Sarah Palin and Levi Johnston: Icons of Pop Culture

A little more than a year after John McCain threw conservative debutant Sarah Palin her coming out party, the country still finds itself with a chronic case of Wasilla Fever!

Just take Levi Johnston. Not only is he getting his own not-brave-enough-to-get-naked spread in Gay Fancy Magazine (or something), but he's also having tales sung of his brave adventures by ironic-pianist balladeer Ben Folds, whom, I promise, Levi Johnston has never ever ever heard of.

But what about Sarahcuda? Where's her folk ballad? She's twice the folksy ballaverick her granddaughter's father is. Well, she doesn't get a song; she gets a whole opera!

"Say It Ain't So, Joe," a presentation by Guerilla Opera, opens Saturday at Boston Conservatory's Zack Box Theater. The work is composer Curtis Hughes' musical take on America's favorite moose-hunting winker, you betcha. It focuses on that contentious — and sometimes comical — debate from October 2008 between Palin and Joe Biden…

"It is a tragedy about Palin," he said. "Both characters view themselves as saviors of America. And even though I'm not trying to hammer people on the head with a single interpretation, you know that Biden will triumph in the end. But the central figure certainly is Sarah Palin. I found myself having this odd pathos for her, a pathos I would not have felt if I were not writing music for her."

What an interesting coincidence! I've found myself with an odd pathos for a lot of things for about a year or so now.

Tags: Alaska, Debates, Joe Biden, Levi Johnston, Music, Sarah Palin, Wasilla