and films.

Yep, it’s us versus them or else…or else I guess it doesn't sell.

               Warm light makes us feel close, 
               welcoming and secure.

CANDLES AND CAMPFIRES
Be afraid, be very afraid, they say. Close the borders; keep your daughters home; lock every door…and kick some serious ass with those ruthless blue lights. Call me a wimp; call me old-fashioned. But in an insecure, paranoid world, keeping warm lights burning—like the proverbial home fires and candle in the window—might just go a long way toward salving the savage beast.

There's a reason human beings soften in candlelight, turn to song round the campfire, and take amazing, glowing photos is that precious light just before dusk. Warm light makes us feel close, welcoming and secure. Feelings I do not fear.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM – A Dream to Remember

How often do you dream? If it’s frequently, you’re lucky. Me, I very seldom dream—or should I say, remember my dreams. So when I do remember one it’s likely to be a beaut…like the one I had last week:

I was taking a nap in the living room. As I awoke, I noticed Charlie, an old friend who’d been visiting me from Boston, standing next to me. He was about to leave and head back home. Without as much as sitting up, I gave him a sort of awkward handshake, and he walked toward the door with his small carry-on bag.

A few steps behind Charlie tottered a very young horse, a winsome, long-legged, still-slightly-gangly  chestnut foal. Charlie opened the door, turned and beckoned his young friend to leave with him. Instead the animal stopped beside my day bed, glanced down at me, and lay down…right on top of me.

Not the slightest bit alarmed, I put my arms around the beautiful animal, marveling at its smell. It wasn’t that I’d expected it to smell bad, but I thought it would at least smell like a horse. It didn’t; it smelled even better, a sweet, warm-nutty scent something like the way your skin smells after you lie in sun for while.

You’d think having a horse of any size lying on top of you would, if not crush
you, at least squeeze the wind out of you. But this foal was nearly weightless.
I felt nothing but its smooth, still-soft coat, its warmth, the slow ebb and flow
of its breath.

It nuzzled with me.

       The big cat licked my face and then 
       nestled its head in the crook of my neck.

WITHOUT A WORD
Charlie had left without a word, and I lay there overcome with wonder at this sweet animal’s affection for me; with what seemed like the opening of a clear channel of silent communication between us. It was as if our spirits flowed together into one. I closed my eyes and, basking in this magical moment, drifted off to sleep.

Later, when I opened my eyes, the foal had somehow morphed into a stunningly beautiful cat. Again, it was not the kind of cat you'd expect to be sleeping with—it was a cougar. It was looking right into my eyes, deeply, as if this was as extraordinary an experience for it as for me.
 

I studied every hair on the cougar’s face, the meld from fawn to white around its eyes and mouth, the little black spot at the root of each whisker. I could feel that
the animal shared my admiration and wonder.

The big cat licked my face and then nestled its head in the crook of my neck.
I did not lick it back.

When I awoke from my dream, I lay in bed for the longest time basking in the rapture of that transcendent experience. I felt a guest in a paradise of possibility, though, try as I might, I could not go back again and conjure up my enchanting new friends.

      Whatever life may throw at us, the only thing 
      we have to fear is failing to understand its
      place in that sacred reality.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
I've shared my dream with my wife and several friends. Inevitably, we traded hypotheses about its meaning. I guessed it might have been inspired by my recent visit with my grandchildren, and our snuggling at bedtime.

My wife thinks that’s too literal, and that the animals and their calming, positive energy were more likely a manifestation of my father, come back to reassure me during a time of extraordinary stress and anxiety in my life.

One friend has an even more literal take on it than I do: that my close encounter with such improbable creatures was merely a playing out of the mystical connection I already feel with all living things. It arises from my deep conviction that every single organism, every rock, every cloud, every drop of water, even the vast emptiness of deep space, is part of a single, universal whole.

And that, when we come face to face with whatever life may throw at us, the only thing we have to fear is failing to understand its place in that sacred reality.

THE FIRST WORD – Death by Rote

(PART ONE OF TWO PARTS)

MURDER BY ROTE
Looking out at the audience—200 or so of my schoolmates and teachers—I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. My self-consciousness was reprieved, at least for a few minutes, by our standing for Men of Harlech, one of the traditional, “manly” songs we sang every day at morning assembly. Just another device for molding us preppies into proper young men.

Onward! 'tis the country needs us,
He is bravest, he who leads us
Honor's self now proudly heads us… 

About halfway through the rousing lyrics, the anxiety that had been resting a foot on my chest stepped on with both feet as I realized that my speech was coming up next on the program.

The anxiety that had been resting a foot on my 
chest stepped on with both feet...

The Smith Cup Competition involved speaking in front of an audience. First-round speeches, delivered to just your English teacher and ten or fifteen classmates, were mandatory for all students. Contestants could either write their own speeches or borrow something from literature, sports or entertainment; the point was it had to be memorized and delivered without notes.

My speech had survived the first round, and here I was in the semi-finals, along with two other contestants that day, about to speak in front of the whole school.

DEATH SENTENCE
The onset of fear is a fascinating experience. If it’s the kind you get to think about for a while, your vision—in fact, all your awareness—narrows. You lose sight of those around you; time grinds along in slow motion, counting down to your doom.

Even more distressing, your ability to place your situation into perspective vanishes. To say your predicament becomes the most important thing in the world would be an understatement; it’s the only thing.

That was my state of mind when the headmaster, Mr. Reed, introduced the first speaker. I tried to at least look like I was paying attention to my opponent, but the storm brewing in my psyche wasn’t about to be put off. The other kid’s words sounded like he was mumbling them down a very deep hole…and I was at the bottom.

I prayed something would come to me; it didn’t.

I’d watched helplessly as my state of mind had withered from concern to dread, and then to utter terror. I was now so consumed by my fear that, my God, I have no idea what the first—or any—words of my speech are! And—that’s right—I have no notes!

I could barely hear the applause for the first contestant above the shrieking of my panic. He bowed stiffly and sat down, turning to look at me, all self-satisfied, just as Mr. Reed stood and pronounced my death sentence: “And now, our second semi-finalist, Jeffrey Willius, will deliver his original speech, 'Water, Our Most Precious Resource.'”

My brain flailed for a clue to how my speech began, or for even something I could say off the cuff. About then, I would have settled for the ABC song if it, too, hadn’t eluded me. I walked as slowly to the lectern as I could without drawing any more attention to my plight (as if that were possible). I prayed something would come to me; it didn’t.

END OF THE END
Have you ever studied someone who’s terrified? There are several clues: the tortured body language, the pale, drawn expression, the copious sweating. But the biggest give-away is the Adam’s apple. Mine pumped in vain for the slightest trace of saliva, in syncopation, it seemed, with my pounding heartbeat.

So there I stood, in front of all my schoolmates and all my teachers. The floor was mine. I imagined 200 sets of drumming fingers, impatient sighs and, worst of all, guys turning to one another and whispering “What a loser!”

The good news was that I finally thought of something to say. The bad news? It was the very 
end of my speech.

The good news was that, after what seemed like a full minute of that sticky silence, I finally thought of something to say. The bad news? It was the very end of my speech.

“So, in conclusion, clean, potable water is…gulp…will be the central challenge of the coming century. What can I, what can all of us, do to make sure…”

At last, my ordeal came to an end…no beginning or middle, but at least an end. My friends and teachers were kind enough not to make light of the new record I’d set for the Smith Cup’s shortest speech. But sometimes even silence cuts deep.

(CLICK HERE FOR PART TWO)

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Tips

TIP #13

Find Your Core.

Too much of life occurs at the margins—those rough spots where we chafe against obligation, assumption, expectation, fear.

So how do you find your sacred center, that place where all time is now? Go where your heart leads; it alone knows the way.

TEARS FOR FEARS – One Kid's Favorite Halloween

BOO-O-O-O-O!

It says a lot about our way of life, don't you think, that we have to manufacture our own fear. Most of us, our lives free of any real threat, are fortunate to be able celebrate and have fun with fear each October. In that guise, fear lets us revisit childhood, when wonder would turn to horror and then to delight.

My wife's an elementary school teacher. Halloween is her favorite holiday. While her kids were growing up, she delighted in welcoming all the little mermaids, vampires, princesses and Jedi knights at the door of her spookily decorated suburban home. She'd remove the screen/ storm window panel of the outer door so she could pass the goodies right through to the eager little hands, bags and plastic pumpkins.

    The poor little guy lurched backward 
    as if someone had just yanked on a tether 
    tied around his shoulders.

 
I'm not sure Sally realized it, but taking out that panel from the door also served to frame her striking persona each time she swung open the inner door. You see, Sally was also a drama teacher, well versed in makeup. And she made herself into the most convincing witch you've ever seen. She built up her nose and chin into menacing juts, complete with grisly, hairy moles. She gave her skin that greenish, waxy cast, and wore a flowing, solid black gown and fantastic pointed hat. And then there was the voice.

One of her favorite stories from all those Halloweens is that of a little boy who could barely reach the doorbell. He was dressed as a snowman, realistically padded from head to toe. His parents waited for him at the foot of the driveway as he waddled up the seven concrete steps to the door.

Sally was concerned the moment he caught sight of her. The poor little guy lurched backward as if someone had just yanked on a tether tied around his shoulders. Sally quit her screechy witch voice to reassure him, but the damage was already done. "It's okay", she said, holding out the huge bowl of candy to him. He stepped back still further, now just a step away from the stairs behind him.

Sally realized it was no longer about fun, but saving the kid from real harm. So she did what anyone would do; she dropped the bowl and lunged forward, right through that large frame in the door, hands flailing, grasping for some of that white fleece and padding.

Frosty bounced three times before rolling to a stop at the feet of his parents, who'd sprinted up from the street.

He was fine, and he got his treat. But I guarantee you, that young man—by now a thirty-something—still talks about that Halloween.

May you have such a memorable Halloween!