I’ve been reading about blogs lately and keep running across experts who say don’t use a black background with white letters for your blog. “They” (?) say it’s too hard to read. The reader’s eyes will get tired. Oh please (a cliché out of style saying that I’m not really sure exactly what it means. Please who? The literary police? The slang police? Some obscure word fashionista whose, for no particular good reason, Twitter post determines what’s in and what’s out word wise? But it seems right.) I like the black background with white and orange (a bonus!) letters. If you can’t read 6 or 7 hundred words without getting tired eyes you need to go to bed earlier or get a $1 pair of reading glasses from the Dollar Store. Are you really not going to read a blog, at least once, because it’s in black and white? So, unless I get universal comments, Facebook postings, and e-mails begging me to change it, the black stays. At least till after Halloween.
And speaking of the black is beautiful you were probably thinking I meant – Hallie Berry or Beyoncé’ or Ginny Ralston (tenth grade – Oh man!) Or Denzil Washington or Blair Underwood if your interest swings that way. ‘Nuff said? Check out Abagond.wordpress.com .
The little black dress.
That dress may lead you to blissfully shooting stars among the rainbows, or into the black agony of darkness. Depends on who’s wearing it, why they’re wearing it and how much you’ve had to drink/smoke/sniff. Bad things hide in the beautiful blackness. Vampires, except maybe the sparkly ones, hide in the dark. Werewolves come out at night. Evil, human and supernatural, finds the darkness beautiful for that’s when they come out to play and prey. What’s your little black dress for?
Without blackness we wouldn’t have starry skies, or romantic moonlit nights, vamps and weres notwithstanding, or the excitement of neon lit streets on a warm summer night. No campfires with marshmallows and scary stories. No way to experience the phosphorescence of fish in tropical waters. Or…?
And No reason to wear that little black dress. Or the tuxedo that goes with it. Sigh.
IDEAS
I’m reading The Measure of the Magic by Terry Brooks. It’s connected to his Running with Demons trilogy which are some of my favorite books. In this story a character loses his/her ability to see colors. All is black, white or shades of grey. I think black would become much more beautiful because its contrast with white would be much more important. What if you lost that ability. How would you cope? How would it affect your life? See below.
What if you landed on a screwed up planet where all the people had the same features, but they were different colors and (this is weird) some colors didn’t like some other colors. Imagine that! And there were strict customs about which colors one was allowed to associate with. And then you come along, and because you had to pass through a radiation cloud to escape slavers chasing you for the harem you were transporting for the Rajha of Ikart you can’t see colors anymore. How would you get along by associating with people of every color? Some colors wouldn’t like it, some would. If you survived, maybe you would leave the world a little more tolerant place, or a total uninhabited wasteland. Your choice.
What if you crash landed on a planet with no sun? Except for sparse starlight all was black. There might be life there. Maybe plants that evolved to not need sunlight to grow. Some animals. If you weren’t rescued for years, how would you survive in the dark? Would your eyes adapt to the blackness? If your space ship survived mostly intact, how would the light from it affect the local wildlife. Attract it? Repel it? If there were sentient beings there would they think you a god, or a devil?
What if you were invisible during the day? At night you were sharp and defined and beautiful. But in daylight you were totally invisible to all. Still substantial, but invisible. A criminal’s dream. But during a walk-in bank robbery you saw a woman/man. You followed them later. Met them at night, fell in love. A night-time romance is only going to last so long. You have to tell them, show them, your secret some time. No lies, isn’t that what they always say? How will they take it? Think it’s cool? Think you’re a freak or liar and walk out? Call the Police? You definitely don’t want the government to get hold of you. If they want to leave, can you let them leave, or do you love them too much to let them go? Once you tell your secret, how will it end? A happy night-time/kinky daytime lover ending (Would your children be invisible?) or a heartbreaking drag you to the ugliest, blackest depths of despair kind of ending? What’s in your black heart?
What if you were in a totally dark sensory deprivation chamber to relax and let your cares waft away? What if there was something in there with you?
Soothing, scary, sexy, secret, beautiful, ugly, agony, ecstasy – black is what you make it. What would you do if you had your choice?