Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on Things You Can Rely On, No Matter What)

“We have many, many anchors we can cling to during the dark night of the soul. Snickers bars. LeBron….Taylor Swift writing a song about her latest dud boyfriend. Rancid coffee in rural diners. No night life in downtown Minneapolis on Sunday night….Apple being mean to its rivals. Overpriced granola. Sting and Bono doing something pretentious. Waiters asking, ‘Is everything all right…so far?’ Amazon finding new ways to take over the universe.”—Humor columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets”: A Shout-Out to the Same Old Same Old,” The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 22-23, 2014

Yeah, I wondered about that part on Taylor Swift. But it seems that Travis Kelce has only been dating her for a few months—nowhere near the staying power of others on Elle Australia’s indispensable list of the singer-songwriter’s boyfriends over the last 15 years.

The long and short of it is: Queenan’s sentence stays. Let’s see if Mr. Kelce is so lucky.

Quote of the Day (Paul Rudnick, on Taylor and Your Taxes)

“Please supply the following information and materials:

“1. Your income from last year.

“2. Taylor Swift’s income from last year.

“3. Instagram post of Taylor Swift laughing uproariously.”— Paul Rudnick, “Your Taxes,” The New Yorker, Feb. 2, 2015

Song Lyric of the Day (Taylor Swift, on the ‘Bad News’ Guys She Can’t Resist)

“You look like bad news,

I gotta have you.”—Taylor Swift, “22,” Written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback, on Swift’s CD Red (2012)

In recent interviews, such as one with Vanity Fair, Taylor Swift owns up to bewilderment about why she’s turned into a national joke. Well, using guys for song material—again and again and again and again—might have something to do with it.

At this point, if she really wants “bad news,” there’s really only one logical destination for her: Justin Bieber. Ever since his breakup with Selena Gomez, he seems to be losing his mind in public.(He's sure come a long way from the wide-eyed yet oddly flip kid interviewed several years ago by Chelsea Handler, who regarded him as cuddly as a chihuahua.)

Can’t you see? They are just so made for each other, a tabloid perfect storm. Though what gold she could spin from a broken-down romance with a minimally talented, on-his-way-to-ex-teen-idol, remains to be seen...

Quote of the Day (Taylor Swift, on Bad Boys)

“I think every girl's dream is to find a bad boy at the right time, when he wants to not be bad anymore.”—Music superstar—and tabloid favorite—Taylor Swift, quoted in Shawna Malcom, “Jingle Belle,” Parade Magazine, November 25, 2012

And we wonder why she keeps getting her heart broken. (Well, at least she releases platinum CDs about it!)

(Photo of Taylor Swift at the Time 100 Gala, May 3, 2010, by David Shankbone)

Quote of the Day (Taylor Swift, on How Solo She Really Is)

''I don't have a boyfriend. I don't have, like, even kind of a boyfriend. I don't have someone that I'm texting that's a guy that might someday be my boyfriend. There's, like, nothing going on right now.''—Taylor Swift on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, quoted in “Soundbites,” Entertainment Weekly, November 4, 2011

Wow—I guess this means there won’t be any no thinly veiled (or not so thinly veiled) songs about ex-boyfriends for awhile, huh?