JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Personal blog of Jessica Zafra, author of The Collected Stories and the Twisted series
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Archive for October, 2007

Spinner of Epics

October 03, 2007 By: jessicazafra Category: Music 6 Comments →

This is what Greil Marcus wrote in his original Rolling Stone review of Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run. “What is new is the majesty Springsteen and his band have brought to this story. Springsteen’s singing, his words and the band’s music have turned the dreams and failures two generations have dropped along the road into an epic–an epic that began when that car went over the cliff in Rebel Without a Cause. One feels that all it ever meant, all it ever had to say, is on this album, brought forth with a determination one would have thought was burnt out years ago.”

That was written in 1975, and every word of it is still true. Springsteen and the E Street Band are now touring in support of their new album Magic. I have to see The Boss. Now how do you intend to do that in your present circumstances? I have no idea, but I know I am going to catch that tour. Last night I realized that I have Springsteen’s VH1 Storyteller episode on my iPod, and I saw it for the first time. Bruce opens with Devils and Dust, a song about American soldiers in Iraq, he explains how he wrote it, and he’s insightful, passionate, and funny. Then he moves on to Blinded By The Light, his only number one song (in the Manfred Mann version, not his), and it makes me want to listen to the entire Springsteen discography.

The thing about Springsteen is, we’re so used to him being brilliant, we tend to take the work for granted. Oh right, glowing reviews, critics falling at his feet, what else is new. But in our constant search for the Next Big Thing, the cool trends and cheap thrills, we overlook the amazing that is here now. Okay, I sound like those melodramas where the middle-aged guy leaves his middle-aged wife for some younger woman, but there is nothing middle-aged or cliche about The Boss. Springsteen is eternal and essential.

STPWW

October 02, 2007 By: jessicazafra Category: twisted by jessica zafra 9 Comments →

Did you know that it was Support The Penniless Writer Weekend? I didn’t, until I felt a breeze go through my wallet and the ATM laughed at me. So I declared it STPWW. Every time friends asked me to join them, I explained that I was broke and that they would have to buy me brunch, lunch, coffee, or dinner. (I could’ve hung out at my sister’s, but since family members are legally compelled to look after you, it wouldn’t have been the same. Your friends have to feed you of their own free will.) Fortunately lots of friends dragged me out on Saturday and Sunday, and I had an excellent time living off them. Thank you Carlo, Ricky, Juan, Bob, and Mike. Not only was my weekend a blast, but I also got a column out of it.

Note: Do not declare Support The Penniless Writer (or Artist, Physicist, Meteorologist, etc) Weekend more than once every other month, or your friends will notice that you’re a freeloader.

Christopher Hitchens goes to the spa

October 02, 2007 By: jessicazafra Category: twisted by jessica zafra 2 Comments →

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

“Viewed from the front when clothed, the subject resembles a burst horsehair sofa cushion or (in the opinion of one of us) a condom hastily stuffed with an old sock. The side perspective is that of an avocado pear and, on certain mornings, an avocado pear that retains nothing of nutritious value but its tinge of alligator green. . .”

Christopher Hitchens On the Limits of Self-Improvement in Vanity Fair.

In the same issue, The Man In The Irony Mask, a profile of Stephen Colbert. I love him.

History as fish poop

October 02, 2007 By: jessicazafra Category: Movies, twisted by jessica zafra 5 Comments →

At the bookstore cafe I run into Noel the filmmaker with the dented head (got run over by a truck, lived), whom I hadn’t seen since the turn of the century, and the first thing he says is, “You ran my Lapu-Lapu story without acknowledging me!” I say, “Yes I did, I attributed it to a filmmaker.” He says, “In Newsweek yes, but not in Twisted 7.” I say, “I said it was a theory.” He says, “But not my theory.”

So for the record, the story about Magellan being eaten by a giant fish (Lapu-Lapu) was conjured up by Noel Lim. There.

In other bits: Whom did Martin Scorsese anoint as the next Martin Scorsese? Unexpected answer.