Drive My Car Into the Ocean
Nightcharm's
David K has some insightful things to say on his website about post-9/11 angst and existential crisis/opportunity. Read it now before it goes away... I will have to read the Paglia article if it's as good as he says - but he does certainly draw up a few interesting points about this culture making a huge paradigm shift. We are changed after something like that - but unfortunately I don't see us evolving or growing from this experience any time soon. And we can't get over it. As a culture - we're sick with worry and sick with want - 2 tastes that go great together... We want things to be all-right. We also feel a fleeting impermanence and so we want them fabulous. And yet - Irony is no longer cutting it - and at the same time, trying to adopt the new sincereity is a contradiction in terms. We want it all - yet, we don't. Things seem confusing, distorted, larger or smaller - unreal, hyperreal or just plain awful. So we shrink back into holly-hobby enthusiasm for gardening and watch reality-tv to validate our moral superiority. We laugh at our corner of the world - or someone elses corner (Ozzy Osbourne's), and go under some other medication (big escapist movies that feature music, lights and plenty o jazz hands)... And, and.... And. Uhhhhh... Uhhmmmm....
Where was I?
Oh yeah - nevermind that I heard rumor of a musical coming to the screen about the greatest band ever -
THE PIXIES. Here's the dish by a correspondent for KEXP's John in the Morning:
Will Bryant reports: This week's Entertainment Weekly reports that New York writer/producer Josh Frank is working on a musical based on the life of Frank Black. Frank has reportedly discussed the project with former Pixies Joey Santiago, David Lovering, and Black himself, who was initially quite amused at the prospect until he realized that Frank, who most recently assisted on a production of the Janis Joplin-inspired musical Love, Janis, was serious. The musical, entitled "Teenager of the Year," would follow the entire career trajectory of the Pixies and include songs both from that period and from Black's solo career. The article does not mention any involvement from
Pixies bassist Kim Deal (even though it would kill to see Lili Taylor portray the younger Mrs. John Murphy).
Josh Frank describes "Teenager of the Year" as "sort of a beat poem to the 80's [and] how alternative rock crashed the mainstream party." The project follows extremely successful musicals based on the output of ABBA ("Mamma Mia") and Culture Club ("Taboo"), but is apparently the first full-blown musical biography to take on a legend of alternative rock. Frank hopes to open the show next spring Off Broadway. And you thought you were so cool, singing along to Surfer Rosa with the windows down as you jammed down the freeway, when the whole time you were belting out showtunes!
Get those jazzhands going for "Tony's Theme"....
