I really try to keep things short.
Like really, really.
Short.
But on occasion, I tend to journey outside the lines. Anywho, this is my last college piece I swear. One semester, our teacher asked us all to start a blog. I couldn’t pin my topic down for the life of me, but for whatever reason was fascinated about diving into the world of color. So, I turned my obsession with Pantone into a never ending rant about the history of each color. I really didn’t think much of these posts, but they ended up attracting a lot of attention … and I think are a large part of what helped me land my first gig in advertising. That being said, I continue to feature them for good luck—fingers crossed.
Purple, Oh Boy!
That’s right. You read it, and I said it! PURPLE. PURRRRRPLE.
Emphasis on the purrrrrr, if you didn’t quite catch that already, but I’m sure you did because you’re a smart cookie and I trust you.
Because you are an awesome you, and I like you, I’ll tell you that there is only one show worth watching on Netflix...everything else is a waste of time and a pathetic use of emotion.
What is this holy show I speak of you may ask?
Well it’s a good thing you asked, because there is nothing I love more than this show, in fact, if I weren’t on a student budget I’d proudly sponsor the next ten seasons of this show. It’s a great show! Really is.
Alright alright, I’m getting carried away here.
The show is called, Grace and Frankie and it’s FANTASTIC! You may have seen it already, but if you haven’t, I highly recommend you start watching it immediately and burn the rest of the shows on your feed.
Grace and Frankie tells a story of two women who move in together after their husbands fall in love with one another.
Grace and Frankie couldn’t be any more different; Grace Hanson, played by Jane Fonda, is an uptight, retired, conservative businesswoman, and Frankie Bergstein, played by Lily Tomlin, is an old, bougie hippie who still lives like it’s the summer of 1969.
As they spend more days together, in their beautiful San Diego beach house, Grace and Frankie stumble into designing a new, violet purple vibrator for senior women, all while they parent their adult children and eat unearthly amounts of Del Taco.
The evolution of the Ménage à Moi, aka the purple vibrator shocked Grace, Frankie, and all of their friends and family.
Unfortunately, the history of the color purple isn’t as exciting as purchasing a purple vibrator, that is sometimes shipped with free doughnuts, baked by two elderly women living in a beach house.
Unlike the colors black and white, there are many different shades of purple which all relate to meanings of royalty, power, spirituality, creativity, sensitivity, and devotion, and yadayadyayada.
There’s also something about purple and the church and something called Lent too, but I’ve said enough about churches and I’m getting bored and hella tired.
Perhaps the most interesting fact I’ve gathered about the color purple, before writing this post, is the origin of the color. The color purple actually came from a dye made from the mucus glands of tropical sea snails, but I don’t know if that is as interesting as much as it is gross. I guess vibrators can be gross too.
Oh Jesus. How did I get into this boring purple mess?
Purple is supposedddddd to be calming, I read that too.
SO BREATHE BABY BREATHE!
Okay I’m back, is this getting weird? When can I fly?
Oh! There’s also a purple called heliotrope, and it’s also the name of the purple flowers that know how to follow the sun as it moves through the sky.
WOWZA! That is pretty cool, YOU GO HELIOTROPE YOU, show them your moves! I think I’m flying.
On a sad note, heliotrope is also the purple that signifies devotion, it was one of the few colors women were allowed to wear to mourn the death of a loved one during the Victorian era. Tear, tear. Sniffle wiffle.
Bow wow Pikachu I think I see you, I wish your were purple too! LOL.
Now let’s journey back down to the San Diego sand with Grace Hanson and Frankie Bergstein. and sure, grab some Delllll Tacoooo and maybe a doughnut or twoooooo. The waves are a crashin! Come on baby light that fire!!
Oh and for the love of God! Please pass the peyote because I’m afraid I may be getting dull.
Smiley face, winky face, purple heart, purple heart, another purple heart, fist bump, prayer hands.
MIC DROP, BREAUNA OUT. Namaste.
St. Patrick’s Day Green Used to be Blue
The leprechauns never say much about anyone named Kelly.
No not at all because they were obsessed with St.Patrick and used to wear his favorite shade of blue. Now the leprechauns are too damn busy chatting up a storm and looking for all of the gold they’ll probably never find at the end of a rainbow.
While the leprechauns continue their hunt, the rest of the world, especially Irish Americans, like myself and the rest of my Irish ancestors, flaunt their Irish pride on St.Patrick’s Day.
Good ole’ St.Paddy’s Day it falls on the 17th day of March...the same day St.Patrick died. Sometimes the 17th day is on a Tuesday, but this year it falls on Sunday...the good ole’ “Holy” Day—also the day before the one we tend to dread the most, and I really don’t know why???
Anyways, back to the more important story about St. PADDY. No matter the day of the week St.Patrick’s Day falls on, we always dress ourselves up in a spring-green color called Kelly green, drink cold beer, and hang shamrocks wherever we can.
The White House even dies their fountain water green to celebrate a man named St.Patrick who used to tend to Ireland’s sheep years ago.
But before the lad finally broke away from the furry things, he decided to convince the rest of Ireland to change their religious beliefs.
He started with a letter, it was long, but began with a simple introduction, it stated:
“My name is Patrick. I am sinner, a simple countryman and the least of all believers.”
His message caught their attention, but it did not go over too well with pagan Ireland.
St.Patrick’s introduction infuriated the Irish so much so that the Irish raiders decided to capture and enslave him which is what led him to the sheep in the first place.
Years after convincing the Irish, St. Patrick became a missionary who worked to convert all of Ireland to Christianity. He did so through explaining the Holy Trinity.
You know, the whole the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit tradition where you touch your forehead, your heart, your right, then left shoulder at the beginning of prayer and moments of crisis.
Kind of like what I just did a few minutes ago because I’m writing this post two hours before it’s due and I think it’s getting a little too long and I may be missing my point.
But after St.Patrick died the Irish chose to remember him by wearing blue every year on March 17th, the same shade of blue we see in stained glass windows in every church.
The blue was strong and ran for many years up until the middle of the eighteenth century when Irish loyalty shifted from blue to … you guessed it—kelly green. Because for whatever reason the blue was seen as an anti-Catholic and Irish color entirely. Weird? But no shame.
From then on we continued to dress ourselves up in kelly green so we can look like shamrocks...or maybe not, its probably just an excuse to drink more beer. I’m not sure.
Because the green has nothing to do with the beer, unless its green beer. But you get my point, probably not, but maybe so.
There’s a lot more I could say and I’ll return to edit my words, but for now I’ll quiet my Irish gab because I’m running behind and I need to look for that gold.
Peace out lads!
White on a Blank Page
I’m staring at an empty white page on my laptop screen and I have no idea what to write.
That’s a total lie, because I know exactly what to write, and there’s a lot I want to say, but I’m not sure how to start.
So the cursor continues to tease me as it blinks with pride, reminding me that I haven’t written a single word.
Also a lie.
By now I’ve written eighty words, but I wonder if any of them are actually worth reading. Should I backspace? Or try again in the morning?
Nah, I got this, so I’ll keep filling this white page, and prove you wrong little cursor...right now...not tomorrow...not in five minutes...now. They say if you wait for the perfect moment to write you’ll never write a single word, we’ve heard this many times before and I’m just as guilty of this as you are. Yes, you.
Now, I’m in luck, because I actually happen to be in my perfect moment — home alone, sitting on the ground with a fuzzy white blanket, a cup of coffee in a ceramic mug that also happens to be white, and music playing through my, you guessed it, white earbuds. So it’d kind of be silly of me to let this moment pass me by, don’t you think?
So let’s get back to the color, white, to start, white is the hardest color to make. Most colors can begin with white, but there aren’t any hues that can create pure white. Because of white’s delicate nature, it took close to one-hundred and fifty years to produce the first, usable, white paint.
This shade of white was called Titanium White, it was discovered in 1821, but finally produced in Norway during the year of 1916 and later used in the United States. Before its production, well before 1821, watercolorists produced other pigments of white that were too toxic to use and too opaque to be considered true white.
The person who finally created the Titanium White is not known, but in 1851 Herman Melville wrote about the color in his forty-second chapter of Moby Dick, he said, “...this hue, strikes more panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.” Because white is closely linked to light, most people subconsciously see the color as a connection to the divine which can automatically both inspire and cause fear in any human heart.
Even more, the majority of the news we receive via email , good or bad, is hosted by a blank white background. Sometimes what we read is a nice surprise, then other times the little white letter turns our day upside down. But the best things can also be hosted by the color white...kind of like the preview on Amazon of Moby Dick...I see it now, chapter 1: “Call me Ishmael”...black letters, white background...boy I’m hooked!
Also, when we see the color white we know we’ll have to create something new. Whether it’s a blog post, a letter, song lyrics, a painting, or some other kind of masterpiece we all begin with some sort a blank white canvas and often without much direction. No other color is as intimidating as white, because it gives little direction. The color can lead to confusion and often leaves us wondering where and how to start.
White is also a scary color to use because anything that adds to it immediately disqualifies it as pure white. Whether you drop a pinch of blue to white paint or get a dark smudge on your white pants... pure white is long gone. We say buh bye to pure white and hello something that used to be white, now you are on your way to grey...that’s cool and all, but we will miss you white and can’t wait for you return.
Don’t get me wrong, the white is still a great color, I actually love it because it is the beginning to all beginnings and can become anything we want it to be. And also, fun fact, my last name actually means “white” in Arabic...so I kind of have to like the color anyway.
Now if only I can figure out how to properly end this blog post.
HA! Seven-hundred and thirty-five words, take that you little prideful cursor. I WIN!
GOODBYE.
Brown on a Week Night
On Thursday night, I sat at German bar in the heart of Pasadena, California with a friend as we worked on editing a video for school.
She drank a brown beer and I sat on a brown bar stool. We were seated next to the door, so it was cold, dark and loud too because a rock band played in the back corner.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, they sat at long brown picnic tables which stood on rustic-brown wooden floors.
At first, I felt out of place, only because I don’t get out much and am so focused on school that I sometimes forget how to socialize and talk to the people I know; but I felt more comfortable as the music filled the room and reminded me of the things I love.
Later on, and moments before writing this post, I thought about my childhood and how much I love music. Then I remembered the late 60s, when singer-songwriter and musician, Van Morrison released a song about a girl he loved.
Through this song, Morrison recalls every Tuesday he spent singing with her and the laughs they shared under the sun. And gosh was he CRAZYYYY about her brown eyes! He loved
her eyes so much, he wrote the whole song about them. He titled the song “Brown Eyed Girl” and it became a well-known favorite ever since.
Morrison’s take on brown helped give life to a seemingly ordinary color; and with “Brown Eyed Girl”, Morrison gets everyone to celebrate the “boring” color, as they join together and sing along to its famous lyrics:
“All along the waterfall, with you my brown-eyed girl you, my brown-eyed girl.
Do you remember when we used to sing sha la la la la la la la la la la te da just like that sha la la la la la la la la la la te da”
Van Morrison believes that he’s written many other songs that are far better than “Brown Eyed Girl”, even though the rest of the world still loves every word. In fact, Morrison didn’t even give the song its title until moments after it was recorded, and actually forgot the title until he found it written on a tape, sitting on a box next to his guitar.
It’s fair to say that there really isn’t much to the color brown because on its surface, its just not that exciting. Let’s face it, brown probably wasn’t the first color you reached for from the crayon box when you were 5 years old; and you probably got bored of the brownbagged lunch you brought to school everyday.
Regardless of it’s dull nature, brown is an important color because it gives us a reason to come together, yet there isn’t even a word for brown in the Japanese language.
With the color brown, we know we’ll always have something in common. Whether we have brown eyes, brown hair, enjoy drinking brown beer, or love eating freshly baked brownies, brown makes up much of who we are and many of the things we love.
Everything, I mean everything like, coffee, pancakes, bread, nuts, hamburgers, mountains, sand, trees...well their trunks and branches, footballs, guitars, pennies, hair, horses, bears, chocolate, and or course chocolate colored labs when their puppies...it’s all some kind of brown, and we can’t get enough of them.
So brown may not be as boring as we thought, we all subconsciously love the color brown because it symbolizes warmth and stimulates our appetite. Think about every carb you know you love! Definitely not boring.
Oh! If you have brown eyes, you may like to know that your eyes are anything, but dull. Oh, and even better, when people see your wonderful brown eyes, they know that you’ll be strong, confident, determined, and most of all trustworthy. And to the ones who don’t have brown eyes, don’t worry your eyes are still as blue as the ocean and a green as a summer morning.
With Morrison’s song, we are encouraged to be proud of the colors that make up what we love and who we are. Even more, brown reminds us to look beyond the surface, with our eyes and ears, because we can always find something worth talking about.
Not a Beast, Nor a Burden
Not everything is supposed to be funny.
I made you laugh a few posts ago and I think one inspired you to think.
I think.
So tonight, you drive fast, deep into the night, far away from all that’s been.
It’s only you in the driver’s seat and you are surrounded by black. The empty space in your car. The night’s sky. Your rigid steering wheel. It’s all pitch black, and darker than a lion’s cave.
The only thing you can see is a few stars in the sky, orange lights on your dash, and the white beam from your front headlights that chase the road before you.
You roll your window down to feel the cold black air, it’s loud, so you quickly roll the window up.
I don’t think you’re mad, but I’m not sure if you’re happy either. You seem eager and hesitant, like you want to get away from where you were, but aren’t quite ready to get to where you’re going either.
The radio plays along with the thoughts in your head, it could be The Rolling Stones or something closer to John Mayer, but it really doesn’t matter, because you feel safe in this moment, wrapped around all of this black, the color of all colors.
They used to say black wasn't a color, and the same goes for white. By they, I don’t mean the leprechauns, or Moby Dick, not even the whale. No, of course not the whale.
By they, I mean the instructors who taught at art schools many years ago and artists like 18th century, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who said, “Nature knows only colors, white and black are not colors.”
Black, like white, didn’t fit in with color because it was really only a representation of light, or lack of for that matter. When we look into black, we can’t see anything and never know what looks back at us.
The truest black would reflect no light whatsoever, so much so that we wouldn’t even be able to assess it’s depth. Vantablack is currently the blackest color in the world, it was developed in England during 2014, but even that could still be darker.
Overtime we began to see black as a color, starting with an avant-garde exhibition in Paris during 1946, the exhibition opposed everything that had been taught before, it was even titled “Black is a Color”. Long since, black has become the color of fashion, mystery, and death. Black is chic and powerful; it’s symbolic of all things and their opposite.
But of all the colors, black is the most comfortable with emotion. In the darkness of black, you are free to be entirely yourself. In the darkness, you are home. With the color black, you are welcomed to feel every emotion, even at the same time; because black will never judge you, black is okay with confusion, even though it seems to be the most direct.
Everything begins and ends with the color black, just like every storm that begins and ends in the dark. The color black will always tuck you in as you lay down to sleep after crying and will wake you again in the morning.
When we lose a loved one, we wear black to help us through our grief. While we feel, black is there to comfort us through it all, kind of like the black winter coat I wore when I felt misplaced during all of the days I lived 6,000 miles away from my family.
Maybe black, and white, were never really supposed to be colors. Maybe that’s why they still stand out among the rest.
There really is no deeper feeling than black. If you are passionate about something, or someone, you’ll never be able to express it with red. If you’re crazy about something, you have to be all in, all of the time meaning, you’re willing to dive straight into the deep end, where you can feel everything at all once. Sometimes we have to feel the darkest parts, and even do, or write something bad, so we can eventually get to the better ones.
Maybe I’m going too deep with this now, but I guess that’s my comfort zone and now every word just seems like a diving board for the next.
Like I said, not everything needs to be funny, or even make sense, in fact, nothing ever needs to.