A series of essays on consumerism, corporations and marketing in the culture of late twentieth-century America. Targets of these snarky and often smart "salvos" include malls, exurbs, business books, and record labels (remember those?). The co-opting of grunge (remember that?) is critiqued in loving detail. More serious pieces address the rise of the Internet as a commercial force, and question how we should think about work in an age of digitization.