There was a youtube-recommended of some journo analysing Dire Straits’ Alchemy performance of Sultans of Swing, played in 1983 … the years are important here. Mark Knopfler was born in 1949 so he was possibly, then, a similar age to that of the reactor, left … why did I choose her?

Well I looked at various guys first but they were either right into themselves or their channel shtick, or they were full of ego (not unknown in a man) … or they were good guys but soooo over-analytical … or they paused way too often, giving us their wisdom … plus I had to watch the reactor for twenty minutes, so he/she had to be halfway personable.

Why a reactor at all? Why not just watch the performance as is? How many dozen times have I watched it? Yes, it’s great and this commenter sums it up well:

The two keys to me in the performance were lack of ego, chemistry … and lack of pyrotechnics and all that. So I wanted the reactor to be like that … there for the moment, super-responsive, at least two generations younger … so Gen X, Millennial, Gen Z cusp … and a girl in glasses seemed to fit the bill. It had to be someone who truly did not know of them, not playing her era of music.

The reactor, in other words, had to take the Dire Straits performance one notch higher, herself being all the things she was saying about the performance … chemistry plus. She had to enhance it if possible.

Plus not interrupt more than three times. Reaction vids on youtube must, by regulation, interrupt a few times … that’s a given … one hopes it’s not during key moments … at the same time, it is her channel … so we need to cut her some slack. Last few minutes she rabbits on … she said she didn’t want the performance to end … well I didn’t want her to end. Just like Jason Bourne with Marie in the car … didn’t matter what she was saying … just keep saying.