Author Archive

Iceland’s Sigur Ros Gave Me a Mild Case of Joy

Written by Jessica Willis on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Somewhere over Halifax? Over nowhere, North Atlantic? Suddenly excitable on sedatives, popping up and down on my cushion like a wind-up cymbal chimp, I demo the chicken dinner, pushing most of it onto Rory’s already-stained lap, and I (even though they still give you a plastic knife on the plane, no matter what the tv
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Odette Larson’s Flying Sparks: Growing Up on the Edge of Las Vegas

Written by Jessica Willis on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

At the end of Flying Sparks: Growing Up on the Edge of Las Vegas (Verso, 192 pages, $23), 12-year-old Odette, a runaway about to return home to Las Vegas after a cruel interlude in a mental institution and on the stoned nowhere streets of Oakland, reflects on the dullness of her life: "It was as
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In Rae Lawrence’s Jacqueline Susann’s Shadow of the Dolls, Living Chilled Is the Best Revenge

Written by Jessica Willis on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Didn’t read Valley of the Dolls, didn’t see the movie: didn’t have to. I was above it, or below it, or, more precisely, beyond it. I did the big hair/dark-eyed/damask dress/potty-mouthed vic routine on my own, without Jacqueline Susann’s urging, and, as a house guest, I’ve thrown up other people’s Xanax, chardonnay and linguine into
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The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band Is Mötley Crüe’s Attempt at a Karma Purge, R-rated Oprah Style

Written by Jessica Willis on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

The special-thanks blurb on the inner sleeve of Mötley Crüe’s 1999 Live: Entertainment or Death was the first sign of real trouble. It’s always bad news when rock stars thank God and a sobriety counselor on an album, but Mötley Crüe’s live CD, released when the band was going through one of its shambling, broken-up
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My Life In Furs:Hate Me If It Makes You Feel Good

Written by Jessica Willis on . Posted in Breaking News, Posts

She sits in a wingback chair in the front room, stocking feet thoughtfully digging into the shag carpet, and over her shoulder, out the picture window, I can see the wood and wire cages, rows and rows of them, clustered on the lawn. The smell of mink–gamy, deeply organic, vaguely unpleasant–permeates the house. We go
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