Are You Wrong for The Moment?
There’s an art to great curating. It’s an art I’m aspiring to be great at and I fashion myself well on my way. I think in fancy writing situations people say it’s part science, part art. I think it’s a very small part science. Turns out, magic can’t be relegated to a set of time tested codes and research. Magic has to be magic. You have to practice science, study science and honor all of that research as you make your way towards being a good curator of something. . .but it’s all a wash if you can’t embrace the magic. The people I’ve had the worst chemistry with in the world of music performance and radio are the people who pretend that it is a knowable, explainable, measurable and quantifiable portion of the world. It simply is not. Music has a magic that refuses to be predictable and refuses to be fully explained by anything algorithm. This is not me eschewing algorithm. When Spotify hits me with Rhapsody right after Little Brother and then a late era De La Soul song, clearly that experience is algorithmically supported. But when Radio K hits me with a heavy haunting Boris jam at 8:06am right after the final kid is dropped off and the Jojo Siwa phone is disconnected, that is magic. I need it all.
But, I have me people who have good hearts but are plugged in wrong for the moment. These are people who want to play a comedy album when everyone is picking out songs at a cabin, people who randomly ask someone about their parents for the first time in months a mere matter of days after one of those parents died. These are people who think that trying their new Cantonese noodle recipe they just saw that morning in the NY Times is just the right dinner plan for the last night up North. There are right people, who are wrong for moments. They pick a weird movie, and not a fun weird movie, just a weird one. When they dial it up on a streaming service they tell you you’ll love it and you know you won’t. Pick a loud song when you need a quiet song. Pick a normal ass coffee shop when you need a weird one. Maybe this happens with wine too. But there’s people who can’t put their spirit and their drive into rhythm with the feel of the moment, with the immediate needs of the room. May God have mercy on those people. . .cause I won’t.