Good news, everyone! So as of last Sunday, this works on all Linux archs in Debian unstable and gives you a modern version of upstart:

echo 'Yes, do as I say!' | apt-get -o DPkg::options=--force-remove-essential -y --force-yes install upstart

Thanks to the ifupdown, sysvinit, and udev maintainers for their cooperation in getting upstart support in place; to the Debian release team for accomodating the late changes needed for upstart to be supported in wheezy; and to Scott for his past maintenance of upstart in Debian.

rest here