One more overworked word like "curate" and I am going into meltdown

Oh and here's another thing…. having moaned on about pop-ups ages ago, I now (ONLY now) remember the other word - sometimes connected with pop-ups - that I have come to loathe, in its manifold mis-uses, more than any other.

That word is the verb, to curate. What I hate is that it is now used quite, it seems to me, thoughtlessly,  as a way of adding a bit of cultural heft to any old rubbish. (note to self: is not "heft" another of those words you should really not like? ed.) (note to ed, or to the note-maker: Look here! You are probably right but give a recovering journalist a fucking chance, won't you!?)

Ok, back to curate. I might as well say I am curating this blog, or  even worse, I am curating these silly little words and sentences and paragraphs that I am typing onto a little window on a little screen on a 13in MacBook.  Yes, just the same. Just like a dear old shepherd up on the Welsh Hills is curating his bloody sheep.

Back in the 20th century, a curator worked for a  museum or art gallery, and had the job of organising the exhibits. The aim of any curator was first to make sure the exhibits were safe (to curate, from curare, to care for), that they were presented in the best possible way so that the audience could  enjoy them, understand them, and understand their place in the history of art or whatever.

A really good curator could do much more than that - it was certainly an art-form and I am not arguing against the importance of the people who bring things together, display art and artefacts to enrich all our lives.

But at some point in the early 21st century - probably in London or New York - the word began to be used interchangeably with "editor" or "organiser" or "director". So that when it came to be Jarvis Cocker's turn to choose the musicians to play at that year's Meltdown Festival on London's Southbank Centre, he was described as the person "curating" this event.

That was ok for that moment - I mean, it was a fair  metaphor for the job in hand. The Meltdown festival was all about re-discovering treasures from the vaults of popular music, dusting them down a bit and bringing them to one of the stages. You could see it was a bit like organising Tutankamen at the British Museum.

Sadly, though, the word went ballistic, to the extent that club DJs would suddenly be curating deep Chicago house nights or whatever, while other long-in-the-tooth pop musicians or even pop critics would "curate" special editions of of Saturday colour supplements, and so on.

Even worse, with the rise of  easier-than-breathing blogger sites such as tumblr, every single solitary art student or would be art student is suddenly the curator of their own online art/photography/fashion/ or whatever gallery.

The sad truth being that while one or perhaps less than one percent of tumblr blogs are marvellous, imaginative, original, sparked on by the true genius of the curatorial inspiration, most are not.

So today, I was reminded of all this reading an article in a free magazine whose main aim is to promote local businesses in order to raise local property prices. You know the sort of mag that gets stuffed through every London letterbox?

Here's the quote:  "There are so many lovely boutiques in the Fulham area, but my favourite must be (name deleted) on the Kings Road,  because they have a real talent curating merchandise to suit their customer's (sic) need."

Yes, well, indeed. Personally, I am well impressed by the curatorial skills of the manageress of my local Save the Children Charity Shop on Clapham High Street. It is superb. Seriously.

Why won't 'pop-ups' lie down and die?

Every day, a new one, a word or phrase that has become hideous, repulsive, vomit-inducing, tedious, or just plain boring, its meaning now perverted or worn-away,  thanks to its over-use or abuse for nefarious profit-hungry motives,  or simply thanks to the objectionable way it is being used or abused:

Today's worn-out word or phrase that hit that spot: "pop-up"

Six or seven years ago, there was suddenly talk of pop-up shops. For example, a sale of street artists' work,  including Banksies, in an empty clothes shop on Oxford Street, or someone flogging pulled-pork sandwiches to hungry clubbers in Shoreditch or hand-crafted cup-cakes somewhere in Bethnal Green. Whether or not it started in East London, this was the zone that jumped on, over-supplied and over-flogged the pop-up concept.

So we had years of pop-up art galleries, pop-up theatre or cinema, and for a while it was fun.

Then, come 2009, it became stale, at exactly the point  all the advertising agencies and marketing geeks and brand-builders and media bullies realised that "pop-up" was where the money went. From being stale, pop-up quickly became rancid, it started to stink.

And now middle-aged couples in Lincolnshire are visiting pop-up coffee shops in half-empty shopping malls. BBC Radio 4  has Pop-up Ideas. 


Pop-up is dead, but it will not lie down.

It keeps popping up, more and more, and is now more annoyingly popping-up than any of the ghastly Punch and Judy pop-up puppets.

Please, if you are tempted to join this battalion (or shooting gallery, or fusillade?) of popping-up people, just reconsider, or think of a new and better way to describe what you are doing.

Like, temporary, or short term. Short-let, squatted, alternative, hippie, punk, slacker, occasional, one-off, etc.

Flash-in-the-fucking-pan, perhaps.

A surprise!

A Mushroom mushroom stall  - it just pops up occasionally. Shrooms all round for that.

Pop-down?

Pop-but-pop-very-softly so-as-not-to-wake-the-old-people-next-door?

Pop out to pull a nice young man with a a lovely co-star hair-do?

Pop, pops? Poppy? What, opium poppy? Is it all a drugs conspiracy?

We should be told! We must be the first to know! We will pop your bleeding weasel, mate! matey!


So  - is a pop-up an expired quantity?

Yay!

Or, Nay!

Or possibly - Neigh!

Answers on a post-it. Note.