As the globe turns, one might wonder why the palette shrinks to fit marketing models and options of choice-reductions. The resurrection of the turntable may simply be much more than the quality- of-music debates — it might reach into choice. People may want more options in their music than streams of mass notes amalgamated into a melange of labels. There was something tactile about spinning an album, there was something visual about and album cover, there was something generous about sharing a new favorite tune with your friends and there is something magical in the stacks of discs designed for hoarding. The visual feast is that even turntables have turned to choosing blushing colours.
In the Zurich shop windows colour dances in every consumer offering. It appears that independent retailers have painted their inventories with rich pallets that would make every big box go a bland brown with corrugated envy. The textiles, the consumer goods, the window displays and the hint of more to come promise that a change is in the wind. A return to customer choice and a turn toward the richness of the created pallet.
Along the banks of the Limmat River, behind the cathedral there is a statue, bronze, that commemorates the changes launched by the Reformation. Historians have and will argue that this change launched an intellectual and spiritual reformation in the world. Yet, here on the streets, life is a constant turn toward a normative spiritual connection. There is a pragmatic drive to turn away from the vacant ornamentation imposed by history and tradition. There is an aesthetic drive to preserve the contributions of prior peoples seen in the remembrances of Charlemagne, the monastic orders and other historical remembrances. There is a vigorous drive to eliminate unnecessary food packaging, locate food stores near railway lines and promote social values in food distribution. Each historical turn marked by action. For an often proclaimed neutral country they have certainly turned the tables on the definition neutral and declared that being colorful requires taking sides.
