highlight-parentheses minor mode hack which is found here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2413047/can-emacs-color-different-levels-of-matching-parentheses-w

highlight-parentheses minor mode hack which is found here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2413047/can-emacs-color-different-levels-of-matching-parentheses-with-a-rainbow-of-differ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2413047/can-emacs-color-d... seems to me like the best solution so far. It only applies "rainbow parens" to the parentheses and parents parentheses of the s-expressions at the cursor.