Friday links! End of whatever edition

Then came the Bird-men, probably because we'd all been fucking birds.

Then came the Bird-men, probably because we’d been fucking birds.

As the biggest assholes in the world remind me on Facebook, now begins the end of the Mayan something or other. Their calendar runs out in like a week, signaling the prophesied end of Mayan civilization. You can tell the calendar was really important to the Mayans, because the only specific part of their end-of-the-world prophecy is the date. In this way it is the opposite of say, Revelation, which tells us in gory detail what will happen but really leaves us hanging re: when. I am forced to conclude that all presently occurring phenomena are signs of the end times, and this week was the ripple that precedes the wave of stable dog/cat roommate situations. Today is Friday—possibly our last. Won’t you scrutinize the heavens with me?

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A calm and reasoned explanation of why I dislike Ke$ha

Kesha

Regular readers of Combat! blog know that I do not like Ke$ha. For sheer use in lists and arbitrary examples, you could make a textually-supported argument that I like Ke$ha less than virtually all other pop culture phenomena. I dislike her music. I dislike her persona. I especially dislike what she represents about the music industry and, to a lesser extent, music journalism. Last week, on Grantland, the otherwise respectable Steven Hyden remarked that he is glad pop music critics like Ke$ha’s new album, Warrior. He cited Simon Reynolds’s favorable review at the New York Times. His argument was so compelling that I listened to “Crazy Kids” from Warrior. It did not make me like Ke$ha. Instead, it focused my Ke$ha-hating into a powerful laser, which I then passed through the prism of my liberal arts education to separate into its two components:

  1. I dislike her horrible rap-singing voice.
  2. Her “garbage chic” ethos appeals to narcissism in order to draw a false equivalence between hedonism and transgression, encouraging the listener to believe that going out is an act of self-expression—one of the most pernicious lies of contemporary culture.

Item (1) is a matter of personal taste. Discussion of item (2) after the jump.

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Antonin Scalia’s reduction to absurdity

I'm going to throw away these old giblets, unless anyone...

I’m going to throw away these old giblets unless anyone…

Monday in Princeton, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defended his comparison of anti-sodomy laws to prohibitions against bestiality and murder. Speaking to gay freshman Duncan Hosie—who questioned whether it was appropriate to imply a connection between blowing a dude and shooting the Lone Ranger in order to penetrate his horse—Scalia said that “I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective.” See, Justice Scalia only made that argument because it works. “It’s a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the ‘reduction to the absurd,'” he added. “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?” Obviously, the answer is no; if we permit gay marriage, we have to immediately overturn state and federal laws against murder. Differences between that reductio ad absurdum and Scalia’s after the jump.

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Yoga to the People settles with Bikram

Yoga to the People’s East Village studio—it’s real hot.

Although the Federal Copyright Office ruled in June that a series of poses cannot be copyrighted, Yoga to the People has agreed to stop offering the Bikram series in order to settle a lawsuit from Bikram Choudhury. The name is not a coincidence. Choudhury, known as “Bikram” in hushed tones with whale sounds in the background, invented the Bikram series of 26 poses performed in a room heated to 105 degrees. “Invented” is maybe the wrong word. The poses themselves are thousands of years old, but Bikram assembled them into a series that, done right, is an amazingly therapeutic workout. I would like to thank him for my increased shoulder mobility and steadily improving abs. Really, though, I should thank Jennifer Hoover and Hot House Missoula, since they’re the ones who actually put me through the paces.

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What you get for $3.7 million

Lena Dunham, creator of Girls

As any Amish person will tell you, one of the best things about being alienated from popular culture is having something to define your values against. I do not like Ke$ha; ergo, when Ke$ha is materialistic and stupid, I am nuanced and wise. This phenomenon is made more versatile by ignorance. I am disconnected from radio and television, so by definition I don’t really know what’s on there. I can therefore impute to it any values I reject. It’s like the way the alien in Alien is really scary until you get a good look at it; your imagination makes it so. I have seen exactly one episode of Girls, and so Lena Dunham has come to embody everything I despise.

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