Dear Marketing Juggernaut,

I write to ask that you please stop all this “pairing,” which in an earlier, more innocent time, used to be expressed simply as “having with,” or sometimes more hopefully, “enjoying with.” I refer to the ingestion kind of “pairing.” Apparel-related “pairing” (“I would pair it with the Juliana Satchel in Beige”) insinuated itself into second-rate fashionspeak so long ago that it’s past all hope of recalling. I mean the sort of pairing that has resulted in stuff like this:

I got a nice bottle of amarone for my birthday and I was hoping to pair it with a tasty dessert recipe. My working idea is something in the stewed plum or fig vein but I am totally open to ideas.

Honey pairs well with mild cheeses that have a little something nutty going on.

Through de-construction we can arrive at our best pairing options… First, the dominant flavors here are likely caramelized pineapple and Vanilla.

The problem with this kind of “pairing” is much the same as the problem with “classy;” it gives an impression miles away from the one intended. It evokes not sophistication, but the dreary marketing-speak of consumerism.

It became clear decades ago that the consumer paradise is only hell in disguise, and nobody with any sense believes any longer that fancy or expensive things will make you more elegant or, indeed, alter your character at all. The culture of consumption is fully revealed as a destructive force, made most perfectly manifest, possibly, in the novel Infinite Jest (p. 1996), the comedy of Bill Hicks (1961–1994), and the writing of Thomas Frank (The Conquest of Cool, 1997.) Our leaner, more perceptive times call for language that is more about truth and clarity, and maybe quite a bit less about “discernment” or “snob appeal.”

The current passion for anything to do with food and drink, cooking, regional cuisine, taco trucks, and so on is fun, and I certainly don’t mean to bag on that. Of course it is great to try, and maybe like, new things, and delicious things. But the fussy, mincing habit of attempting to create demand with a sniffy insistence on things like “artisanal” cheese or soda, coffee brewed in some Japanese contraption for eighteen hours, etc., is manipulative and artificial and stands in opposition to the fun part of sharing good things together. You never caught Elizabeth David or Marcel Boulestin promoting such stuff, or “pairing” anything, either. On the contrary, these masters of food writing advocated simplicity and lack of pretension.

There’s a usage problem here, too. The word “pair” can only be used as a verb in certain instances; the OED allows it mainly for noting likeness, and for arranging couples for activities such as marriage, boxing, dancing or dinner. None of the examples they give covers the Amarone-and-stewed-plum variety.

Comestible “pairing” seems to have started because of the weird cachet attached to drinking wine with food and spread from there. How much cachet can this tired phrase have left in it, though, when the Ernest and Julio Gallo website has got a whole Food & Wine Pairing Guide, and when you can visit any number of feckless blogs dedicated exclusively to this subject (foodandwinepairing.org, pairingsfoodandwine.com, matchmywine.com, etc.) and learn what kind of wine you ought to drink with, say, bacon (a “challenging wine pairing”).

The whole business reached its nadir in the July 26th post on the Starbucks Ideas in Action blog (oh, yes, it is called that.)

How will you enjoy Gazebo Summer Blendâ„¢ this year? Let us know what food you pair it with or your coffee occasion. Summer BBQ or brunch? Share your pairing ideas with us.

After reading this and having a disbelief occasion, my pairing idea is to pair sealing off the kitchen and turning on the gas in the oven with sticking my head in there.

Maria Bustillos is the author of Dorkismo: The Macho of the Dork and

Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman.

Photo by beeeeeker, from Flickr.

Songwriter George David Weiss has died. He co-wrote three of the most indelible songs of the 20th century: “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” and the one in the video above, which most people probably know best from the Louis Armstrong version that Barry Levinson used so manipulatively (and successfully) to wrench tears from the eyes of moviegoers in Good Morning Vietnam. It’s testament to Weiss’s craft that it also sounds so great being sung by Joey Ramone, who is also dead and greatly missed.

“’Sometimes their stories are heart-wrenching and sometimes I’m numb to them. I try not to pry,’ says Au Yeung. ‘Making paper effigies of trend items makes death seem less frightening.’ His most popular requests are for cameras, video games and brand-name handbags — the things that Hong Kong kids desire while living.”
–This story about Au Yeung Ping Chi, who crafts effigies “burned at gravesites in order to ‘deliver’ them to the underworld where the dearly departed can receive them,” for those who have died young, is perplexing, because I’m not sure which definition of the word “tragic” applies. Probably all of them.

Let’s go back in a time machine to 2003. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and pals come out with a new TV show and all of sudden everyone starts to notice a shy, quirky, weird kid playing a character named George Michael played by actor Michael Cera. The awkward deadpan character seemed to strike a chord with younger audiences. The marketers get excited!

Nine movies later, seven of which feature Cera as a lead, romantic or comedic, he’s now the target of something mildly interesting, pop-culturally: outright hatred.

“Que Cera Cera” indeed. This Michael Cera backlash. What is it? How old is it?

The Michael Cera Backlash Begins, September, 2009 — Defamer
“It’s a razor thin line between being the coolest person on the planet and being the uncoolest person on the planet, and hoodie hearthrob Michael Cera may just have crossed over.”

Michael Cera Backlash? Buzzfeed, “About a year ago.”
“He’s getting his big chance to become the new John Cusak with Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist opening this weekend, but the internets are rumbling that he’s always playing the same character, and it’s getting old. Whatever, haters. More awkward-adorableness for the rest of us.”

BREAKING: Michael Cera Backlash Brewing — Losanjealous, September, 2008.
“First Defamer put it out there that M.C. is apparently passing on the long-rumored much-anticipated A.D. movie. Today, Wells springboards off this Sun.’s NYT profile and pretty much nails it. But, to [over]simplify, maybe it’s just all about the damn fleece zip hoody sweatshirts.”

Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman Do the Weather — Urlesque, August, 2010.
“As the reviews and internet will tell you, we’re in the midst of a bit of a Michael Cera backlash… Is it because he plays the same character in every movie? Does he even play the same character in every movie? How can you play the same character in every movie when you played two different characters in your last movie?”

LOL: How To Make a Michael Cera Movie-Slashfilm, January, 2010.
“Michael Cera’s same-old-act, and the $7 million opening of his new film, Youth in Revolt, seems to suggest it might be more widespread than just a couple of my friends. High Definite has created an infographic showing the paint by numbers steps involved in creating a Michael Cera comedy.”

The rise and fall of Michael Cera and the rise and fall of his backlash has been going on for the last two years-and, too be fair, some of the credit for that goes to big blogs that can make up narratives out of very little.

But all of this should be looked at before going over to a recent NPR article addressing the negative criticism Cera’s newest movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is receiving. The movie was pretty well-liked by the people who saw it, standing at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes currently. Thing is, in two weeks, it’s being called a bomb, because it made $20 million-and it cost $60 million to make. (It’ll make it’s money back eventually.)

Linda Holmes’ NPR article about Scott Pilgrim… might be the first of its kind-that is to say, it’s a well-written, respectful and thoughtful piece from a journalistic institution-putting it out there that maybe the youth of America are on the other side of a culture change that most older people simply aren’t going to get.

“Hating Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is perfectly fine. It’s got a style; you sort of embrace it and dig it or you don’t. But when there’s too much effort given to tut-tutting the people you imagine to be enjoying it, or declaring and promising that only narrow categories of losers and non-life-havers and other stupid annoying hipsters could possibly be having a good time when you’re not, it sounds pinched and ungenerous. And, not to put too fine a point on it, a little bit jealous and fearful of obsolescence.”

The article goes on to address the strange apprehension and hatred Scott Pilgrim… in particular is causing because of how clearly niche it is. (For those uninitiated Scott Pilgrim… is based on a series of graphic novels. What the story boils down to is a meditation on 8-bit video games integrated into a comic book romance story, featuring what may be the quintessential Canadian superhero, a slacker living on his parents’ money, whose name is Scott Pilgrim.)

And yes, it’s as niche as it gets. It’s essentially the film equivalent of a magical comic book shop in Williamsburg. It’s clearly not for everyone. And the reason this comes back to Michael Cera, is that just by the way it’s worked out, he’s the same cup of tea. You either get him or you don’t.

Movies like Scott Pilgrim or The Expendables or Piranha 3-D or any of the zillion other irony-tinged movies coming out this year are shining a light on the greater generational divide between-well let’s use the groan-inducing term “millennials”-and older audiences. You could blame it on jadedness or a media-savvy or go so far as to say millennials as a group just don’t seem to value real art.

But while youth culture may rule, it’s member-consumers are fickle-and when you’re only going after the under-34 demo, you’re not going to sell any tickets to 35-year-olds and you run a chance of bombing with the kids. All over TV and film are images and shared experiences that might not be true for all of America, especially an older America.

The only really unfortunate thing in all of this is that Michael Cera just isn’t that great of either an actor or business entity on which to stake the demo’s buying power. (“Michael Cera Couldn’t Open an Envelope” is what The Wrap is going with today.)

So on the one hand, Cera is the target of older critics that don’t get his brand of “humor,” and on the other Cera plays the same character in every single movie and we really don’t have a good young 21st-century leading man, yet. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is too peripheral; Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult and Daniel Radcliffe and William Moseley too English and too tied to their main roles. Who else? Josh Hutcherson is too young-Michael J. Fox. Max Records isn’t getting any work. But the demand for a real, non-vampire, truly millennial male star is there, and it’s only a matter of time before we get someone better.

Here’s the cover for the new book by Minnesota governor/potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty. Let’s see: Red? Yep! “American”? Yep. But wait a second… where is the goddamn flag pin? I think we have to give this round to Sarah Palin.

Edward Kean, “primary writer of the ‘Howdy Doody Show’ and who is credited with creating the exclamation, ‘kowabunga,’” has passed away. Kean was 85.

“Ironically, this week the Pajamas Media site ran a piece reporting that Egyptian Islamic scholar and self-proclaimed jihadist Abd al-Muti Bayum has condemned the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ as a devious ‘Zionist conspiracy’ to discredit Islam by linking it to the September 11 attacks. This was cited as an argument against the Cordoba Center. This is strange logic: the center shouldn’t be built because radical Islamists will like it…. or because they will hate it.” That’s Reason’s Cathy Young, whose colleague Radley Balko gave us such a good angle on the “NYC Terror Mosque” controversy last week.

This thing has had me very upset lately. I’m worried that they’re going to preemptively “move” this thing that does not and might not ever exist, and that that’s going to send the same kind of message to the world as George Bush’s re-election in 2004. Basically, this. Which is not the message I think we should be sending.

And I’m all wringing my hands and spitting when I talk about it and mad at Obama for soft-pedaling and feeling like sending that same message back to the people who oppose the mosque.

But then I read this interview with Muslim rapper Lupe Fiasco wherein he comes across as far more accepting of the other side’s viewpoint that anything I can muster, and it makes me feel stupid. But I still really hope they build it where it’s planned.

Also, 50 Cent has already recorded a rap over the super new Cee-Lo song everybody loves so much. It’s a response, from the rich-guy jerk’s perspective, calling out Cee-Lo for crying sour-grapes. And there’s a new video for it, too, adding the verse to the original’s excellent typography treatment. It’s kinda great.

Finally, an advice column I can get behind: “Very few people are in denial about anything, when you get down it, particularly drinkers. Presumably your son is not a blithering idiot. He must know there is a strong connection between his losing his job and his girlfriend and his drinking. At the moment, however, he would just prefer to drink than not to drink. He prefers drinking to a job and he prefers drinking to his girlfriend. There is no denial going on here and to suggest there is seems rather patronising. Give him credit for making a deliberate choice. It may not be the choice you would make, it may not be a sensible choice, but it is a choice and he has made it.”

Everyone is talking about this video which shows a robot bunching a pair of socks. I don’t get it! I mean, I guess it’s cool that we have built a robot that can pair socks together-I know it’s a task I have a difficult time with-but the way everyone’s going on about this video you’d think it was the funniest thing in the world. I can’t understand what’s so amusing. Is it the robot’s appearance? Something about the color of the socks? The way it seems as if the robot is stroking the pole up and down, starting with the head and then moving more forcefully to the base and repeatedly rubbing until you imagine that the rod reaches climax and shoots its hot pole ejaculate into the waiting sock? The fact that the video is sped up? It’s a total mystery to me. [Via]

When all those people told Pew Research that they learned Barack Obama was a Muslim through the media, they weren’t kidding.