The second trailer for 50 Shades of Grey dropped this morning, but that’s not the scary, relationship-themed trailer worth watching. No, that title belongs to this rework of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” video. Posted over at Slate, the trailer makes clear that T. Swift is actually a murderous lover. Surprise, surprise. No wonder she’s “Never, Ever Getting Back Together” with her ex: he’s dead! And was “I Knew You Were Trouble” actually a song about herself, wherein “trouble” meant “crazed serial killer?” Is Taylor Swift’s whole discography a thinly veiled allusion to her own murderous life?
I’m not going to make any real claims, because I’m not a police officer. But I wouldn’t be surprised if T. Swift was also somehow involved in the injury of Alfonso Ribeiro, which is likely to lead to his bowing out of the Dancing With the Stars. They say he was injured doing the Carlton dance, but we all know that can’t be true. Dude has surely done the Carlton dance hundreds of times in his life; injury is impossible. Everybody knows T. Swift is a huge Cheech and Chong fan, and Tommy Chong is a semifinalist competing against Ribeiro. Enough said.
(Oh god, do you think she’s responsible for Robert Pattinson’s hair, too? Did she “Sha(v)ke It Off?”) Did you just google, “Has Robert Pattinson ever dated Taylor Swift?” No? Are you lying to me? Because I googled it. But, then again, our google searches are fairly predictable, the result of our general human condition paired with the recordable nature of pop culture trends. The New Yorker has written a little thing, a Preëmptive Search Engine™. The last of which, about the weather, is especially apt, given that winter is officially here.
Well, not really. That’s December 21. But, it’s cold. And it’s snowy in a lot of the US. So, winter might as well be here. Which means it’s time to get sad. S.A.D. sad. Seasonal affective disorder is the pits — or, as Dayna Evans at Gawker puts it, a black hole — and we all deal with it in our own ways. Personally, I eat a lot of fried chicken and fight the temptation to start playing World of Warcraft (again). How do you deal with it? Huddle under a naturally lit light box? Maybe read sad stories about relationships ending, as told by both parties of said relationship?
Maybe, like my brother, you watch lots and lots of football? Or, rather, maybe you’d like to watch football, because it’s on all of the time, but you don’t know the rules. Well, luckily, the A.V. Club has a whole column devoted to breaking down the sport of football. It’s a complicated sport, but a complicated sport with tight pants, which always makes a complicated sport worth understanding.