Sakai’s Update Has Me Seeing Yellow

It’s yellow. And not just any yellow, it’s Rold Gold pretzel bag, crosswalk stripe, yield sign yellow. Heinz mustard, rubber ducky, Yellow Line out to Skokie. Yellow. 

Sakai, of course, underwent a moderate transformation over winter break. Along with a new color, the class pages moved from their perch high above the general workspace to a left-hand sidebar, The Phoenix reported. 

A color can make or break the feng shui of just about anything. William H. Gass and Maggie Nelson embarked on separate explorations of the color blue — not yellow — in their books “On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry” and “Bluets,” respectively. Blue is a kaleidoscope of feeling for the two — a symbol of loneliness and interiority. 

Yellow, I believe, holds the same depth blue does. Across its shades and hues one can find any number of emotions, from the kind of warm happiness springing outward from your chest to a deep, aching feeling of discomfort. 

Stars shine yellow in the form of stickers, garlands and ornaments. The sun beats down golden rays in the summer and cruel beams in the winter, coating grass and snow in the same pale glitter. 

Dandelions are yellow, baby ducks are yellow, Sakai’s little details and minor edifices used to be yellow. How would we know where to cross the street or when to yield if big yellow signs weren’t erected to remind us where and when to? 

Yellow is also, however, the undertone of that strange beige paint walling off the classrooms in the basement of the School of Communications — a certain sickly chickadee color that has no natural mirror. 

Such a bold, bright yellow splashed up on the front page of one of life’s crueler mistresses — Sakai — elicits the same feeling as looking at a poisonous beetle. Such colors, naturally occurring, remind larger animals that certain creatures simply shouldn’t be eaten. 

Red touches yellow, kill a fellow. Red touches black, friend of Jack. 

Maybe it’s a subtle sign we should all chill out, resist the poison pill and fill our days with something more fulfilling than Sakai. Or maybe it’s meant to strike a fear subtle enough that students feel more compelled to do their homework. 

But it’s yellow. Like a blooming daffodil. Like a wasp.