Welcome to Issue #026 of Zen in the Art of Fighting

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Five Things Worth Sharing

1. One Good Picture: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (February 3, 2023 in Atlanta)

I've had the pleasure of seeing Springsteen live on three occasions: the first time at age 19, then age 25, then age 32. Each time I saw him punctuated a certain transformative season of my adult life, forcing me to think through my own (non-musical) narrative of "Growin' Up."

Back in July, I handed over to Ticketmaster an amount for a ticket that was proportional to my willingness to attend Bruce Springsteen's 2023 Tour. It was not cheap, but it was worth every penny to me. It was one of the best uses of my time and money in the last ten years.

Even if you don't like Springsteen, you have to appreciate that not very many performers can do what this man does. How many musicians can go 110% onstage for almost three hours, deliver multi-song encores, and give everything they have in the seemingly-endless tank to the screaming throng of fans? How many more can deliver a physically, emotionally, and mentally-engaging performance that rouses you out of your seat, stirs your spirit, makes you believe in humanity, and reminds you that you are here, now, that you are alive? How many more can do it at seventy-three years old, city after city and night after night?

I don't know how many more tours "The Boss" and The E Street Band have in the tank, but I feel very lucky to have seen him one more time on February 3. That night that has spawned at least three essay pitches and an addition to a book chapter, and is one I won't soon forget.

2. One Thing I'm Watching (aside from the Super Bowl): Sinatra: All or Nothing At All​

I have an unsurprising soft spot for Sinatra—a Jersey Girl can't help but celebrate a Jersey Boy who became a massive success. "Rooting for the home team" aside, I mostly loved Sinatra because my father loved Sinatra. My dad was a cold man with a hot temper, and Sinatra was one of the few things that brought a gentle warmth out of the man.

I hadn't thought much of Sinatra in a while until reading Bret Easton Ellis' essay collection White, which I wrote about in the previous newsletter. In the essay "Post-Empire," Easton Ellis talks about Sinatra's career and the merit of the 2015 HBO documentary about him Sinatra: All or Nothing At All. In addition to loving the work of Alex Gibney, the following lines sold me on buying the documentary:

I didn't have much of a relationship of my own with Sinatra short of research I had done for an eighth-grade project (I embodied him for a Wax Museum) and the inherited love of Sinatra from my dad.

The documentary has given me a relationship with Sinatra as an adult that I didn't know I wanted or needed. His story as an artist is incredible. The story of the man behind the music is even more so. His life's experience is what really made the music.

3. One Thing I'm Reading: "Goodbye to All That" by Joan Didion

I don't know how I stumbled upon this essay, and why I was so late in stumbling upon it. It is a wonderful one by Joan Didion on her falling out of love with New York City:

Swap in "T stops" for "bridges" and "Boston" for "New York" and there you have how I feel about having left the city I'd lived in for almost nine years.

One of most important questions I need to answer for a reader in my book is this: "Why was it so hard for me to leave Boston?" Didion's essay has given me the best (and best-written) answer to that question: it was so hard to leave Boston because Boston was my first love, and it remains hard to be away from Boston because no matter how much of a life I build elsewhere, nothing can fully take that first love's place.

4. One Thing I'm Listening To: Wright Thompson: Understanding the World Through Sports​

In trying to figure out what I found so moving about watching Springsteen last weekend, listening to Sinatra's music in All or Nothing At All, and thinking about my life and times in Boston while reading Didion, a riff from my favorite sportswriter, Wright Thompson came to mind.

It's Thompson's answer to the interviewer's question of what makes a great restaurant:

I think what Thompson has to say applies to so much more than restaurants: certain foods, songs, places, or experiences put you "in communion" with versions of yourself the last time you were there and enjoying them.

5. Some Things I'm Writing

Most of my time the last two weeks have been spent

• Writing emails for work communication (🫠)
• Drafting pitches for essays I'd like to try placing in publications instead of just putting all the goods on Substack
• Typing out my handwritten manuscript work into a Scrivener file.

Nothing from the above is particularly worth sharing or ready to share, but I hope to have a new thing or two on Substack in the coming week.

That's all I've got. If you've got ideas on what you'd be excited to read from me next (or any opinions on favorite Superbowl commercials), please reply back and let me know!

Until next time,

Erica

PS: Bookending the first item in this email: the one time I ever got a photo of Bruce Springsteen (October 2016), and the closest thing "I'll never wash this hand again" kind of moment.