Learn To Love (Rhode Island), with Micah Salkind

Micah Salkind in downtown Providence. Photo by David Santili.

Micah Salkind (he/him) has lived in Providence since he was an 18-year-old undergraduate at Brown. An arts advocate, administrator, DJ, sound designer, cultural historian, and family man, Salkind finds deep connections to Rhode Island through its people, and “the way local communities nurture creativity and social wellbeing.” We had the pleasure of learning about his journey from the midwest to the Ocean State, where he currently serves as Deputy Director of the Providence Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism.  

The Well (TW): Hey Micah. What’s on your bookshelf right now?

Micah Salkind (MS): I'm a big sci-fi and fantasy nerd and typically read three or four books at a time, toggling between and finishing them all at once. Some of my recent favorites that I've finished include Martha Wells' Witch King, Nicola Griffith's Spear, and T. Kingfisher's Nettle & Bone.

TW: You know a few years ago, Skydance got the rights to develop Seveneves. Really hoping that happens. What are some of your favorite moving-image adaptations?

MS: I never read Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life but I think Arrival is one of the best sci-fi films of all time. My partner hates time travel and even he gets into it. I’m really excited for the upcoming Apple+ adaptation of Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, but obviously we have to wait and see what happens there. As a kid, one of the first books I remember falling in love with that was technically adult fiction was Michael Chrichton’s Jurassic Park. Totally brilliant practical effects and fidelity to the science in the Spielberg adaptation. Lots of the speculative fiction I get into these days falls down harder on the fantasy side of the divide—books like Spear, Steven King’s Dark Tower series and Nettle & Bone re-work folklore in ways that are even more thought-provoking than the hardest sci-fi!

W: Wrong answer. It’s Blade Runner =) So what irons do you have in the fire right now?

MS: The Providence Commemoration Lab launches this spring and summer, and I'm celebrating my 40th birthday with a Dollar Disco at Machines with Magnets on May 10. Jackson [Micah’s DJ partner] and I will DJ, but I will also be doing shots.

TW: Happy birthday, in advance. OK, let’s say you’ve just done some shots and you hit the dance floor. 1:00 AM, warehouse or loft, etc. A run of five perfect songs come on and that blend is...?

• Isolée - Beau Mot Plage (Luke Solomon and Honey Dijon Remix)

• Jaydee - Plastic Dreams (Shadow Child Remix)

• Basement Jaxx - Rendez Vu (Marco Lys Remix)

• Alphabeat - Fantastic 6 (Radioclit Remix)

• Cajmere - Brighter Days (Cassian Remix)

Micah DJing

TW: Honey Dijon! Here, you have answered correctly. Let’s go back now—what’s your first memory of having art-feelings or like, when were the seeds planted?

MS: Two things come to mind, the first and earlier is less fully formed in my mind, but still feels seminal. I remember writing a story that became a sprawling unfinished, confused epic in fourth grade as part of a collaborative class project. It was one of those moments where someone said "Have at it," and I went out on a limb trying to make something that got away from me.

The following year our class began participating in a program called Minds to Market, which was built around the premise that you could create a product and then buy and trade each other's products. I remember making little foam-core wrestling mats and Sculpey wrestlers; trading them with other kids who made things like painted pet rocks and pom pom creatures.

TW: Now that you yourself are a father, has Sculpey reentered your life? 

MS: HA! Sculpey hasn’t made it back yet but we’re doing lots of Play Doh—my sister bought our two-year-old a Play Doh cake making set so lots of cake decorating is happening right now. We also use a lot of crayons, stickers, and washable markers. Haven’t done much with the finger paints yet. Maybe when the weather breaks :)

TW: Let’s go back up the family tree and talk about your folks a bit. 

MS: My parents are from New Jersey (dad, Newark and mom, Jersey City) but moved out to Lawrence, Kansas in the '70s so my dad could take a tenure-track job at the University of Kansas. My father worked as an academic and my mother was an arts administrator and amateur visual artist for most of my childhood. We were part of a very weird and in retrospect wonderful DIY Jewish community mainly formed by folks from the university's social work school; I played french horn in band, sang in public school and all state choirs, ran track and cross country etc. 

TW: Sounds nice. Why’d you take off?

MS: I was born there in 1984 and lived in the same house in a neighborhood near downtown, and in the company of many very nearby friends, until I left for college. Lawrence was a great place to raise a family in that it was walkable, safe, and had awesome public schools, but it was too small for me. I worked my butt off to excel academically with the idea that I'd get out of Kansas and maybe land in a place that was safer and more interesting for a queer Jewish kid.

Left to right: Micah Salkind, Chris Sha, and Andrew Marantz in 2003

TW: Can we ask some personal Qs? Brown’s expensive—how’d it happen for you? Apart from academic excellence.

MS: My dad wrote some really successful trade books when I was a teenager, the sales from which enabled my parents to send me to college at a fancy place like Brown without me being saddled by debt. I've been working since I was about 11, but I've always had a pretty significant cushion in that they owned their home and had money in the bank. 

TW: And how’s your own bank account looking these days? Again, not trying to dig too hard, but with this series we’re trying to understand the full range of ways Rhode Islanders in the arts are getting by. 

MS: Today I have a job with a salary and make about 75K a year before taxes, but I have a partner whose work makes our lifestyle possible—we wouldn't have been able to purchase our house, invest in making a family, or engage in the service and philanthropic work that we've been able to without him having been so hardworking and successful.

TW: Having some cushion, but feeling compelled to start working at age 11— very New England! You sure you’re from Kansas? What were some early gigs?

MS: My first job was delivering the weekly newspaper, Extra, that people in my hometown would get if they didn’t subscribe to the newspaper. It was mostly a glorified circular kind of like Parade and people let it just pile up on their porches, but I got a regular paycheck. I have to admit that that job was for me about learning how to work, in the same way that kids learning turn of play for tabletop gaming might start out with Candyland before trying a game that involves strategy. 

TW: When did you start work that was like, Magic the Gathering level?

MS: I was a bit older and went to work as what I’ll call a “shop boy” at a local “lifestyle store”—like a locally-owned Urban Outfitters with clothes, toys, games and gifts. I learned about work cultures: the balance of working too hard too quickly and being lazy on the job; what it's like to collaborate at work; and some of the other things about work life that are more interesting. In that job I washed windows, organized basement inventory, put price tags on products, and generally maintained order in the back of house, though I did spend some time selling on the floor later in high school and on college vacations. 

In college I had the absolute best on-campus job of being a computer lab monitor. It was basically a paid study hall with a few printer jams and I could work any hours of the day. 

Micah (right), Grade 5

TW: How about industry gigs; anything related to club culture?

MS: I had a job working promotions for Cornerstone/The Fader in college. I somehow coerced all my friends to help me with the promos and ended up getting a quite nice bonus on a couple of the projects we did for films like School of Rock and Team America: World Police, neither of which I have actually seen! I also remember getting like twenty copies of the Hey Ya/The Way You Move double A-side record before Outkast released Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and having a really hard time finding DJs who played vinyl to take them off my hands.

TW: We can see it. Young Micah hitting the streets; a tote bag holding the Fader M.I.A. / Cam’ron fashion issue and...is that a can of Sparks? Let’s fast forward a bit to a more grown-you. First capital-A Arts role? 

MS: I began my work in the cultural sector at an organization called the Providence Black Repertory Company interning on, and then producing, a festival called Sound Session, which is kind of one of several precursors to PVDFest. It was at Black Rep, working with brilliant geniuses like founder/artistic director Donald W. King and associate director (and amazing theatre artist) Megan Sandberg-Zakian, that I began to understand what's at stake for people with and without resources in a place like Providence, which in the early '00s, and still today, is immensely segregated and often divided along ethnic/racial and class lines that overlap with neighborhood and ward boundaries. 

TW: Give us an example? What did learning on the job mean with regards to structural racism, inequity, etc?

MS: I was like 21, and told a colleague that I was disappointed in them after they didn't share information with me about a show they were promoting. The fact that this colleague was probably ten or fifteen years my elder and Black made it such that what I thought of as being a super neutral critique was loaded with condescension and cultural insensitivity. Here I was, a white kid at a Black arts org in a position of authority, and I had the audacity to tell a seasoned Black promoter that they disappointed me. It was majorly fucked up. That promoter never talked to me again after that, and honestly I don't blame him. I'd like to think I've gotten much better at code switching as I communicate across so many different cultural and experiential divides, but being a useful ally in antiracist work in particular, and being just a nice person in contexts where you can unthinkingly say shitty things to people whose relationships with you are freighted with centuries of oppression, in general, is an ongoing struggle.

TW: How’s that informing your sense of self today? 

MS: I take it as my mission, both professionally and personally, to break down silos that divide people and places here in Providence in ways that I can, while acknowledging that I've got my own biases and vantage point that shape my desires and interests—sometimes it's good to just give money to people and let them do their thing! This is how I feel about my professional work as a curator and grant-maker, and the way my partner and I donate money. I also let this ethos guide how I spend my sweat equity in terms of board service and mutual aid.

Left to right: Latham Zearfoss, AJ Christian, and Micah Salkind speaking at Brown in celebration of Salkind’s book, Do You Remember House?

TW: And how’s that taking shape at City Hall? Who are you when wearing the Deputy Director hat?

MS: In my administrative work I'm really collaborative. I think the impulse to be this way stems from my training as an ensemble musician. In vocal music, you subsume yourself in the sound of the group - especially if, like me, you don't have the voice or stomach for solo work. I take an ethos of ensemble to my day job, always trying to remember that I'm on a team not only with my colleagues in the City's Department of Art, Culture and Tourism, but with all the folks who work in the City and all the folks who live and visit it too. Framing my role in advancing the viability of Providence's cultural communities and creative businesses as ensemble work that requires leadership grounded in humility and collaboration helps me soften in the face of the many frustrating aspects of bureaucratic labor. I would encourage everyone to work in the public sector at least once so they can better understand civics.

TW: Any personal practices that mitigate those bureaucracy-related headaches?

MS: Sleep hygiene is huge for me. I try to get to bed between 9 and 10:30 PM every night and get up between 7 and 8:30 AM. This norm is pretty contingent on parenting ups and downs and right now I'm up for a couple hours a night with an infant, so just doing my best. I also do my best to get in two high intensity cardio workouts a week, two strength training workouts a week, yoga, and pilates for cross training and walk at least thirty minutes a day. Daily workouts can be anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour in length, but consistency is the important part, especially in that I'm turning 40 this spring and want to keep myself from falling apart. I'm also trying to get better about wearing sunscreen on my face when I go outside, eating pescatarian and drinking less alcohol, but I'm pretty forgiving with myself about food and drink when it is time to celebrate or relax.

TW: Well, you’re looking good buddy. Wondering if you’ve done a lot of traveling outside the Kansas-to-RI thing?

MS: I'm a triple earth sign and don't have much wanderlust, and my partner often has to travel to Europe for work, so any time we have traveled far afield, we've tried to do so because we had willing hosts. In 2016 my friend and her partner were living in Tokyo and invited us to visit for ten days. They took us to Osaka, Nara province and Kyoto before we came back to the City. We explored temples, biked through neighborhoods and generally just ate our way through stalls on the street as well as fancy restaurants when and where possible. I never thought of my experience there in terms of finding or learning anything profound, but I did eat some of the best food of my life, and I got a chance to be immersed in a culture with values quite different from my own. In retrospect that has certainly been something I've drawn from as I consider the relativity, and cultural specificity, of my worldview. One small thing I remember in that vein was going to the Manga Museum in Kyoto and learning that Japanese people call American comics "American manga" while Americans think of manga as "Japanese comics" - just a little thing but it kind of blew my mind.

TW: Kyoto is amazing. We’d like to also hype Naoshima as a stellar cultural destination. Micah, we’ve taken up a lot of your time here and need to return you to the City of Providence but before we do—your best work?

MS: My biggest project, and accomplishment, is the book project I did in 2019 with Oxford University Press, Do You Remember House? Writing it took me about a half decade and the research took the better part of three years. What I'm most proud of about the book is that I was able to honor the many amazing queer people of color, women and femmes who made house music the global cultural and economic force that it is. I hope everybody that loves dance music has a chance to read it or at least check out the introduction.

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No upcoming gigs for Micah at Myrtle as of this posting, but he did recently guest at Soft Opening, and we plan on getting him back sooner than later.