If we were to name the colour of the walls...
Pause briefly, and imagine a world without colour. You can unpause now, you will be happy to know (we aren’t in the habit of eternally wedging our enemies into their minds). A world without colour is a significantly unsettling thought (unless you are diagnosed with the rare achromatopsia, that is), as shape and form can do only so much to contribute to the extraordinary aspects of our lives. Colour is, indeed, the lyrical thrum of the visual world. Barstow, creeping along this furrow of thought, repainted the previously emotionless light brown walls a profoundly ambiguous green.
Most faculty and students have been incredibly complimentary of the painting that transpired during the summer months. Truly, the maintenance staff did incredible work to brighten our halls!
Colours, like people, are almost always crowned with names. Whether it be austere ‘yellows’ or romantic ‘moon mists’, without names, differentiating between separate entities is just about impossible (see Did the Ancient Greeks See Blue Like We Do?). Consider a world where no one has a name; without names, are we truly individuals? Similarly, if colours didn’t have names, how would we perceive the world?
Oscar Wilde, a famous fellow with funny hair, remarked that “it is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.” Mr. Wilde was a kindly man, but was certainly never introduced to the colour sample aisle at Home Depot. Colours, in particular, have protected the lovely names of yesteryear from being swept up by the humdrum of suburban level-headedness.
Naming things also happens to be a scientifically proven way to conjure up happiness! David Rock, some psychologist we B-Liners have never heard of, said that, “when you experience significant internal tension and anxiety, you can reduce stress by up to 50% by simply noticing and naming your state.” If 50% of our stress is frightened away by the naming of some dumb emotion, then imagine how much of our stress would absquatulate into nullity by the naming of a lordly tint of light?
Bearing all of that in mind, what kind of ethereal name ought we bestow upon the green who surreptitiously snuck into our lives? Welly, we have conveniently polled the Barstow upper school for ideas!
As you can very well see, the Barstow community is a jolly good bunch of prisoners (see INCARCERATION INSTITUTION) with broad, brilliant minds (see SOLITARY CONFINEMENT and CHAD) and an assuredly accurate perception of their surroundings (see NEPOTISM GREEN and AN ATTEMPT TO BRING BACK THE OLD GREEN COLOR). Barstow is also a tad bit colour blind (see BROWN MAYONNAISE and CAPITAL PUNISHMENT GRAY), but, righty-ho, that’s okay.
There is enough crisply-coloured wall space at Barstow for each bit of wall to go by a different name- as it is, identical twins have different names, even though they look alike. We could greet WOOD SPRITE’S WAILS in the Upper School Commons and hullo VOMIT VERDE near the Chinese classroom. That does sort of defeat the point of naming a color, though, if each square inch has a different name. We would probably be better off settling on one. We at B-Line are objection observers, though, so the settling, honeybuckets, is entirely up to you.
For reference, the actual colors are Rock Garden (Green) and Allegory (Gray).
