I took this photo Tuesday evening, around 8 PM. The streets were quiet and the buildings were washed in the same green light—two neighbors, one devoted to finance, the other to performance.

On the left (taller of the two) is the Associated Bank River Center; on the right is the Marcus Performing Arts Center, which I still call the PAC, as it was known prior to 1994, when the Marcus Corporation (local entertainment/hospitality juggernaught) made a sizable donation in honor of its founder, Ben Marcus—hence the name that’s stuck ever since.

The performing arts center shimmers with shifting hues at night—bathed in red and orange one minute, light and dark shades of blue the next—while the bank traces its rooflines in steady neon green. Most of the time, anyway. Check out the glimmering, flickering white lights from last night. Don’t know what that was about; never seen it before.

That shade of green in my Tuesday night photo can mean so many things—growth and renewal, envy and money, permission to go. I thought about titling this post “The Green Light,” something Gatsbyesque, but it didn’t really seem to fit. There’s something sad and pathetic about Gatsby’s longing gazes across the bay toward that green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. I mean it works in the novel, but still, it’s sad and pathetic. (EDITORIAL COMMENTARY: Don’t waste your life on a dream that was never worthy of you anyway!)

Mostly, I just liked the colors in the photo. As I mentioned, the PAC lighting is constantly shifting palettes, and only some of its shades really hit for me. There’s a purple-lavender combination I love, and I often like the blues you see in the video. But as you can also see in the video with the flashing white lights, the PAC’s changing tones really need the complementary green lines of the bank building to achieve their full impact.

That’s why, when I saw those “Emerald City” greens earlier this week, especially set against the darkness like gems nestled in a jewelry box lined with black velvet, I felt compelled to capture the image. The colors seemed almost too alive in their intensity, calling to mind cinema’s associations with the supernatural—as if the city were dreaming in the language of ghosts, its memories flickering green against the dark.

[UPDATE — That last sentence is so super dramatic that I almost expect it to be followed by: “And so we beat on, boats against the current,” etc. 😂]