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Photo Tom Ackerman
Stella Starsky and Quinn Cox will entertain at Enzo on Halloween. |
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Cosmic comedy and musical madness
By Sue Harrison
Banner Staff
Stella Starsky and Quinn Cox are not your usual club fare. They are cool, mod, hip and happening, and they mind-meld with the universe through astrology, lounge-y patter and a truly eclectic musical mix. And, oh yeah, they want to change the world.
They are coming to Enzo, 186 Commercial St. in Provincetown, with a special Halloween performance at 9:30 p.m. of their live show Scared O’ You. This is a premier, sneaky peek at the show that will then go on to Boston and ultimately to Ars Nova in Manhattan where it will be billed as “Starsky & Cox — Over the Hill and Everywhere.”
Their arranger Billy Hough will follow their show with his own disturbing Halloween offering, “Scream Along with Billy.” This will be Hough’s last show of the season.
Starsky and Cox — who refer to themselves exactly that way in the third person always — have been called “slick stargazers” by CNN. Their first book, “Sextrology,” is out in 14 languages and reveals their own beliefs that the stardust from which we came still exerts a force on us and through us. (It must be something from the asteroid belt that made you make that bad choice in the bar late at night last week. Right?)
The duo has evolved into its own brand with books, jewelry and a TV show in the offing in Britain. There is another book due out within the year, “Cosmic Coupling,” which outlines for each reader the 300 possible astrological mate situations.
They’ve worked with a variety of clients private and public (Marc Jacobs, Barney’s New York, Selfridges) to offer Cosmic Clinics. And there may be one in Provincetown this spring.
But Halloween is what’s happening right now. This show is a mixture of singing, interactive chat and, who knows, maybe a little astrological prediction or plain old-fashioned mind reading.
They are proponents of good. A release about their show says they will “personify the antidote to theoretical conspirators, deconstruct sociopolitics, illumine the workings of the known universe, explain the stars’ effects on sexuality and regale audiences with tales of growing up in liberal, mystical households where clairvoyance and key parties were evenly de rigueur.”
Whew. And if that’s not enough, you can look forward to a musical medley of tunes by The Velvet Underground, Steve & Edie, The Smiths, Radiohead, Tori Amos and a dash of Broadway.
The Banner talked with Quinn Cox by phone with Stella Starsky chiming in from the background.
“We will explain the perfect mandala for existence,” Cox says about the show and about their astro-views. “Astrology should probably be the only religion.”
The show came about, he says, because they like to sing and are basically hams, though quite evolved ones. They create characters during the show and hope somehow it all works out and winds up being entertaining and revelatory.
“We don’t have to justify it, it just is,” he says, which certainly sounds pretty cosmic.
In the talk part of the show, he says they deliver an “exaggerated” set of circumstances from their real lives.
“We purposefully mix fact and fiction. It’s what people have done in publishing with fictionalized biographies. Call it mendacity or misappropriation of facts,” he says.
About their musical choices he adds, “In terms of the music, it’s sort of like we never got the memo that said the world had veered back into conservatism. We are the antidote to what people perceive as the handful of people who run the world.”
He playfully disses those who just want to “ride their bikes to the beach and then stop by John Dowd’s for barbeque.” Not Starsky and Cox. “We are trying to keep the universe intact.”
He heads down another road and says they are concerned about the rise in basic bad behavior in the world. It’s become too competitive, with no good manners to ease the daily encounters.
“I’m scared of everybody now,” he says. “Bad behavior has crept into the most intimate circumstances like waiting for coffee or a parking space. The bellicose nature is trickling down to the most hapless interaction. I’m scared of how people let that influence creep in.”
And as for their astrological connections, it’s a very today kind of thing.
“It’s chic. Who says astrology has to be all wrapped in patchouli?” he asks.
Underneath his quick chat one catches a glimpse of the slightly more serious side of Starsky and Cox when he talks about how the average person just wants to be entertained and doesn’t want to do anything to inform themselves. Read? Never. That’s just wrong, he says, and they fight that ennui everyday in small ways.
“We are sneaking powerful self help into our snappy patter,” he says.
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Once bitten, twice warned
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Oct 25th, 2007