The Quirk: Slowing Building A Media Empire

Yesterday while I was home sick, nursing a case of exhaustion and general malaise, I thought to myself: I haven't heard a peep from Miranda or Zooey. I wonder what they're up to. And then I got mired in rental car hell, and promptly forgot about the quirk incarnates. And later, after fulfilling my scenester quota for the year by attending what turned out to be a sold-out show for the Next Big Swedish Sensation*, I saw someone dip (yes, tobacco) for the first time (my first time seeing; definitely not his first time dipping). Pretty easy for the quirk to get obscured, what with general sensory overload and confusion. And it was only Tuesday, no less. Wednesday is a new day, and with it comes a whole new set of things to check out via my wonderful and time-sucking Google Reader. And it was through the wonders of said Reader that I came across news that there will be a six-hour miniseries this fall on the SciFi Channel, updating The Wizard of Oz. Entitled Tin Man, the show features Alan Cumming as the Scarecrow, Ricahrd Dreyfuss (?!) as the Wizard-esque "Mystic Man," and none other than our own Zooey Deschanel as Dorothy. Sigh. I mean, I guess if you've got a character who's sort of cute, innocent, wide-eyed, gently feisty, but speaks in simple sentences, and is just an all-around darling, you'd pick this person: [That's our Zooey, at the press conference thingy promoting the show. Isn't she adorable?!] And then embedded in the article about Tin Man was a link that led me to this slightly unnerving bit of news: There's some new movie coming out, The Go-Getter, starring our dear Zooey, with original songs by M.Ward. And -- AND -- there's a duet! Zooey and M.Ward! I can barely contain my ire! You can click on the link to the movie's myspace page to check out the song -- which I'll freely admit to not having heard yet, since the myspace player doesn't seem to want to work for me right now. Could somebody please tell us what it sounds like? [Update: You can also find it here. (Thanks, MD.) And .... yeah. That's all I'm going to say about it: yeaaaaaaaah.] To be sure, the song might be really wonderful. [update: it's not.] It's M.Ward, after all. He does nice things with sounds. [update: not here. sorry! only just now discovered that it's a cover of a Linda and Richard Thompson song. still, not good sounds coming out of the quirk/ward.] But between this miniseries and the song, I feel like there are fewer spaces I can retreat to, to escape the quirk. I used to be able to avoid its cultural ubiquity by staying in, not walking around the streets of New York, and just watching television. Now I'm going to start seeing commercials for this blasted Tin Man, and I bet that the trailers for The Go-Getter are going to feature that duet. I mean, it's like the phenomenon is actually taking over all media, slowly but surely. It's making every effort to never be obscured. And it's working. Having incurred the wide-eyed charmingly-inarticulatable wrath of the quirk, I expect to hear about some new Miranda July Old Tyme radio hour any day now. * To be discussed in our upcoming Music Week. Suffice it to say, it was a little terrifying.