remarks on colors : grey

The quintessence of neutrality, GREY can represent either mediocrity or moderation.  Serenely lodged dead center on the color wheel, and falling midway on the value scale from black to white, grey can sometimes appear to occupy no position at all.

In our observations of the sky, dark clouds and light mists form the nebulous limits of grey.  Dawn and twilight each describe a fleeting passage.  But a grey day can seem an eternal limbo.  Grey weather can feel tedious and dull compared to the uncanny brilliance of snow and ice or the crackling drama of a summer thunderstorm.  Depending upon temperament and circumstances, the asylum of grey will either soothe or irritate our anxious souls.

Despite our best efforts with henna and hydrogen peroxide, the effects of aging on human hair has not escaped notice.  Enough at least for grey to be associated in popular culture with the geriatric set — from éminence grise to the Gray Panthers.  Since those of advancing years are generally held to take fewer risks, and since the color itself hews to a middle ground, grey has also come to be affiliated with bureaucracy and bourgeois conservatism — from “The Gray Lady”, hoary moniker for The New York Times, to The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a fifties novel about an average businessman in postwar America.

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