I don’t mean that the intestines are unimportant.

Insides, after all, hold an organic, energetic, even erotic, value.

Think of the dramatic, moody and grand interiors of concert halls and theatres, cathedrals, high-arched train stations, swank department stores, deco movie palaces with their swishy lobbies.

Still, it’s the exterior, the skin, that joins the world.

We learn more through our eyes than through any other sense. See what I mean?

Of course, not everyone sees the same thing the same way. People have different visual vocabularies.

I choose this phrase instead of visual intelligence or visual sensitivity, phrases that seem like code for “stupid people see stupid.”

One person’s inspiring vista is another’s “What’s the big deal?”

One loves warm grey, the other says nope to taupe.

Writing objectively and without judgment, I note that some can’t stand downtown Victoria’s new and growing crop of soulless highrises that make us look like some ego-less, embarrassed, apologetic Vancouver and a sin against the singularity of this place.

Others like ‘em.

The city is littered with buildings that fail, one way or another, to meet their potential and their promise to honour their sites or surroundings.

Their hearts are not in it.

“Almost”........

© Times Colonist