Alecia Beth Moore (A World of Color, Day Ten)

Note: This is the last of 10 parts in a series of posts titled A World of Color. You can read the previous posts here: Introduction, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Black, and White.



Ok, we're at the final post of this series which, I trust, has been enjoyable for each of you who has read it. It's been a hectic couple weeks for me, so I didn't quite get the posts out daily. But, I have plodded on through, and as far as I can tell, I'm not dead, so let's get the party started (though if I were dead, I suppose I would be the last to know)....

Pink is, I suppose, fairly closely linked to red (created by mixing red with white), but I had enough pictures and have enjoyed hunting down these color-coordinated selections, so I figured I'd round off the series with the color that most girls love, regardless of their gender. I'm sure each of us has seen a family portrait in which the little girl is wearing some beautiful "pretty in pink" dress....no, wait, I'm getting that confused with the outfit the drag queen was wearing at Sidetrack the other night (there are some stupid girls that end up at that bar).

The word "pink" was not coined until the 1800's. It most likely originates as a descriptive name for certain flowering plants of the genus Dianthus. Their flowers appeard to have been "clipped" with pinking shears, thus the name's development. Pink is soft and friendly, like bubble gum and cotton candy.

If I can go on a little side trail for a moment.... Cotton candy and I have a love/hate relationship. I see cotton candy, and I know there will be trouble. By the time I pass the stand, I have the cotton candy in my hand. We begin to have a conversation:

I tell the cotton candy, "I don't know why I buy you when I know you make me sick."

Just like a pill, the cotton candy (always complaining that it is missundaztood) says, "But you know you can't take me home. You should eat me now."

I retort, "There you go! That's exactly the kind of thinking I will regret in tonight when I want to sleep but can't because I am wired from all that sugar." (I'm convinced that nobody knows what cotton candy is actually made from; it certainly isn't natural. About the only natural pink food I can think of would be something like a grapefruit or marmalade).

Pink is not really related to many things negative, with a notable exception being its occasional use to perpetuate a sexist stereotype of women as being weak (large amounts of pink can actually cause physical weakness in a person, researchers believe....who knew?). It is used in diet therapy to help relax a person and to suppress appetite. In Japan, adult entertainment is sometimes referred to as "pink movies" and pink in general is associated there with sexuality (you'll never look at cherry blossoms the same way again).

Pink (being a watered-down version of red) has been used to criticize those with watered-down socialist/communist tendencies (referred to a generation ago in America, during the era of Joseph McCarthy, as "pinkos"). During that same time, the "pink scare" referred to persecution of gay professors at Smith College in Massachusetts.



One amusing anecdote to close this post. This past summer, here in Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority began service on the new "Pink Line" of the CTA train system. Service on the new pink line commenced on Sunday, June 25. Somehow I don't think it is mere coincidence that June 25 was also the day of Chicago's Gay Pride Parade!

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