On July 28, 2026, R.E.M.‘s 4th album, Life’s Rich Pageant, turned 40. To celebrate the occasion, my friend shared a clipping of a bad review from SPIN magazine that has saved. He also explained that the many small holes in the paper were the result of him having thrown darts at the review after he affixed it to a dart board in his parents’ basement.
Maintaining that kind of grudge for 40 years is the kind of dedication, loyalty, and unwavering values that I can get behind.
I don’t know if I agree or disagree with this review, but I like it.
I think she is completely full of shit when she says “after punk, we were tired of degradation.”
If that is her idea of punk and what she took away from it, she barely scratched deeper than Sid and The Dead Boys.
I too stuffed things inside album jackets, and recently found some correspondence from Jello Biafra. There are a couple that are multiple typed pages, very thoughtful stuff. Hardly the “punk rock degradation we all became tired of”.
And of course there are many, many others besides Biafra, but he happens to be my North Star.
Punk came about in large part because people were sick of the degradation of Arena Rock, the pretentious, lame, and overblown music, and the degradation that happened backstage and in hotel rooms.
Punk went a long way towards ending the degradation of women in pop music, too. Women became more than groupies, and were “allowed” to be more than girl groups if they were brave enough to make the music that they enjoyed. Punk took a big step towards “liberating us girls from male, white, corporate oppression”.
“Are you going to liberate us girls from male, white, corporate oppression?” – Kim Gordon, inspired by an interview she did with LL Cool J for SPIN gone very bad
So now, after I have typed this, yeah, Fuck Sue Cummings.
I Googled Cummings and a “Where are they now” article came up. Also included was Manohla Dargis, the main film reviewer at The New York Times. Dargis is un-fucking-readable!
I searched her too – apparently she’s a nurse practitioner in Seattle now. A noble change of career. – my friend
If she knows medicine like she knew punk rock, I’ll bet she’s the No. 1 customer for leech providers in the Pacific Northwest. – me
Here’s the full review/image posted by my REM-loving friend:
REM – Life’s Rich Pageant
Side one – “Dinner side”
“Begin the Begin” – 3:28 “These Days” – 3:24 “Fall on Me” – 2:50 “Cuyahoga” – 4:19 “Hyena” – 2:50 “Underneath the Bunker” – 1:25
Side two – “Supper side”
“The Flowers of Guatemala” – 3:55 “I Believe” – 3:49 “What If We Give It Away?” – 3:33 “Just a Touch” – 3:00 “Swan Swan H” – 2:42 “Superman” – 2:52
As the home invasion of North America known as FIFA World Cup 2026™ mercifully draws to a close, I thought I should share one of my ticket stubs and a memory or two from 1994 FIFA World Cup (World Cup USA ’94).
AI Snippet: The author reminisces about their experiences during the 1994 FIFA World Cup in Michigan and San Francisco, including memorable games, the unique “real/fake grass” installation, and the lively atmosphere. They also share amusing anecdotes about traveling with a friend and insights into cultural encounters, both in sports and music, highlighting contrasting city vibes.
Michigan Games (Pontiac Silverdome)
In addition to hosting 4 World Cup games in , the long-gone Pontiac Silverdome hosted a friendly between England and Germany in ’93. Effenberg and Klinsmann scored for Germany, while Platt scored via bicycle kick for England.
If you prefer watching to reading, there is also a video about the real/fake grass available from MSU and from VICE TV.
Real/fake grass. 1994 of these pellets were used to make the pitch inside the Pontiac Silverdome for US ’94 World Cup..
Oh the weather inside was frightful, but the grass inside was delightful
It wasn’t that hot of a day outside, but the Silverdome didn’t have AC since it was mainly used in the fall for Detroit Lions NFL games and didn’t need it. SO it was HOT inside.
After the game, England coach Graham Taylor complained about the lack of “weather”, saying that it took away an element of unpredictability from the game. Yeah, it was a lack of wind that cost you the game, Taylor. 62,126 people showed up and the real/fake grass held up, so a success all round.
(England failed to qualify for World Cup USA ’94, and to “celebrate”, an England supporter displayed a giant banner at one of the Silverdome games reading “You’ve made us proud, Taylor“)
World Cup ’94 games in Michigan
Being American made it easier to secure tickets to World Cup ’94, and I was fortunate to have an American amigo to help out in that regard: my friend Mike. He secured a bunch of tickets to all the games in Michigan, and a pair to the quarterfinal game in San Francisco at Stanford.
World Cup ’94 games played at the Silverdome:
June 18, 1994: United States 1, Switzerland 1 (Group A) June 22, 1994: Switzerland 4, Romania 1 (Group A) June 24, 1994: Russia 1, Sweden 3 (Group B) June 28, 1994: Sweden 1, Brazil 1 (Group B)
The only World Cup USA ’94 game I attended in Michigan was the Russia/Sweden game. I remember nothing at all of the game. I do remember the atmosphere outside before the game, though. The mood was “so what”, and there were a LOT of people with fistfuls of tickets trying to sell them. I also remember the Sweden fans being obnoxious, but the Sweden fans I encountered later in San Francisco were fantastic. Go figure.
What I DO remember about soccer in Pontiac
I remember walking around in Pontiac before the game. It was two Americans and two Canadians. The streets were pretty quiet, probably about normal. Normal, that is, until we saw an Armoured PersonnelCarrier (APC) rolling down the street. Then things got funny. When we saw a soldier pop his head out of the APC looking like he was expecting action, things got hilarious!
No Michigan, but the same model of APC we saw in Pontiac in 1994.
I also remember the 89X Birthday Bash the day after…
89X is an “alternative” station based in Windsor that serves the Detroit market. It is a prime example of the Canadian economy being dependent upon the American market. It is also now owned by Bell Media, which also says a lot about Canada.
89X puts on music festivals on occasion, as radio stations are prone to do, “for whatever reason”, and the one after the soccer game looked to be pretty good, so we hung out in Michigan for an extra day. In hindsight, the lineup looks really good:
Beck
Afghan Whigs
Odds
Polvo
Scrawl
Sponge
Superchunk
Trumans Water
We’d seen Polvo open for fIREHOSE at St. Andrews in Detroit about a year before, and they completely won everyone over, including Mike Watt, who put his arm straight out, made a fist, and demanded “Let’s hear it for Polvo! POLVO!“
Superchunk were incredible and made me a fan for life.
The crowd was divided on Beck. Is he a genius, or is he a joke? I remember saying something like “I think he is completely void of talent, but he is fun as hell.”
Toronto Maple Leafs sweater got me into trouble!
And like an idiot, I wore my Toronto Maple Leafs sweater – in Detroit. I took a lot of grief for that, including from Goober of Goober & The Peas, as I was in the lineup to use the porta-potties. The temp toilets were lined along the edge of the venue, which was on top of a parking garage. As I entered the outhouse, I recall thinking, “This is going to be a shitty way to die!”
The quarterfinal World Cup game in San Francisco
The front, or fun, side of my World Cup USA ’94 ticket.
Mike and I flew out to San Fran from Detroit, I forget which airport. All the way out there, he was singing The Replacements ‘ ” Waitress in the Sky. We’d seen Westerberg at St. Andrew’s a year ago too, so maybe that was part of the reason for having a song Paul wrote for his sister on repeat for 2400 miles.
We stayed in Sunnyvale – home of Atari!
Mike booked us a room in Sunnyvale, which was pretty cool because that is where Atari was based, and Atari was a HUGE thing for our generation. I had both an Atari 2600 (who didn’t?), a 5200 (who DID?), and an Atari 520T computer.
A classic Atari gaming station featuring consoles, controllers, and retro gaming magazines
On the other hand, staying where we did meant a half-hour walk to the Caltrain Station, then an hour ride into SF. We were young, and I thought it was really cool at the time, but looking back, 32 years later, it seems stupid.
But then again, I got to develop a close personal bond with the guy at the train station coffee shop. We only shared one word between the two of us, but that one word included tons of good emotions and signified a deep, rich flavour, errr, I mean bond: COFFEE.
Every morning when he saw me, he would wake up, and he seemed to grow taller as his smile widened. A little laugh, a knowing point, and then the word.
“Hey, hey! Coffee?!”
His “coffee” said, “Hello, great to see you again. Another beautiful day in Silicon Valley, eh? You having the usual?”
“Coffay!”
My “coffay” was a one-word secret “handshake” that renewed and deepened our friendship. My “coffee” said that all is great, that I am happy to know you and be visiting your fantastic part of the world, and that your coffee rocks my world.
South San Francisco – The Industrial City
The commute from Sunnyvale to SF included wonderful visions of scenic South San Francisco. I guess I always had unrealistic visions of San Fran, thinking it was a beautiful oasis where weirdos and outcasts could fit in and build a better city and life, based on art and creativity and stuff.
It wasn’t the dirty hippies or the gold rush that invoked that image of San Francisco in my mind. It was Jello Biafra and Dead Kennedys mostly, but also Kerouac, Ginsberg, the punk band Flipper, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights bookstore, SRL, Negativland, radio station KPFA, etc.
Well, San Francisco is NOT that. Even in ’94 it was a city overrun by homeless people and drug addicts. But it was also a place where right-wing maniacs would try to throw people feeding the hungry with free soup in jail. My late wife and I visited SF 3 years later in ’97, and it was even worse. SF in those days was a precursor of what Toronto in 2026 would become.
Gimme Detroit over San Francisco or Toronto any day of the week!
South San Francisco – The Industrial City. No kidding. decades later i would see South San Fran all the time when watching Mythbusters.
Pacific Coast League (PCL) exhibit in Oakland
The Pacific Coast League (PCL) was a baseball league that flourished on, you guessed it, the west coast for 100 years (55 or so if you fact check these things, and I know some of you do) . The writing was on the wall when MLB and GREED moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to LA and the NY Giants to SF.
There just happened to be a PCL exhibit happening in Oakland when Mike and I were out in the Bay Area, so we went over there to check it out, and I am very glad we did.
While there I learned about the SF Seals (the team, not the band) and how Seals Stadium had 3 dressing rooms. One was for the Seals, another for the visiting team, and the third was for the Mission Reds who shared the ballpark with the Seals for 7 years before moving to LA to become the Hollywood Stars.
Jigger Statz in 1922.
I also learned about the great Jigger Statz. Jigger Statz is one of only nine players (along with Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Ichiro Suzuki, Hank Aaron, Minnie Miñoso, Julio Franco, Derek Jeter, and Stan Musial) known to have recorded at least 4,000 hits in professional baseball across all leagues.
And speaking of America’s Pastime, Mike and I took in a Giants game at fabled Candlestick Park, home to The Beatles last concert ever. It also happened to be the first of 29 games that Darryl Strawberry would play as a Giant in 1994.
Darryl Strawberry seen here during his brief stint with the Springfield Isotopes in 1992.
My Dougie Gilmour sweater paid off again at Candlestick. A couple of kids sitting a couple of rows back spent about 6 innings trying to figure out how to pronounce “GILMOUR” out loud.
FUN FACT: 3 years later when my wife and I visited SF, our first hotel was not far from Candlestick. While I was on the phone with Jello Biafra beforehand, he said in that great voice of his “ewwwww, THAT’s a hairy neighborhood!”
Jello Biafra, seen here with supporters, during his run for Mayor of San Francisco in 1979.
Oh yeah, the World Cup Game we went to in San Francisco
Well it was actually played at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California. We had cheap seats behind one of the nets, and the stadium was bare bones, which I loved. The stadium has since been demolished and rebuilt.
The game was a semifinal match, played between Sweden and Romania. It was a great game, ending in a draw, with Sweden defeating Romania 5-4 on penalties. The only issue was that the net used for penalties was NOT the one we sat behind!
The real World Cup started after the game finished
Mike and I hung out with a couple of cool Swedes after the game for a while and had a great time. I had my Gilmour sweater on, of course, and the Swedes loved that because former Toronto Maple Leaf great Borje Salming was like a God to them.
The Swedes turned the old soccer chant Olé, Olé, Olé into BS BS BS in honour of Borje Salming. It was impossible to explain to them what BS means in North American culture.
Naturally the topic of Canadian icon and legendary hockey announcer Don Cherry came up. I was explaining “Grapes” to the Swedes and saying, “EVERYBODY knows who Don Cherry is!”
Don Cherry: Canadian ICON
For those of you who do not, Don Cherry holds an incredible place in Canadian culture. He was voted the most popular Canadian alive many times when he would appear between periods during a Saturday night hockey game in Canada, and would be watched by at least 1/3 of the country. Cherry’s segment was called Coach’s Corner.
Cherry had the gravity of Foster Hewitt did before him, and was kind of the Canadian version of the NFL’s John Madden. That is no exaggeration. I was once in a bar in Michigan and a drunk proudly proclaimed he was “Converting to Canadianism” after watching an episode of Coach’s Corner.
Just then a very attractive female jogger approached us in the opposite direction. I asked her if she knew who Don Cherry was, hoping to prove my point. She stopped and jogged in place:
“The jazz trumpeter?”
At that point in my life, I had no idea who Don Cherry the jazz trumpeter was. I later learned that he was a legend and played with many of the all-time greats, including Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Sun Ra. Cherry played on the seminal jazz recordFree Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (1961).
Don Cherry and Don Cherry (L-R)
Some of Us / Sum of Us
Later on, Mike and I were hanging out with a couple of other guys. One was an American, and the other one had moved to SF from England and was close to becoming a US citizen. One of the things he was excited about was that once he took the pledge and officially became an American, he could choose any name he wanted.
Some of Us / Sum of Us was the name he was going to go with. He explained the reasoning and beauty behind it to us a few times, and we pretended to love the idea. Really though, we had no idea and he might as well have been trying to explain why BS is not a good thing in North America to a couple of Swedes. Oh wait…
The Day After the World Cup
Mike had an uncle set him up with a sweet temp job in SF, so he stuck around for a week. I can’t remember the details exactly, but I had a day to check out The City by the Bay by myself for most of a day before flying back to Detroit.
I went by where I thought Subterranean Records was, because I had ordered a bunch of records from them over the years, most notably Flipper vinyl. It turned out to be an automotive garage, so maybe I had the address memorized wrong, or… …forget it, you wouldn’t understand anyway.
I also checked out The Castro, because I mean, when in San Francisco. I found it to be very unfriendly. Whereas elsewhere in the city people would smile and chat with me, I felt very unwelcome in The Castro. A bus driver gave me shit for exiting from the front door. Sure, that was on me, but everybody does that now, and in a city where tourist dollars are essential…
Mike later told me “They had their GADAR our and knew you didn’t belong there.” when I told him how unfriendly I found it.
How about the business side of World Cup USA ’94?
The back, or business side, of my World Cup USA ’94 ticket.
Forward to 1999: I saw APCs in the street again!
Former Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman shows off Toronto’s snow removal equipment in
In early January of 1999, a heavy snowfall blanketed Toronto and shut it down for a few delightful days. To get the city back up and running, Mayor Mel Lastman “called in the army” to clear the snow. So once again, APCs were prowling a North American city during peacetime.
Lastman was ridiculed at the time, and almost 30 years later he continues to be for his decision.
If my mind thought, this was the greatest use of “military power” in my lifetime.
It was 1983, and I was just a kid. The first time was in a darkened den of depravity – The Pen Theatres in St. Catharines, Ontario. I went to see the fabulously gritty Bowie documentary/concert film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. If you haven’t seen it, you should.
Here’s a little taste of White Light/White Heat, vintage 1973:
Later that same year, as they say, David hooked me up again with another shot of White Light/White Heat. This time it was in person as his Serious Moonlight Tour rolled into the old Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.
Bowie’s 1983 version of White Light/White Heat was a very different injection than the one he gave us with The Spiders in ‘73. The ‘83 Serious Moonlight version had a big band, big production values, and BIG crowds. The show I was at had a crowd of over 50,000, and he had played the night before at the same venue, so over 101,000 shots of White Light/White Heat were given in Toronto that September.
In short, Serious Moonlight was Serious Moola.
It was also seriously great, with a special treat being original Spider from Mars Mick Ronson joining David et al. for a crazy-great version of Jean Genie. I digress, though. Here’s how David was serving up White Light/White Heat in 1983:
David Bowie covers The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat during his ’83 Serious Moonlight tour.
1990: Into the White (again, and with The Pixies)
For a few brief years, The Pixies were astonishingly good. Unbelievably good. So when they played The Latin Quarter at Grand and Woodward, I said to myself, “Come On Pilgrim, time to head on over into Detroit proper!”
One of the highlights for me that night, aside from standing beside Black Francis for most of the opening act, was the 30th of 36 songs The Pixies played, Into the White.
The angelic Kim Deal sang Into the White, and I recall the stage lights being shone on the audience during that song, literally taking us Into the White. Here’s a pretty good approximation:
“Everything that comes out of her mouth sounds like cake.” – Kim Gordon succinctly describing Kim Deal.
Afterwards, my mind was a tad scrambled, and there was a minor disagreement between my Downriver friend and myself. I was dumb and thought that White Light/White Heat was a Bowie original, and maybe even confused it with Into the White. In my defence, it was a Sunday night, and I think part of my brain was subconsciously writing an essay due in a dozen hours or so.
This time, it was by Maple Blues Award-winning singer Kirby Sewell, covering White Light/White Heat in what looks to be a church basement in East Coulee, Alberta.
Kirby Sewell performs an incredible blues version of The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat.
Naturally, I shared the video with my friend Steve, who makes up one-half of Detroit’s premier Velvet Underground Ukulele Duo Thumbs Up. Steve put into words exactly what I was thinking:
“I never imagined that one slowed down and bluesy, but he fuckin nailed it!”
But before you get too excited, let’s look at the actual math.
If the buses now travel at 8 m.p.h. and Mamdani’s plan succeeds in making them travel 20% faster, then the buses will travel at 9.6 m.p.h. The subway will still be twice as fast at 18 m.p.h.
This is what socialists like Mamdani do: overpromise and underdeliver, spending mountains of money in the process. But oh, those gargantuan socialist smiles!
Welcome to the Luxury Transit Utopia
Perhaps Mr. Mamdani is confusing Manhattan Island with Fantasy Island, and considers himself a rebooted Mr. Roarke.
“Smiles everyone, Smiles!”
Original Roarke
Because if we are going to spend nearly a billion dollars to hurtle down Flatbush Avenue at a blistering 9.6 miles per hour, the experience inside the bus needs to match the price tag. Calling a minusculely faster ride is just the beginning of the fantasy.
The Mamdani and Hochul administrations clearly understands that if you’re going to be stuck in traffic anyway, you deserve to do it in style. Every MTA vehicle will have seats upholstered with “fine Corinthian leather,“ all thanks to Rebooted Roarke!
No more sticky plastic or torn fabric – New Yorker’s daily commutes will now feature the supple texture of vintage luxury, perfectly curated for the modern straphanger.
‘riginal Roarke‘s ride. One of ’em, anyway.
The Breathtaking Upgrades
To justify this astronomical budget, the city isn’t just stopping at luxury upholstery. The plan boasts an array of dazzling, high-end features designed to make you forget you could literally jog faster than the B41:
The 30-Tree Initiative: The plan promises to plant exactly 30 trees at bus stops. That is roughly six trees per borough. We can only assume these are rare, artisanal bonsai trees watered exclusively with premium sparkling water to match the transit budget.
The Velvet Rope Each Bus will now feature a resident sommelier Boarding: By the time all-door boarding is fully implemented, you will no longer shuffle through the front door like a peasant. You will enter through the rear doors via a velvet rope, greeted by a bus operator acting as your personal transit concierge.
Each Bus will now feature a resident sommelier to pair your morning coffee with the ambiance of express service. Transit police will be retrained as mindfulness coaches, helping you meditate through your 45-minute crosstown ride.
Reboot Roarke and Governor Hochul (AKA “Tattoo“) “Take the ‘A’ Train, get to where they are going in a hurry”. Smiles everyone!
Lean Back and Enjoy the Ride
So smile, New Yorkers, smile! The next time your bus is crawling behind a double-parked box truck on Northern Boulevard, don’t look at your watch.
Just lean back into that rich, supple, Corinthian leather, close your eyes, and listen closely. If you strain your ears over the rumble of the idling engine, you might just hear Mayor Mamdani whispering from Gracie Mansion:
“Welcome to Fantasy Island. Smiles everyone! Smiles!”
Reboot Roarke welcomes you to “Fantasy Island”. Smiles, everyone, Smiles!
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.
