PicoBlog

Hi pals, apologies that this is coming to you on Monday instead of Friday last week — the perils of having a sick kid, sick nanny, and sick husband basically all at once. But that meant that I got to talk about Taylor Swift going to not one but TWO Kansas City Chiefs games and what it all means (spoiler: she’s a marketing genius, it’s not much more deep than that).

Toward the end of summer in 1984, a 26-year-old stock-pretty American pop singer unfurled a performance at that year’s MTV Music Awards that broke new territory and pissed off millions of religious conservatives, who were then enjoying an ascendancy under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose two-term administration is memorable for introducing helpful valued-oriented homilies such as “Just Say No.” The singer started her number on top of a wedding cake and ended it writhing on the floor with her blond hair dirtying the floor and her panties slightly showing.

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Temperatures hit -4 at the Kansas City Chiefs - Miami Dolphins game last weekend, so naturally, Taylor Swift had to show her support for boyfriend Travis Kelce with the warmest fan gear possible.  All eyes have been on Swift when she’s shown up at Chiefs games this season. Her red and gold team apparel has been one to watch, too, and searches surrounding where to snag your own versions of the vintage and custom Chiefs merch Swift wears surge every time she attends a game.

Welcome to a new week and a brand new edition of Publishing Confidential. It’s taken me a few days to gather information and wrap my head around what I’m writing about today, but I think you’ll find it intriguing. Shoutout to the reader who brought this to my attention—you know who you are! Let’s dive in: THE WHAT: Bantam, an imprint of Penguin Random House, released the book Argylle by the “author” Elly Conway on January 9, 2024.

By Dom Taylor Swift and some of her friends created an incredible album called “Midnights.” It’s an examination of the thoughts, desires, and fears that keep you up until midnight and beyond. Before I give an inexplicably unnecessary in-depth analysis of each song and its placement on the Enneagram circle, I understand many of you just want to skim a bulleted list and see if you agree with my assessments.

There’s a hilarious story from Marc Maron’s Thinky Pain special, where Maron recalls doing a show with Bill Hicks. He says that he asked Hicks if he could perform first on the show, but Hicks wanted to go first. While the late comedy great got on stage, Maron went to the bathroom. When he returned, the room was silent with “a suction to it.” Maron said that Hicks was at the front of the stage “screaming” at a woman in the audience.

PopPoetry is poetry and pop culture Substack written by Caitlin Cowan. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox weekly, subscribe below so you won’t miss a post! Thanks for reading and sharing. If you’d told me five years ago that I’d be blogging about Taylor Swift’s reference to Romantic Poetry, I would have slapped your cardigan out of your hands. Poetry in pop (or anti-pop) music: you love to see it.

I often speak to people who lament the fact that their company strategy doesn’t match the "good strategy" descriptions discussed in books, talks, research, and popular examples. “With so much information out there, why don’t we have a real strategy?” The delta between what they believe is possible and what exists at their company is wide. Here are some things to consider. A company does not have a strategy. The individuals in a company have strategies.