March 1998 - Sinister - missprint.org

Sinister: The late, late Monday poem, plus: A LIST FANZINE!!!
by poetryplace2 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

Ok, ok, ok.... I've been ill y'know. But I go away for three days and I don't expect someone to try to steal my delightful sobriquet! I refer, of course, to mr la-de-dah so-called "essex-I'm-a-journalist-actually-dontachaknow-dog5", who wrote, in reply to sir sparkly orange: >>who is this stephen trousers of whom you speak? Why I oughtta...... listen "pal", i was trousers when you were in short pants, so go find your own nom-de-net. As a card-carrying pop deconstructionist, I'm all in favour of the concept of the free-floating signifier, but this is one act of bricolage too far. So take your teletextuality elsewhere, you loathsome poltroon! (does this count as flame? even if put a big snakey sarcasm symbol here? ~~~) Ummm, where was I? Oh somone was mentioning setting up a spin-off website for listees contributions (sorry I can't remember who, I've just waded through 150 emails), which reminded me... various people have kicked around the idea of setting up a list fanzine, and I've decided to take the plunge. It would be nice to have something ready to commemorate all the picnics at the beginning of May, and we could also distribute them at the Blue Soda Social, a club a few of us are setting up in London. So if anyone fancies contributing reviews, interviews, features, ink polaroids, WHATEVER (or if you just have a query).... email me privately (poetryplace2(a)easynet.co.uk) They don't have to be about B&S... in fact it'll probably be more interesting if there's a broad range of subjects: not just pop, but books, films, plays, comics.... hell, even poems! It'd be nice to have a few illustrations, so if anyone's handy with a pencil....We'll have to get our skates on though, so the deadline is April 15th. And no, it's not gonna be called Trouser Press because even my egomania has some limits, (and there's already a US zine by that name). I think Sinister sounds a bit gothy.... at the moment I like "brouhaha" simply because it's a nice word, but if anyone has any better suggestions, well drop me a line. Avanti! At last: the late late Monday poem... Stephen Dobyns is another of these ker-razy american poets who are so fashionable at the moment. I spent the better part of this week in bed with the flu reading his selected poems "Velocities", published by Bloodaxe, and it brought some truth to the cliche that there is nothing so enjoyable as a minor illness. This poem is fairly self-explanatory. Stephen Dobyns Oatmeal Deluxe This morning, because the snow swirled deep around my house, I made oatmeal for breakfast. At first it was runny so I added more oatmeal, then it grew too thick so I added water. Soon I had a lot of oatmeal. The radio was playing Spanish music and I became passionate: soon I had four pots of oatmeal. I put them aside and started a new batch. Soon I had eight pots. When the oatmeal cooled, I began to roll it with my hands, making small shapes: pigs and souvenir ashtrays. Then I made a foot, then another, then a leg. Soon I'd made a woman out of oatmeal with freckles and a cute nose and hair made from brown sugar and naked except for a necklace of raisins. She was five feet long and when she grew harder I could move her arms and legs without them falling off. But I didn't touch her much - she lay on the table - sometimes I'd touch her with a spoon, sometimes I'd lick her in places it wouldn't show. She looks like you, although your hair is darker, but the smile is like yours, and the eyes, although hers are closed. You say: But what has this to do with me? And I should say: I want to make more women out of Cream of Wheat. But enough of such fantasy. You ask me why I don't love love you, why you can't live with me. What can I tell you? If I can make a woman out of oatmeal, my friend, what trouble could I make for you, a woman? ------------------------------------------------------------ Stevie Trousers xxxxxxxxxxxxxx the Poetry Society website: http://www.poetrysoc.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: Favorite shows
by Lesley Higgins 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

Haven't got my list of favorite shows together (yet), but I know what would become one: B + S @ Summerstage in Central Park New York (early in summer before the too muggy weather sets in, of course! Is it a possibility? Lesley ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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None
by Matthew Neimark 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

>Subject: Sinister: Maybe Northy was right ...Right you lot. >I'd really like to have something nice to say, but unfortunately idon't. >Paul has done the most fantastic job possible with this list and i think >it's an insult to him as to how we are all using it at present. >Of course people are going to have differing opinions and of course >people are going to want to air said opinions, but we should all do as >Paul suggests and "pause for 10 seconds and think of cliff before >hitting that send button". Unfortunately, the biggest problem with the B&S list is that there is nothing going on with B&S. It will be some time before the records are released and the gigging starts. That said, other than the occassional radio sessions (I really wanna hear "Wrong Love"), there is nothing for us to do except twiddle our thumbs and have the occassional picnic. That said, Paul said we should talk about our lives. My life involves pop music which involves bands other than B&S. On tuesday, I did a radio show on a college station in Boston (WMBR Cambridge) called Breakfast of Champions (named either after the cereal Wheaties or the Kurt Vonnegut novel). I played lots of indie pop including Belle and Sebastian (You made me Forget my dreams) and bands the list talks about (Stone Roses, Biff Bang Pow, the Jasmine Minks). Yesterday, I did another radio show called Ma Petite Pamplemousse where I played mostly french (Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy, Louis Philippe), cheesy french (Vanessa Paradis, Veronique Sasson) or wannabe french (Cat's Miaow, Velocette, Jane Birkin, Baby Birkin, Luna's version of Bonnie & Clyde, Dutronc). I did manage a petit scottish set (Adv. in Stereo, Belle and Sebastian, and Primal Scream). Ummm...today I'll see Grease hopefully with my girlfriend (if it isn't sold out). Our company is doing well (4 million in financing --- I know I know boo to the business world). It's 80 degrees and beautiful. Life is good. Matt ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: Re: E-Files
by Nick Dastoor 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

In response to: >> Is Elvis a cat? >> The way elvis is described in this song makes him out to sound like a cat !! Cross Katrina shouted: >READ THE ARCHIVES !!! :) And then apologised nicely When I started on this list I noticed people referring in an oblique way to this whole cat/Elvis thing. But doing a search on the archives didn't actually help much because: 1. If you search for 'cat' you get everything with the three letters c-a-t in them (including catalogue, the person with the e-mail address 'yummycats' etc.) 2. 'Elvis' is obviously mentioned all over the place 3. Since the search engine is pretty crude this is all you can do. Ideally, you could do clever Boolean searches like "Elvis AND (cat or dog", or else have some kind of nice natural-language interface with clever relevance-ranking algorithms behind it. But sledgehammers and nuts come to mind, and we should be grateful that we've got anything at all. 4. Finally, on trawling chronologically through the early archives, I realised that the real elvis/cat debate happened in the prehistory of Sinister, when there was another mailing list that was beset by technical hitches (I think I'm remembering that right - apologises if not) So my point is I don't think we shouldn't always tell people off for not looking in the archives just because something has come up before - it can be hard to find things. God I'm boring. Nick P.S. Talking of the E-files, I was most excited to see it is shown on Sunday mornings on BBC1. Imagine my disappointment when I found that it was not a series about Elvis sightings but a pretty tedious one on European issues, focussing last week on the impact of closer political union on pension provisions. Bah. _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Sinister: 3...6...9 seconds of light
by iles＠boreas.leeds.icnet.uk 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

>------------------------------ > >Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 08:31:04 -0000 >From: "jon g." <jon.g(a)BTInternet.com> >Subject: Re: Sinister: 3...6...9 seconds of light > >- -----Original Message----- >From: Katrina Shepherd <alkl6163(a)emirates.net.ae> >To: sinister(a)majordomo.net <sinister(a)majordomo.net> >Date: 25 March 1998 23:28 >Subject: Sinister: 3...6...9 seconds of light > > >>can anyone tell me what 'le pastie de la bourgeoisie' means? i've tried to >>look it up but i still have absolutly no idea please help me! it's so >annoying! >> love katrina >> >Katie, dear, it literally means the 'Pastie' (an alcoholic beverage popular >in France) of the upper-middle-class, but it really means just like, well, >you know, the upper class scum stuff type thing. > Are you sure? I was under the impression that it was supposed to be a mishearing of "L'apathie de la bourgeoisie" meaning "The apathy of the middle classes". Anyone else? Mark ___________________________________________________________________________ Mark Iles, Tel: +44 (0113) 2065042 Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Fax: +44 (0113) 2340183 Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory, Ashley Wing, Email: iles(a)boreas.leeds.icnet.uk St James's University Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds, LS9 7TF U.K. ____________________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: Posmodern rock songs
by Ruth McCurry 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

I think it was Keith who put his finger on it when he said that a B and S concert is like actually going to listen to some music rather than being subjected to a heaving mass of sweaty bodies and 150 decibels. If I want that, I can go on the Northern Line. And then jon.g said what's wrong with gaps between songs? Like gaps between teeth, absolutely nothing. I mean, has the Being-at-a-concert-experience become so staid that people get upset if the `rules' are broken? Who says that there should be a gap of approx 20 seconds between songs? If guided by voices can play five songs in a row in 8 minutes with no gap at all, why not have two songs separated by 4 minutes of amiable faffing, mumbling, and wire-plugging. The only possible complaint could be lack of value for money, but I've never felt short-changed by B and S, even after forking out for a flight to Spain. Perhaps pop music needs to mature a bit. It's only 40 years old, after all. I just think it's frustrating that there's such a lack of experimentation with the live medium. Plenty of bands experiment with the actual material of music (you know, texas, del amitri, sleeper), but hardly anyone puts any thought into how they present it to their audience. I'm not suggesting that B and S are deliberately experimenting, they may just be alarmingly incompetent, but what the hell? It's still wildly more interesting than going to a thousand concerts by montrose avenue, morrissey, cornershop or whoever. Perhaps I should try `dance' music. But drugs are cheating... I recall seeing James in London in 1984, and they came on at the beginning, sat in a circle on the stage, played 6 acoustic folk songs, then went off. They were followed by an appalling Japanese synthesiser duo. Then James came back and played an hour of normal stuff, and invited everyone on to the stage at the end to sing Hymn from a village. They might suck now, but that was a good night's entertainment by anyone's standards. Anyone have any suggestions as to how the concert experience could be developed? Lots of love, have a good weekend, DAVID ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: By Royal Appointment
by Adrian Evans 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth version 2, has just driven her Right Royal Roller past my office on Topsham Road, Exeter. What a nice lady...??? And guess what, she had her sunroof down and was blasting out Belle and Sebastian on her car stereo and she was singing along to Lazy Line Painter Jane and was letting go of the wheel and clapping her hands on the bit where they like, clap their hands, and swerving all over Topsham Road singing.."In the mud on your knees..GOSH !!! Frightful What ?. And the Duke of Edinburgh pretended he wasn't there and that he was orf presenting some of his awards or something, but really he was lying on the floor with an empty gin bottle singing "I will have some boys tonight" probably. And I'd like to say look out for me on BBC Spotlight South-West tonight, I'm the one itching my G's, but you don't all live in the South-West of England and the cameras weren't there anyway so I didn't bother going to wave cos she's a cow. I'll get my coat and take my pills now. Adrian. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: love before hate, age before beauty, swine before pearls
by Hopkins T 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

Lots of threads all making the same sort of sense to me...mind if I try to weave them together just a little? When I was sixteen, I was totally in love with pop and pop possibilities. At that time of my l found myself able to invent and reinvent myself as an individual, to build myself as an adult (OK, I may have failed...) and was thrillled by the possibilities. For those possibilities to mean anything, it is/was absolutely necessary to draw lines about what's wrong and right, or I'd never have worked out why it was important to take a stand against what's wrong and what's ugly in the world. The world is a fucked up place and pop music, which in itself is a little backwater of capital, is never going to change that. But when I was sixteen, pop music helped me understand that, while beauty will not make the pot boil, the urge to express yourself, to aim towards some sort of radical beauty, is a positive one. That view continues to inform what I do and how I look at the world. And the economics of pop at the time: struggling to get 1000 copies of a 7" single out, labels necessarily acting as little capitalists, stays with me as a great example of how it is impossible to escape from capital in this society, but capital can be turned against itself, its structures can be used to communicate, to make people feel and think and sometimes believe. I certainly didn't need to be told that the bands I was listening to (and the Jasmine Minks are a great example) were special, because I knew they were. Frankly, I'd probably have been a bit put off if some old groaner like the 28 year-old me had come and started to try to impress upon me how lucky I was. I only loved a small number of pop groups, but for a short time it seemed they could do anything, go anywhere...such a sense of possibility. And it's that sense of possibility which Belle and Sebasian inspire in me. Me and the duke sometimes talk of how all true pop music pertains in some way to the state of being sixteen, to the (often painful) excited confusion of not really knowing what's coming around the corner, and loving it. Don't know if I've succeeded in being relevant to anything, or whether list veterans will have groaned and gone to sleep yet. And don't much care. For anyone still awake, try singing 'I could be Dreaming' along with '(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures' by the Rezillos. Extraordinary. timh ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: to Chris Hall
by Jose Maria Sagúillo (hijo) 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

I'm out of my home town, I'm working in another city (a wonderfull city), please write me an e-mail. IMCEAEX-_O=GONVARRI_OU=CGT_CN=RECIPIENTS_CN=SAGUILLO+5FJH(a)gestamp.es ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Sinister: Two Arms Two Legs and a Head
by Adrian Evans 27 Mar '98

27 Mar '98

Windy Peephole Miller wrote : >Subject: RE: Sinister: Seeing Other People's >Christopher Alexander Leonard revealed: >>I went to a public toilet the other day. I was standing at the urinal taking >>care of the matter in hand, and two urinals along there was an old jakey >>bloke taking care of his matter in hand >Thank you Christopher. This is the kind of thing I'd like to see more of on >the list. How about if every member of the list goes to their nearest public >lavatory and waits around until something interesting happens? Don't worry >if you're shy, some of them have helpful little peepholes drilled in the >doors so no one will know that you're there. If we all do this I'm sure the >results will put the PE / Big Tackle thread in the shade. In the likely >event of seeing someone "at it" the lucky listee should burst out of their >hiding place (if they have chosen to go undercover) and award the person in >question a Crackerjack pencil and ask them what is the Meaning of True Pop. >That way we can all kill two birds with one stone:- we get a toilet-related >anecdote and another piece to put in the Great Pop Jigsaw to boot. Hey >presto! I knew a bloke who went to Nigeria to live in January. For some reason he thought it would be some sort of milestone to use every public toilet in Exeter in the seated position in the weeks preceding his departure. A truly remarkable feat only just managed when he enlisted my help to ensure there were none he had missed....that is to say any public toilets he missed rather than he missed the bowl. I guess that's what you call a big job well done. God I'm old enough to know better. Adrian. -- ******************************************************************** "Yes there is a Santa Claus, and anyone who blasphemes against Santa or any of his helpers shall DIE!!" Jimmy Tarbuck. ******************************************************************** ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister(a)majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister(a)majordomo.net . Listen, this is pish, I think I'll leave -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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