"Sprinkle the fairy dust of high-sounding words over the ungainly contours of something quite ordinary, and you may be able to transform it into something special..."

"... in the way that a gentle snowfall can turn an ugly tool shed into a dreamy cottage, inhabited by elves. Even if you are running a thrift shop—and yes, it is not hard to find proprietors of thrift shops who identify themselves as 'curators' of their establishments—you too can boast that your shop’s contents are 'thoughtfully curated.' That sounds a whole lot better than saying 'We don’t take used underwear or stuff that has holes in it.' But there is a lot to be said for respecting and loving ordinary things on their own terms, seeing that they are beautiful even without makeup, rather than always trying to tart them up into something grand and gilded."

From "Curate" by Wilfred M. McClay in The Hedgehog Review, via Arts & Letters Daily.