On not seeing red

As I’ve already mentioned I live in the grayest of neighbourhoods. For example..

It seems as though a competition began years ago, to create the least exciting exterior, and if you missed it, no worries, a front runner has yet to emerge. Its much too close too call at this point or perhaps we should say in this race to the bottom, everyone might be a winner. Except for the owners of that house in the centre, the pale yellow one, the one so wild and crazy considering the environs.

It does seem that when I walk around the only deep and strong colours I do see are some of those deep rich browns resembling wood. But primary colours? When you do see yellows, reds, blues and greens, they are most often rather pale or if brighter, a pastel of sorts (and I will collect these and post some later). But nothing like below, which are among the photos my brother took on a recent trip to Playa del Carmen in Mexico.

or this one:

Yes, it is a tropical country, a Latin country but should that matter? Anybody walking by these buildings feels a lifting of the spirit, a spring in the step which takes you right into happy hour where you celebrate these walls with every toast whereas here you are more likely to keep drinking just to blunt the senses for the visually stunting walk home.

Of course, these are generalizations; there is some colour here and there are certainly some boring streetscapes down there but the point is that in general they are miles ahead of us when it comes to understanding that simply by using a bit of paint, life gets a little better.

Even Warsaw makes us look pretty sad in this respect, not that they don’t have those dismal Soviet concrete block flats of ennui as well:

And it is much too depressing to bring Barcelona into the discussion:

Think I’m wrong on this? Send me pictures and I’ll put some up. Let’s advertise the bright spots in this town. As I gather them I will post, as well as those examples of half hearted colour. I still think this general drabness is because people think less about their own living experience, the years they will spend in their house out of tune with their own surroundings, than they do of the hypothetical fickleness of potential owners.