Zoom for Squares

In the early phase of the (ongoing) coronavirus pandemic, we weren't doing too much in the way of in-person events (and rightly so).  One such in-person activity that I dearly missed was blues dancing. Every Wednesday that I was able, for the better part of just over eight years, I went to La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley and danced a few hours of the night away at Beat the Blues. Like a lot of things, Beat the Blues came to screeching halt in March 2020. About a month later, foolishly thinking that we'd be back to (the ordinary dysfunction we were accustomed to calling) "normal" soon enough, I decided to host a stopgap of sorts for the meantime. Thus, Zoom for Squares was born. 

In the same time slot when Beat the Blues would and should have been—9 PM to 11 PM Wednesday nights—I played the blues music I should have been moving to at La Peña and invited my compatriots to join me via Zoom. That first Wednesday was just the two hours; starting with the following Wednesday evening, I added another hour at 8PM to accommodate the hip-hop and more contemporary rhythm n' blues (et cetera) that was as danceable as the music in the two main hours but had its own vibe. A few Wednesdays after that, I started doing "pregame" and "postgame" shows (mostly to honor musical birthdays or recent passings with non-danceable music, but the messaging was less-than-subtle with regard to, say, Black History Month). I didn't have many hard-and-fast rules, but I did have one: no repeats. So apart from a few slip-ups (seven or so, I think?), I didn't play any tracks twice apart from the snippet of a Jay & (pre-lapsarian) Kanye song I adopted as a theme song for this weekly "show." 

Somehow, I managed to keep this going for 53 straight Wednesdays—a whole year's worth. During the early part of the pandemic, some people learned to bake bread at home or took up painting; I pretended to be a DJ for a year.

(Below, you can find links to the material for each week. Updates pending...)