Belcourt Matte Umber No. 4: Zero Stars. It Knew It Was Leaving and Said Nothing.
I have been banned from seven hotels. I have been asked to leave a funeral. I once caused a controlled evacuation of a Marriott simply by existing in a corridor. None of that prepared me for the particular effrontery of Belcourt Matte Umber No. 4, a paint colour discontinued by its manufacturer sometime in the mid-aughts without so much as a press release, an apology, or a note slid under my door. It was available. Then it was not. It simply left.
I will say this for the finish: it dried flat, which is the least a paint can do, and even then it did it with the smug quiet of something that knows it will not be around to face consequences. I applied it — legally, to a surface I am permitted to paint — and stood back, and it looked at me the way Kiwi and the rest of the so-called workers at that rival rag look at me when I attempt to attend their building's open floor-plan events: with a damp, beige indifference that communicates, very clearly, that my presence has been noted and will not be accommodated.
The discontinuation, I am told, was a business decision. Of course it was. Pomelo asked me if perhaps I was reading too much into a paint colour and I had him removed from my kitchen. Belcourt Matte Umber No. 4 had character, yes — the character of something that absorbs light and gives nothing back, which is, frankly, more than can be said for the citrus cabal over at factjuice.com, who absorb facts and emit content. Zero stars. It discontinued itself before I could finish forming an opinion, and I will not forgive the timing.