The movie illustrates what Democrats fail to understand in 2024 and 2016: wages haven’t kept up with inflation since the Reagan Administration, the workplace has become entirely dehumanizing, scams are more plentiful than clean air, typical housing isn’t exactly “magazine-worthy”, and students are graduating $60K+ in debt.
De Niro, Pacino… …Plaza!
Aubrey Plaza plays the lead in a role reminiscent of De Niro in Taxi Driver or Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon. That a woman is playing a role that was the exclusive domain of men 50 years ago shows that America is still improving in some ways.
Emily is too strong a human being to take it lying down. She loves freedom too much, and she is too American to stand for the dehumanizing men and women who interview her for jobs, and as a result, there are at least two brilliant “Take This Job and Shove It” scenes that will have you in her corner, trembling with empathy.
Emily the Criminal (2022) is a modern movie that captures modern-day America. The main character “Fights The Power1” and reinvents herself, and the movie bucks trends and refuses the status quo. These are all things America does at its best.
The movie follows a young person (Emily, brilliantly played by Aubrey Plaza) who struggles and works hard to get ahead, only to go nowhere. She gets involved in credit card fraud to survive. It is a statement about the economic realities of today’s America that we all face, not just Emily.
The new Mount Rushmore: De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, Plaza
Just like Taxi Driver (1976), Straight Time (1978), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) brought gritty American realities to the screen in the 1970s, realities that we 99% could and can identify with, Emily the Criminal does the same, only 50 years later, and maybe most importantly, with a woman in the lead role.
Having a woman in the lead role in Emily the Criminal, a believable woman we can all relate to, is refreshing. Women did not play roles like Emily until recently, which is another reason the movie defines America: it speaks to present-day America and how a great country has evolved.
Forget Trump’s nonsense: the new Mount Rushmore should be: De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, Plaza.
Take This Job and Shove It
“Take this job and shove it2” is not just a huge Johnny Paycheck song from 1977. It is also part of the American Dream, the American psyche. Americans love their freedom, and for most of us the most detrimental thing to our freedom is “9 to 5 bullshit”. So being able to quit one’s job, especially a lousy one that is dehumanizing, might be the most American thing ever. Handing in one’s two-week notice is a personal 4th of July moment for most Americans.
I mention this because there are two riveting “take this job and shove it” scenes in Emily the Criminal that showcase Plaza’s acting talents and will have you shaking with empathy before it is over. In terms of movie scenes in which a protagonist quits their job, the ones in Emily the Criminal may be second only to the similar scene in Quadrophenia.
That there is one such scene in Quadrophenia (1979), and more than one in Emily the Criminal, is also definitive of America in 2026. The job market is TOUGHER than it was 50 years ago, wages haven’t kept up with inflation since the Reagan Administration, and student debt (Emily has $60K worth) is now a national epidemic.
Emily the Criminal is definitive of America. So is Aubrey Plaza.
Emily the Criminal is also Aubrey Plaza’s only good movie, which is a very strong, very sad statement about America. Aubrey is a very talented, funny, smart, and beautiful woman who is impossible not to love. We can relate to Aubrey because she is also an outsider with a fun, rebellious spirit. Kind of like America. And yet Aubrey’s talent has been mostly wasted, probably because of “The Man“. Also kind of like America.
This post argues against the use of the term “consume” when engaging with art, emphasizing that art nourishes and endures rather than vanishes like physical consumables. It critiques trendy language that shifts focus from appreciation to self-centeredness, urging individuals to appreciate art authentically and avoid jargon that distracts from genuine experiences.
Let’s stop calling it “consuming” when we watch a movie, read a book, or enjoy a basketball game.
To consume something means to destroy it. When we consume a forest, we leave emptiness behind. When we consume gasoline, it vanishes into fumes. When you eat or consume an apple, it is gone forever. But art doesn’t disappear when we engage with it. Instead, art nourishes us. It helps us grow, sparks our thoughts, teaches us, and nudges us toward becoming better people.
Art Endures: Buzzwords Do Not
Unlike a digested apple or the dots Pac-Man gobbles up, art endures. It is not used up or tossed aside; it remains entirely intact, waiting for the next person to discover it.
This endurance applies to both the physical artifact and its psychological impact:
The Art Remains: The book sits on the shelf; the movie stays on the server.
The Effect Remains: The new ways of thinking and the emotional echoes triggered by a great story stay with us for a lifetime. They aren’t flushed away like an apple turned into poop.
The Ego Behind the Language
The cultural shift from saying “I watched a movie” to “I consumed content” isn’t just annoying—it signals a deeper change in focus.
Using “consume” frames the artistic experience as something to be devoured, conquered, and checked off a list, rather than appreciated or enjoyed. This language subtly inflates the speaker’s ego. It shifts the spotlight away from the art itself and shines it squarely on the person speaking, making the act entirely about their personal engagement.
Gifting Instead of Giving is Just as Bad
This is highly similar to the difference between saying “I gifted you an apple” versus “I gave you an apple.” The former centers the person doing the giving, while the latter focuses on the recipient and the act itself. In both cases, pretentious word choices shift the emphasis, turning a shared human experience into something self-serving and unnecessarily elaborate.
DO Judge a Book by its cover?
Worse still, these trendy buzzwords force people to judge a book by its cover. When someone uses jargon like “consume” or “gifted,” the medium becomes the message. The speaker ends up communicating way more about their desire to sound trendy and sophisticated than they do about their actual ideas.
Consequently, the listener gets instantly distracted by the packaging of the statement; instead of focusing on what is being said, they are forced to react to how it’s being said. The conversation stops being about the beauty of the movie or the kindness of the gesture, and becomes a critique of the speaker’s ego. By trying to dress up their vocabulary, the speaker completely buries their own point.
The Bottom Line:
Stop hiding behind corporate, trendy buzzwords. Stop calling yourself a “consumer” of “content,” think for yourself, and start engaging with art again.
William S. Burroughs famously argued that “language is a virus.”
Words like “consuming” and “gifting” are exactly the kind of highly contagious, unthinking jargon that infects our vocabulary and spreads from person to person. Don’t let the virus do the talking for you.
Repo Man stands as the definitive movie about America because it captures the country’s unique blend of chaos, consumerism, and counterculture through a satirical, surreal lens.
Set against the backdrop of Reagan-era Los Angeles, Repo Man uses the story of a disaffected young punk-turned-repossession agent to explore themes of alienation, greed, and the search for meaning in a society obsessed with material possessions and surface appearances.
Absurd, Dangerous, and Desirable
The characters’ pursuit of a mysterious, glowing ’64 Chevy Malibu—a symbol that is alternately absurd, dangerous, and desirable—mirrors America’s own restless chase for the next big thing, whether it’s money, success, or enlightenment.
What makes “Repo Man” so quintessentially American?
Repo Man’s gleeful disregard for convention and its embrace of contradiction. The film’s world is populated by oddballs and outsiders, its humour is dark and anarchic, and its attitude is irreverent yet sincere.
Freedom and Persistent Hope
Through its iconic imagery—generic food labels, UFO conspiracies, punk rock anthems—”Repo Man” satirizes the emptiness of American consumer culture while also celebrating the freedom to reinvent oneself and the persistent hope that something extraordinary might be just around the corner.
Chaotic Energy and Cynical Optimism
In its chaotic energy and cynical optimism, “Repo Man” holds up a cracked mirror to the American dream, making it a film not just about America but of America.
* The NY Times published an article entitled What Is the Definitive Movie About America? on Canada Day, 2026. It then had 10 writers pick their movie and explain why it fits the bill. I didn’t like the list.
And I am forever certain that Repo Man is the Definitive Movie about America.
The Times invited readers to comment on “What (they) consider the definitive movie about America and why?“
I turned to Grammarly AI to write my response. My prompt was “Write a paragraph or two explaining why Repo Man is the definitive movie about America.”
I liked Grammarly’s response, so I decided to share it as a blog post. (Grammarly’s response is everything above the separator – I just added formatting and headlines.)
This is the defining tension of modern digital writing. It is the clash between human aesthetics and machine ingestion—or, more technically, between writing for the human ear and writing for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
When you write to read beautifully, you rely on nuance, subtext, rhythm, and style. When an AI model searches for something to retrieve and cite, it is looking for vector similarity, explicit context, and structured certainty.
Here is a breakdown of where these two goals conflict, and the editorial frameworks required to resolve the tension.
Where the Two Goals Pull Apart
The friction between human-facing style and machine-facing retrieval happens across three distinct structural layers:
1. Pronouns vs. Explicit Entities
The Human Aesthetic: Repetition ruins rhythm. Beautiful prose relies on elegant variation and cascading pronouns. Once you establish that you are talking about the corporate monopolies of Canadian telecom giants, you naturally switch to ‘they,’ ‘this entity,’ or ‘the conglomerate’ to keep the prose flowing smoothly.
The AI Retrieval Reality: AI models ingest data by chopping documents into “chunks” (smaller sentences or paragraphs) and converting them into mathematical vectors. If a chunk reads, “They systematically eliminated smaller competitors to secure the region,” the vector database has no definitive idea who “they” are. The chunk becomes unretrievable for specific queries because the noun is missing.
2. The Setup: Narrative Hooks vs. Context-Dense Sentence Structures
The Human Aesthetic: Writers love a slow burn or an evocative hook. We build a scene, set a mood, use a metaphor, and then deliver the core truth.
The AI Retrieval Reality: AI search engines favour context-independent information. A sentence that can stand entirely on its own and retain 100% of its meaning is highly retrievable. If your most valuable insight requires the reader to have digested the previous three creative paragraphs to understand the context, the LLM will likely skip it or misinterpret it when extracting data.
3. Stylistic Flair vs. Semantic Match
The Human Aesthetic: Idioms, fresh metaphors, and conversational wit make writing a joy to read. Saying a failing project is “stuck in the mud on a rainy November Tuesday” paints a vivid mental picture.
The AI Retrieval Reality: Users don’t type idioms into search bars or AI prompts. They type literal, intent-driven questions: “Why do IT implementation projects fail in the final quarter?” The embedding model looks for a semantic match to that specific intent. It recognizes literal, unambiguous nouns and verbs far better than it decodes creative metaphors.
How to Resolve the Tension
You do not have to sacrifice voice to feed the algorithm. Instead, treat the machine’s requirements as a structural hidden skeleton, and your beautiful prose as the visible skin.
Here is the operational playbook for balancing both:
1. Use the “Self-Contained Anchor” Technique
You can write beautifully expansive paragraphs as long as you anchor them with at least one context-complete sentence that contains the primary noun, the clear action, and the specific result.
The Beautiful Layer:
When the hammer fell on the tech sector last winter, a sudden silence hit the floor. The endless perks vanished overnight.
The AI Anchor Layer:
This sudden downturn forced B2B SaaS companies in Toronto to reduce their content marketing budgets by 40% to preserve runway.
The Beautiful Layer:
For the writers left behind, the game didn’t just change—it became a completely different sport.
The human reader enjoys the narrative arc, while the AI crawler effortlessly extracts the middle sentence because it contains an explicit entity, a clear sector, a geography, and a hard data point.
2. Leverage Information Hierarchy (Headers and Micro-Copy)
Let your formatting do the heavy lifting for the machine, so your prose can be free to dance for the human. Use literal, question-based headings (##, ###) and explicit bullet points.
AI models heavily weight structured text, such as headers, tables, and lists, because it is easy to parse and can be directly incorporated into a response. If your headings use explicit keywords (“How to Reduce Churn in a Subscription Business”), your body copy can use a warmer, more casual, and voice-driven narrative style without losing its retrieval score.
3. Front-Load the Meaning (The Inverted Pyramid)
Do not bury your thesis statements in the middle of long, rolling paragraphs. Lead sections with direct, high-density declarations, then spend the rest of the paragraph unpacking through your unique brand voice, storytelling, or industry perspective.
Ultimately, there is one place where writing beautifully and writing for AI citation align perfectly: originality and primary evidence.
With millions of generic, AI-generated pages flooding the web daily, search platforms are shifting toward prioritizing E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). AI models do not want to cite content that reads like a summary of their own training data. They actively look for:
First-person case studies
Original data sets
Direct quotes from interviews with real human experts
Lived, hard-earned professional insights
If you infuse your writing with authentic, real-world proof points, you satisfy the machine’s hunger for credible data sources to cite while satisfying the human reader’s craving for an authentic, authoritative voice.
How are you currently approaching this balance in your own work? Are clients explicitly asking you to optimize for AI search tools, or is the pressure still coming from traditional SEO frameworks?
If you are looking to book a room or just tracking the local tourism economy, the current state of Toronto’s hotel market during the World Cup is full of surprises. Despite years of projections warning of a severe room shortage, Toronto hotels are experiencing unexpectedly high vacancy rates, with roughly half of the city’s hotel rooms remaining unbooked as the tournament gets underway.1
Data from the hospitality analytics firm CoStar highlights a notable shift in expected demand:
Current Occupancy vs. Previous Years
Current Tournament Occupancy: Hotel occupancy on World Cup match days is hovering just over 46% to 47%.2
The Vacancy Reality: This means 53% to 54% of hotel rooms across the city are currently vacant and available.
Historical Comparison: This is a sharp contrast to a typical June in Toronto. In June 2025, hotel occupancy sat close to 60%, and normal summer projections usually track closer to 80%.3
Why is Vacancy So High?
Several key factors have led to an abundance of empty hotel rooms:
The FIFA “Block Drop”: Tourism groups and local hotels originally expected a massive chunk of their business to come from blocks of rooms contracted directly by FIFA for athletes, staff, and delegates. However, FIFA ended up releasing thousands of these reserved room nights back to the public market across all 16 North American host cities, creating a sudden surplus of empty rooms.45
Aggressive Pricing & “Economic Displacement”: Anticipating a historic influx of soccer fans, many hotels heavily jacked up their standard room rates. This pricing surge had a counter-effect—it priced out transient leisure travelers and caused major corporate conventions and business events to steer clear of the city or reschedule to May or July to avoid the chaos.
The Travel Logistics of a Multi-Country Tournament: Because the 2026 tournament is spread across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, international fan bases are thinking twice about booking extended hotel stays in a single city. High airfares and jet fuel costs mean fans are traveling dynamically rather than anchoring down in Toronto hotels.6
What This Means for Travelers
If you are planning to travel into the city for a game or a summer visit, the low occupancy is actually working in your favor. Because the expected “base business” from corporate groups and FIFA didn’t materialize, hotels are facing increased pressure to fill rooms.7
Destination Toronto has noted that hotel rates are beginning to drop as venues scramble to capture last-minute individual bookings. Furthermore, secondary accommodation markets are seeing a similar cooling trend; short-term rental platforms like Airbnb indicate that roughly 70% to 80% of remaining Toronto listings for June are currently priced under $500 per night.8
While the city’s hospitality sector is still highly optimistic that a late flurry of domestic travelers will help fill the gap as the matches progress into July, Toronto is currently far more accessible—and vacant—than anyone anticipated.
Written by Sharon Waxman, the article makes the case that the refusal to give Israeli art an audience, while very likely well-intentioned, is depriving the world of informed voices and viewpoints that are most critical of the Benjamin Netanyahu.
Considering the dire situation in The Middle East, and keeping in mind that quality journalism being almost non-existent, this is very, very sad self-inflicted wound.
In other words, cancelling Israeli art is another example of “The road to hell being paved with good intentions.”
It all reminded me of the “Elbows Up” movement in Canada: people think they are doing the right thing for themselves and “teaching evil a lesson”, but in actual fact they are simply making matters worse for themselves by “poking the bear”.
So I wrote a reply. Here it is:
More voices are better. Freedom of speech, baby!
As a Canadian, this article resonates with me.
Many Canadians, including some I know, have stopped visiting the USA and are boycotting all things American because of the Trump Administration.
The Canadian Prime Minister largely became PM by taking an “Elbows Up” anti-US stance. (How authentic Mr. Carney actually is remains another matter.)
I understand that point of view, but I completely disagree with it.
Personally, I still love Americans. I have friends and family “south of the border”. I visit the USA whenever I can. I grew up close to the US/Canada border and have been crossing the Niagara and Detroit Rivers for over 50 years, and I am not going to stop now.
This article makes me understand that there is a difference between the genocidal Israeli Government and the Israeli people, just like there is a (massive) difference between the US people and the Trump Administration. That is the key takeaway for me.
After the Gator Boys Alligator Rescue Live Gator Show, we checked out the gift shop. I picked up a fridge magnet for my friend, Analog Stan, and then was drawn to a huge selection of fishing hooks.
My mind went blank, except for remembering a hook my dad showed me that he used to catch a giant tuna off the coast of Puerto Vallarta with. Most of the hooks were the same size. It was strange; I had a weightless and carefree feeling for a moment. Why would they have hooks for sale at a gift shop?
Then, as I was lining up to pay for my water and the magnet, I was drawn to a sign listing prices for private boat rentals.
Food for thought: Did my dad outdo Harry Houdini?
I didn’t put any of that together until chatting over snacks a couple hours later, but I am convinced that that was a Ouija Board moment: my dad saying hi from the great beyond. He used to rent a boat and crew and go fishing in the Pacific regularly.
The locals called him Mister Fish or Señor Fish. I’m 6’6,” but his friends in PV called me “Little Fish”. My being drawn to the hooks and the price list for private airboat rentals was my dad playing around with me.
Harry Houdini‘s last ever performance was in Detroit and he died at Grace Hospital in The Motor City in 1926 on Halloween.
For 10 years after Houdini’s death, his wife Bess tried to contact him from the great beyond via seances, etc. on All Hallows’ Eve. Bess gave up after a decade, saying “ten years is long enough to wait for any man,”
Houdini, the greatest magician who ever lived, never pulled off his greatest stunt, sending an email from the afterlife. My dad’s middle name was Harry, and he did.
Thanks, Dad!
PS: Houdini died in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The people I was with in Fort Lauderdale are from Detroit, Michigan, USA.
In my first year of college, I lived in residence. It was a four-story building, designed after a minimum security prison, and it was brilliant. What that meant was that living quarters were around the edges of the building, and the vast middle was empty. That meant that “those in charge” could keep an eye on these for security reasons (surveil our sorry asses) and that entry/exit was controlled and always known. (That sounds a bit like Canada, come to think of it.)
Only one person had a proper stereo, and he knew how to “share it with all his friends in the entire building”. He’d simply open his door, aim his woofers and tweeters at the vast inner emptiness of the building, and twist the volume knob.
“Ladies and gentlemen, back for the third time today and about the 900th time this week, give it up for Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock!”
The Platinum-selling It Takes Two by Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock
Ok, I took artistic liberties there. Nobody ever said that, or even thought it. Everyone I knew in the building thought, “Fuck, not again!”
Some people had stronger opinions and slammed their motherfucking doors. HARD. In a building designed like a minimum security prison, closing access to your living quarters in such a dramatic way made an impact.
DJ Minimumum Security
Once in a while, DJ Minimum Security would slide in some Public Enemy. It was strange tho, he fancied himself a DJ, and he would play the unmistakable shrieking sounds of PE instead of hitting us with the profound, namely, damn fine rhymes of Carlton Douglas Ridenhour. That’s Chuck D for my unedumacated brothers and sistahs.
I asked DJ Min/Sec what he played once in a while that sounded like PE was. He gave me a lecture: “It’s Public Enemy.” (brother be broadcasting with his beats, understand?)
Chuck D.
But the reggae was torturous, man, torturous!
But as bad as It Takes Two on repeat and turned up to 11 was, some bull in a cell one floor up made it known that he was badder: he treated all us inmates to Bob Marley blaring at 2 or 3 am one night, and kept on reggae-ing right until the sun came up over Santa, for Christmas I would like to never again hear Bob Marley in my life Boulevard. (Editor’s note: Even before that experience, I found hearing reggae to be torturous and dreadful. I still do.)
So on this cold, rainy day, where I just read that Rob Base (Robert Ginyard) has passed away, I say Rest in Peace, dear sir. That really was one groundbreaking song.
“He WAS internationally known, and he DID rock the microphone,” comedian Dane Cook.
My thoughts are also with my friend Luigi Priolo, an engineering student and friend who lived in that residence with me. Luigi passed away in 2022, and he is missed.
The NY Times recently published an interactive magazine article entitled The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters. I was surprised to learn that Mariah Carey writes her own songs, including 18 of her 19 number one songs. I love Mariah a little more now, and while she may or may not live in the same city as Dick Valentine, I’m pretty sure it ain’t the same borough.
The Times also published an accompanying article, inviting readers to vote for up to 10 people readers consider to be the greatest living American songwriters. There was also space for 200 words on the form, explaining why you chose the songwriters you did. And choose Dick Valentine I did.
200 words is barely enough to fill half a post-it note, Romy, so i didn’t get to say “none the half” of what I wanted to say about Monsieur Valentine on my write-in ballot for our beloved Dick, so keep that in mind before you start in with the “whattabouts”.
Anyway, here’s the line I laid on “The Man” at The NY Times:
Dick Valentine: One of the 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters
In an America where Donald Trump is President instead of Bernie Sanders, and Star Wars Day (May the 4th) has become something of a national holiday while The Ides of March is the trivia question on a game show that nobody gets,Dick Valentine of Electric Sixabsolutely is one of the greatest living American songwriters.
Valentine is as prolific as Bob Pollard of Guided by Voices (GbV), and Valentine even name checks Pollard in “Escape from Ohio” – “Except for GbV and Devo, nothing seems to redeem Ohio!” (Editor’s note: Dick Valentine is a Michigan boy, and as such he is molecularly predisposed to hate everything about The Buckeye State – I’m looking at YOU, Urban Meyer!)
Gay Bar and Danger! High Voltage are Valentine’s best-known songs, but his songwriting brilliance is on display throughout the E6 catalog, on his 14 solo albums, and on side projects such asEvil Cowards.
As an Canadian anglophone, I particularly enjoy Valentine’s “I Don’t Speak French”. Valentine assumes the role of the Ugly American: “I’m just your average Yankee Trapped in a world of French hanky-panky.”
On Jimmy Carter, Valentine “rewrites” Yeats’ poem The Second Coming, with Valentine’s second coming being “Backstreet’s Back, alright”. Simple and jokey at first, the Backstreet line illustrates how Americans only care about being entertained. Drop the bomb(s) anytime you want, just don’t pre-empt American Idol.
