Dear sinister,
May I recommend this season's in thing, a blog. Stuart
Murdoch has one, and look what happened to him. He
became a popstar.
thanks
idles.
xx
http://www.blogger.comhttp://www.livejournal.comhttp://www.diaryland.com
and when you're done:
http://www.geocities.com/retrosec
- Pocketbook Angels: the choice for sinister blogging.
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+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
that song....what i like about you...by the
romantics....it's on the radio right now. i don't
really like that song very much.
ah well. the weekend was riddled with mayhem. my
goodness. tornadoes everywhere. winds upwards of 50
mph. cold. rainy. ick.
saturday i worked for an hour or two...then
went...don't remember what i did to be honest. ah
well. i guess it musn't have been too exciting.
yesterday i met my family for breakfast. i intended on
meeting them for 8:30 mass...my tummy had a different
agenda apparently becuase when i woke up on sunday
morning, my stomach was swollen, more than it has been
in a long time. none of my clothes fit me and i
wanted to die. i am thinking i should just bite the
bullet, go ahead and schedule my endoscopy. at this
point, what difference will an additional $7,000 in
debt really make? i dunno. i really don't want to
have these episodes though....they really aren't fun.
so yes, breakfast. met for breakfast and everyone
pestered me about why i wasn't eating.
then i went to my brothers house (again) and he fixed
my car (again). i am hoping that the car behaves for
awhile. i also bought a l'il (foot)(soccer) ball air
freshener :o)
after that, i went to my cousin kelly's house. we
don't really ever see one another as we both tend to
avoid large family gathering type situations. i love
my family....i guess...most of them anyway. my aunt
kathy i could do without....grrrrrrr......
so we had a nice time.
the insane storms of the weekend and the
aforementioned wind storms brought some sadness.
well, lots of it i s'pose. there is this giant pine
tree that has been in my gram's yard for over 40
years. the wind blew it over. can you believe that?
crazy. luckily it didn't hurt anyone, or the house,
but it is sad to think of that big ol' tree not being
there anymore :o)
ah well. i s'pose those things happen don't they.
trees fall...people fall....people die....trees give
us oxygen. i dunno.
perhaps many of you had read/heard about this high
school girls scandal. there is a tradition amongst
the suburban chicago girls in their junior and senior
years in high school, to participate in a "Powder
Puff" football (american footbal...gridiron, if you
will :o) game. last weekend a group of girls held
this years game at a local forest preserve as the
school no longer sponsers it. in lieu of playing a
game, the lovely senior class members, proceeded to
hit, kick, and beat on the junio girls. in addition
to throwing pig fecal matter, some sort of animal
intestines, and a slew of equally disgusting matter,
onto the underclassman. some of the girls parents
were thoughtful enough to supply them with alcohol
(which is illegal...must be 21 to buy, drink, or serve
anything alcoholic in IL). smart girls, recorded the
whole thing. several of them, i want to say 10? had
to go the hospital, get stitches and a series of other
things.
i dunno. maybe i'm naive. maybe i am old. maybe i
am turning into one of those people who say "when i
was younger, we never would have done such things."
honestly though, i don't think we would have. even
the most popular kids in my school left the least
popular alone. i participated in powder puff at my
school...we never did anything even remotely like
that. no organs thrown on anyone, no bodily fluids,
aside from sweat perhaps, and we just played. we had
fun. we didn't try to beat or mame or humiliate
anyone else. weird.
the girls who did the beating, throwing, etc, are
facing criminal charges as well as discipline from
their high school..even though it was off school
grounds on a saturday. the parents who supplied the
alcohol are going to be in shit loads of trouble as
well.
people are so crazy.
hoping things are more sane in your neck of the
woods...
~stine
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To send to the list mail sinister(a)missprint.org. To unsubscribe
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+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
It's at time like these that I really dig Belle and Sebastian. Like most
music fans I have ever diverging and re-immerging tastes. I must say I was
devastated when Isobel left the band, I thought she took all the good stuff
with her. Of late it has been towards anything from the new white stripes
record to acid mothers temple to godspeed to nick cave to the really
excellent last release from low honourable mentions: the loves, the chalets,
Calexico, yeahYeahYEAHs, flaming lips, jimmycake, rest . But when feeling
particularly shitty for reasons I wont go into I must admit there is much
comfort to be gleaned from a nice cup of tea with some "nice" biscuits at
the side and tigermilk in the background/foreground. There is something
about B&S that makes me feel a lot calmer. I also am enjoying diversions
such as stuarts diary, I wasn't too sure about all this band transparency
thing they have going on at the moment. I think its nice when bands are a
bit mysterious and thus underexposed.
But I particularly liked stuarts top 50 films esp since I share most of them
in my head-list. A bout de Souffle being my absolute favourite. The subject
line is taken from my favourite line where parvulesco is asked what his main
ambition in life is: for those of you who don't speak French and lack the
ability to cut and paste into babel fish it means "to become immortal, and
then die".
I went to see yo la tengo and (smog) a couple of weekends ago and they were
really really grate. With all this music and wonder in the world it's a
wonder a soul can be so down in the dumps really. The music is not all good
though, I bought the new set fire to flame album the other week, and it
really sucks. It just sounds like the field recording out takes of the last
album. I really expected a bit more music for my 24 europes(euros). I'm sure
some smart arse will write back and say its grate and that you have to
listen to the notes they are not playing or something equally as
pretentious, but really they have great talent, too much to be clinking a
tin pot in the background for 9 minutes and calling it music. Actually maybe
somebody could enlighten me, has anyone enjoyed this album? Maybe I've just
become too mainstream or something.
A big shout out to the irish sinister posse, i dont know any of you, but
maybe i will meet you sometime.
richard
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+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
...but if it is broke, break it more.
Or so the saying goes, except the last bit of course.
hello all,
Alas, the bicycle that has served my older brother and then me so well has gone to bikey heaven.
It was a little bit broken, and very squeaky, and the chain came off about once a week, so I decided to try and fix it. Armed with a tiny little adjustable spanner and a can of squirty grease, and with IYFS on in the background, I stared my bike down. It is supposed to have 10 gears, but only 4 have worked for the last 5 years or so. The brakes needed tightening, the chain needed oiling...this wasn't going to be easy.
I started with the brakes and that was easy enough. Then a little oil on the chain and all was looking good. Then on to the gears, or lack thereof. I pulled a little wire thing, undid this and that, pushed a small uppy downy bit...(i apologise if this language is too technical for anyone)
I came to the conclusion that the uppy downy bit wasn't going all the way up, so the chain couldn't reach three of the cogs, hence 6 gears weren't being used. So I used all my mechanical know-how and decided the best way to fix the problem would be to push the uppy downy bit into a position where it could reach the upper cogs. So I did this, but halfway up I heard a very soft snap noise. Now I always thought that the loudness of a break/snap noise was an indication of how much damage had been done. A quiet snap noise indicates very minor damage, a loud snap noise indicates major damage. It turns out that my quiet/loud theory isn't quite right.
The uppy downy bit is now just a downy bit, 2 springs went flying off and i'm not sure where they came from or where they went to, and the bike is now pretty much unrideable.
At first I was a little emotional, and I reminisced about riding on my parents farm whistling Take That songs, then riding to uni in first year whistling Blur songs, then singing Primal Scream songs at the top of my voice while riding stoned to get crisps at 2am during my unemployed year, and finally softly singing Belle and Sebastian songs while riding to uni for the last two years.
I'll take it to a bike repair shop tomorrow, but I think it will be quite expensive to fix. I think it is time for me to move on, to let bicycles be bygones. I'll going to buy a shiny new second hand bike, with a bell, and 10 gears (or maybe more!), and a chain that stays on. how very exciting!
terry
---
here's what i think: http://naivetysucceeds.blogspot.com
caitlin and terry's sinister recipe tree archives: http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/sinifood/
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+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Hi folks, fancy a biscuit?
I am having a little dilemma on the concert clothing front myself. Glasgow
is only the first stop on my mini tour of Britain, so I need to pack plenty
of clothes. The trouble is that essential packing space will be taken up by
pants and such things so sacrifices will have to be made. I particularly
want to wear my brand-new second-hand deerstalker hat, but it might mean
abandoning my emergency rations of Kendal Mint Cake, and one never knows
when that might come in useful.
+++
I think that if I were stranded on a desert island, the one thing I would
ask Sue Lawley to supply me with before I was set adrift would be a cassette
recorder. Then I could press down play and record, sing some songs onto it
with accompaniment from coconut hoofs, then play them back and never be
bored. I think with only the nauseous churning of the sea and the gibbering
of those fucking monkeys I would slowly go a bit mad.
In a similar way, I think that if i were condemmed to a world where there
was only music and no songs it would be half a world; a world with jelly but
no blancmange, with skateboards but no rollerskates. Someone asked me
recently what sort of music I like. I still find that question almost
impossible to answer. I could tell them I like indie music but it's such a
small label on such a wide, striped scarf of musical types most people
wouldn't get the right idea. And my tastes go beyond that label anyway. No,
what I like, I think, are songs not music. So "I like songs", I say. Songs
about love, death and public parks. A punch to the stomach, bruise on the
lips, crack in the heart. But even better, songs that tell stories; songs
that tell me something that I already vaguely knew but needed a B and a D
minor to make it clear.
Even if I woke up one morning on my island, fell out of my hammock and
discovered that my last square of Kendal Mint Cake had been stolen by a
fucking grinning monkey, a song would make me happy again.
+++
I bought a tweed jacket on the weekend, too, which suits my hat just dandy.
Obviously hugely impractical, though. It'll be a close-run thing between
that and my umbrella. Style versus stormproofing; it's a tough choice.
xxx
Robin
[ by express delivery : http://www.superatomic.co.uk/ ]
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send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
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+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Dear all,
I had quite an exciting day yesterday, full of little pleasures that I
thought some of you might understand.
Turns out the people sent by my Landlord to come 'look at the windows'
yesterday were actually going to rip them out and replace them, forcing me
to not spend the day working and playing the demo of Freelancer as I'd
planned.
I caught the bus into Hanley and wandered around, bored out of my pretty
head, avoiding adolescents herding around the shops like bad citizens, but
good consumers. If the two could be swapped by everyone I think the world
would be so much better a place. I brought my SLR Camera making me look
professional and feeling like Jimmy I took photos of the odd looking
gargoyles squeezing out of the wall of the church just above head height.
strange this church just over 150 years old was abandoned, it was a
beautiful building. the graveyard was a strange, strange place, with
unmarked graves and no bodies laid to rest after about 1930, some even had
the addresses of where they lived when they died. I read perhaps a hundred
epitaphs, but I'm ashamed to say I remember none of them. I read about
beloved twins who died at thirty, before their parents and their parents had
to bury them, about sisters being buried together and husband and wives
dieing, leaving young children. were those children buried in the same
graveyard somewhere too? I saw people, places, and streets. Pit fodder and
Potters alike, noting left of their neurons and flesh, only the stone of
their skeletons and the gravestones.
In a book I'm planning I might have the society I'm creating employ people
who read and remember the names of the dead, what's the point of a grave if
no-one remembers?
I hope some bookish Sinister type reads my gravestone when I'm gone, I
really should pre-write my epitaph..
I wandered down to the cinema bought a ticket to see X-men 2 then had two
and a quarter hours to kill. I spent some in a bar sipping diet cola,
missing the caffeine levels you can find in soft drinks in North America and
reading my Prospect magazine about the wrongs of the economic models of the
same said region. this was all a bit too intellectual for a Saturday, a day
I normally spend eating bananas and listening to radio comedy, so I dared to
wander the car parks and retail park that the cinema lies on, hating the
pedestrian. Behind a Morisson's car wash I found a steep set of stairs into
the hill of trees that hugs the retail park and cushions with the dry ski
slope and canal I frequently cycle along.
Turns out I discovered a secret garden, with bridges and a mile or so of
dips and copses ( I so rarely get to use that word, Joy! copses) and celtic
looking circles of seats and stones, even a artificially landscaped ravine.
and there was no-one there! Just me, pigeons and ravens so I found the
tallest part, sat on a hill and watched the clouds, resting my tired eyes,
but all too soon it was time to go to the cinemas I started heading back and
was hit by a summer shower.
Summer showers are so much better than winter ones, changing the colours of
distant things, turning the world into one more akin to parallax, the joy
of 16 bit games. with the most distant parts looking desaturated. and best
of all the tension and frustration in the air which you can feel goes. at
one point of my meanderings back I was harassed by a large group of twelve
year olds, who immediately commenced questioning my sexuality, being old hat
I had a large repertoire of witty responses at my disposal, but by far the
best form of defence is to agree. when one tried to offer himself to me to
the enjoyment of the rest of the group I told him, " No thanks, I'm not
interested. you look too much like a girl." he was laughed at and the
situation disarmed.
I was glad to see that a mailing by the mailings recently I'm not the only
one who fancies people in bookshops, it's so sexy to see people looking at
books, thinking about their choices whilst secretly hoping they are looking
at your choices too! that they'll say you like that author too? fancy going
for a coffee and talking about that? It never happens, but I love imagining
it.
Take care of yourselves
Neil
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+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Liz: Well, what with the mini-rash (hardly an
epidemic) of pastiches de la bourgeoisie, an idea
crept up on us as we loafed unproductively in the pub
(where else?) yesterday. So, with mild headaches and
curry still under our fingernails, we present for your
singalong pleasure...
Rob: *burp*
Liz: Yes, dear. And now for what I like to call 'the
entertainment':
-------------------------------------------------------
SEEING OTHER PUBLICANS
We supped on a pint there
Drinking just for practice
Could we please pay the barman
'Cause the other boys are queueing up behind us
A hand over my mouth
I'm running to the Ladies
Well if I carry on bouzing and you just want a shandy
Then we should be OK, and it'd be kind of handy
If I didn't chuck up on the stairs
On the way to your bachelor-pad
How are you feeling?
I don't think you can be dealing
With the situation very well
You take a crate home for a dirty weekend, that's OK
But when it's over
You are looking at the working week through bloodshot
eyes, with a hangover
(hang-o-ver)
You're downing a pint now
Chugging on your bitter
And you can't understand why all the other boys are
going for the
New, tall, elegant, rich drinks -
You can bet it is a bitch, bint
But if they don't see the quality then it is apparent
That you're going to have to change
And you're going to have to drink real ale
You'll be better off
At least they know how to pour it
We supped on a pint there
Drinking just for practice
Could we please pay the barman
'Cause the other boys are queueing up behind us
A hand over my mouth
I'm running to the Ladies
Well if I just want a soft drink and you remain sober
Then we should be OK, and we'll remember when it's
over
We're finding other friends who aren't habitually
lathered
At least that's what we say we are doing
-------------------------------------------------------
Rob: That's it. We're off for a fry-up.
Liz: Ooh, I could just do with a half of London
Pride.
Much love,
Robster & Liz :x
(languishing in Portsmouth)
__________________________________________________
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+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
On the way home today, in the park with his mates, a big bunch of them too,
more that I could ever muster, even on a good day was a boy of no more than
fifteen sporting what can only be described as A Flock of Seagulls haircut.
This, for those not aware of said coiffure is the hairstyle whereby first
you spike up your hair but then pull your fringe back down over your
forehead, but leave the rest spiked, so that you have two elegant horns of
hair, divided by a graceful, sweeping fringe. The only person ever in the
public eye to venture such avant-garde hair, to my knowledge, was the lead
singer of the actually not that bad synthpop band A Flock of Seagulls, back
in the swinging 80s. He, apparently, discovered it quite by accident when
having spiked up his blond locks just prior to a show, one of his bandmates
hilariously surprised him by, you guessed it, pushing his fringe down, thus
forming the basic structure of the hairstyle. Mr A Flock of Seagulls (his
name, if I was ever aware of it in the first place escapes me ^Ö in fact I^Òll
use the neutral ground of this parenthesis to apologise for any factual
errors relating to the band, I^Ã’m doing all this from memory and my bank of A
Flock of Seagulls information is scant at best) decided that, hey, his hair
actually looks pretty damn good like that and he went on to be seen
regularly with his hair just like that, on TV, in the band^Ã’s videos and,
though I^Ã’ve no actual corroboration of this, only a strong suspicion - in
the privacy of his own home. The one problem with Mr. AFoS^Ã’ decision about
the hairstyle looking good was that he was wrong. It looks stupid. It looks
stupid enough for it to be featured on those ^ÑI love the 80s^Ò shows, the one
for whichever year he rose to fame, and for such luminaries, such sparks in
the dark black wasteland of comedy as Stuart Maconie and Kate Thornton to
mock at length the hairdo. Well, let me posit a question at this juncture:
who is laughing now? The youth of today, at least one of them, are out in
public with that haircut. Dare to be different? I was shocked myself by it,
I couldn^Ã’t help staring. Possible reasons for it: minor internet celebrity
Tom Ewing^Ã’s recent piece about A Flock of Seagulls on Freaky Trigger. But
this seems unlikely. The discovery by the kid of A Flock of Seagulls,
perhaps in his parent^Ã’s record collection, or even just by a picture and the
subsequent decision to copy the hairstyle. Perhaps the kid was the victim of
a similar prank to the singer from A Flock of Seagulls and had similarly
decided that his hair looked alright as it was. Two of those potential
solutions run with the idea that the kid knew about A Flock of Seagulls, but
this seems unlikely to me. The third seems unlikely in a lightning not
striking twice way. More plausible fourth: he was just experimenting with
hair, just as he was thinking ^Ñhm, maybe not^Ò his mum put her head round the
door and said ^Ñwhat on earth have you done with your hair lad? Put a brush
through it this instant^Ã’ and he was immediately sold on it. Or are we on the
verge of a resurgence in popularity of A Flock of Seagulls? Soon will I walk
through Sheffield amid mass gangs of people sporting the A Flock of Seagulls
haircut? I don^Ã’t know if that would be a good thing or not. The problem with
the haircut is that, as I mentioned above, that it looks stupid. Looking
stupid though is about as subversive as you can get fashionwise these days.
It^Ã’s a lot more subversive than looking good, if subversive is even the word
and if good is even the word. If you look stupid for long enough, or if
enough people do it then it sort of becomes acceptable though doesn^Ã’t it?
But there are different stupids too, I dunno if any of you have seen that
Japanese fashion magazine, I think it^Òs called ^ÑFruits^Ò if not then it
showcases some of the more esoteric things that those wacky Japanese people
wear. There^Ã’s probably a website or something. A lot of those people do look
stupid, stupid in the sense that that^Ã’s not ever something that I would even
consider wearing, and not because I don^Ã’t think I^Ã’d be able to get away with
it, though sometimes that, but they also at the same time look really great,
and a kind of great that I^Ã’ll probably never be able to look myself, what
with my relatively MOR fashion choices. But the A Flock of Seagulls haircut
doesn^Ã’t ever seem to have the potential to be in a context or to create a
context where it would be that kind of stupid and great. The tension between
those two, incidentally, is perhaps where great fashion comes from. But
nonetheless, given the different stupids that there are, I think the A Flock
of Seagulls hairdo belongs in the sort of one that will never catch on. I
suppose it^Ã’s not unfeasible that following the success of the band that some
people copied the hairstyle. And later burned any existing photographs of
them with it. But that^Ã’s a bit different to a fifteen year old kid in an
Offspring hoodie. So I can^Ã’t see it lasting. Though he did have a whole gang
of friends with him, and from my brief observations they didn^Ã’t seem to be
mocking him, or staring at the hair for long periods of time. Perhaps he^Ã’s
had it ages, and has kept it in defiance of mockery. I^Ã’d like to find out
but I expect I never will. Alas.
Or to look at it a different way. When I was at school one of the best
teachers I had was my A-level French teacher, he was the kind of bloke that
their aren^Òt nearly enough of in teaching ^Ö easy going, approachable,
intellectual, but not in a particularly academic way etc etc. As well as all
that he was quite the Serge Gainsbourg fan, and so rather than through
Isobel Campbell or Whitney Houston it was through him that I first came
across Gainsbourg^Ã’s music. But that was quite a few years back, before I did
my A-levels. When I got to there the class shrunk significantly. Only seven
people did the new fangled AS level French, and that number plummeted again
to just three doing the full A-level. Though that was a 300% increase on the
previous years class. French wasn^Ã’t a popular subject. I^Ã’ll stress again
that this wasn^Ã’t because of Trev, which is what everyone amusingly called
the guy I^Ã’m on about, but rather for a number of factors which you can
probably guess for yourselves, as well as the fact that the other member of
the department, who you also had to be taught by for A-level was a complete
bitch. The sort of woman who there are far too many of in teaching. The
reduction in class size meant that lessons inevitably became much more
informal, and given Trev^Ã’s laid back nature we did very little actual
learning of French during them. Which probably accounts for our dismal
performances in the exams, but it was worth it I think. So I discussed Serge
with him on a number of occasions, I was a confirmed fan by the time I got
to the sixth form and we touched upon such subjects as the relative
conceptual merits of his Rock Around the Bunker album, which to my
disappointment I still have not heard in its entirety, and I remember Ms
Campell expressing particular admiration for that one as well, as well as
how he managed to cover a great deal of musical territory whilst still
maintaining a consistent tone to his records. I think this is down to
Gainsbourg being such a distinctive vocalist ^Ö I think at the time I
compared him to The Fall in that respect, but I don^Ã’t think my French
teacher had heard The Fall. He also taught General Studies and I recall one
lesson where he was covering my class (the idea my school had for that
subject was that you^Ã’d get taught by a different teacher every week, which
is a great idea I think, though it didn^Ã’t really work too well as the
haphazard way that General Studies was organised, and the fact that nobody
really took it very seriously meant there wasn^Ã’t enough continuity to the
course, and also very few of the teachers put enough effort into the lessons
^Ö not especially their fault all the time as they didn^Òt get to choose the
subject areas they had to teach). We^Ã’d done the usual General Studies thing,
which was to watch a video and then have a bit of a discussion about the
quote unquote issue it dealt with. Quite what that issue was I^Ã’ve forgotten,
but I remember it being an excessively dull video, so I can^Ã’t imagine the
ensuing discussion being anything better than half-hearted. The thing was
that General Studies lessons were always ridiculously long, almost two hours
in one go, but because the school had only switched to having lessons of
that length that year, most of the available material for classes would only
take up about an hours worth of time, because that^Ã’s how long the lessons
had always been in the past. So there was always an empty half an hour at
the end of lessons where, unless the subject at hand was a particularly
interesting one and the discussion on it was animated then the teacher would
usually let us get on with whatever we wanted. This lesson I^Ã’m on about now
was one such occasion where that happened, and I was sitting near to where
the tapes were kept, including a couple of the Serge ones that Trev kept to
occasionally play to his students. So I started telling the people I was
sitting with about Serge Gainsbourg, and how I liked him and so forth, and
being the nice guy that he is Trev said that he would put some on so that
they could hear it. So that tape started up, I can^Ã’t recall which record it
was, possibly a best-of, as I know he kept one of those in the classroom,
nor which song sadly, but as the tune began and Gainsbourg^Ã’s breathy gallic
drawl came loping over the opening chords a boy sitting over on the other
side of the classroom called over to me and said, incredulation in his voice
^ÓKieran, do you actually like this?!^Ô as though doing so would be the
maddest thing ever, to which I just grinned and said something pathetic like
^Óer, yeah.^Ô This slightly useless anecdote is apropos my being in a record
shop the other day and seeing a couple of Serge records and remembering that
I hadn^Ã’t listened to him in ages. So if this was livejournal then I would
have Current Music: Serge Gainsbourg.
But ok, what about this? When I was in that record shop looking at the
Gainsbourg recs I mistook the music on the PA for being Pink Floyd when in
fact it was some reggae group. And then I realised that it was actually a
reggae group *covering* Pink Floyd. I had a look on the ^Ñnow playing^Ò thing
and it was from some compilation which I have forgotten the name of, but I
expect it wouldn^Ã’t be too hard to find if you^Ã’re interested. It was one of
the songs off Dark Side of The Moon, the one about breathing I think, I^Ã’m
afraid I don^Ã’t know the title because, to be honest, I can^Ã’t stand Pink
Floyd. I don^Ã’t think I could bear to sit through Dark Side of The Moon in
its entirety ever again, though admittedly, as with a great deal of the
bands I purport not to be able to stand they have done a couple of things
that I like ^Ö Wish You Were Here is a nice song for example, and there^Òs a
cover of it by Sparklehorse which is fantastic too. I^Ã’m not sure if I can
adequately articulate the reasons for my dislike for Pink Floyd. I fear it
may be down to personal prejudice against a particularly snotty guy I went
to school with whose three passions in life were Lord of The Rings, playing
cards and Pink Floyd, so they^Ã’ve always been part of an axis of loserdom for
me. It^Ã’s certainly nothing to do with me not liking prog, though I can^Ã’t
stomach Van der Graaf Generator either, but just the other day I was
listening to Magma and loving every minute of it. But on the recent top ten
of prog on channel four Pink Floyd were number one but where were Magma? Not
even on the chart. What does that say about the state of things? And though
I think it^Ã’s a brilliant idea, I^Ã’m baffled as to why a reggae group would
want to cover a song like that. In fact, though I don^Ã’t really listen to
very much of it, I think the whole idea of reggae is brilliant, how it came
about is fascinating. And I^Ã’m wondering quite how reggae would^Ã’ve sounded if
instead of American rock n roll through their tinny stereos back in the day,
the people of Jamaica would^Ã’ve heard prog.
- Kieran
p.s. Here's a picture of your man from A Flock of Seagulls and the rest of
the band too - http://www.aimrocks.com/images/flock_of_seagulls.jpg
_________________________________________________________________
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+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
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Evening all!
Just a quick post this one. I was reading Stuart's
fave film list
on the band's website and it gave me concrete evidence
that the man has impeccable taste.
Every second film
had me going either, "oh yeah", or "of course!" or
just grinning
at the screen out of nostalgia at films i'd completely
forgotten about.
I feel though that a special mention must go out to
Amelie.
I watched it again the other night and can't get over
how perfect it is.
I think it might even beat Its a Wonderful Life in the
feel-good department.
I've been putting off essay writing all day, but i'm
starting
to run out of excuses. I even tried closing my eyes
and hoping
it wouldn't be there when I opened them. So if anyone
has expert
knowledge in the field of 'What makes something
taboo?'
I'd love to hear from you. And thats about it really!
bye,
Matt
xx
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To send to the list mail sinister(a)missprint.org. To unsubscribe
send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
majordomo(a)missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister
+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Hiya,
I have a problem and I need to share it with others. I can't stop reading
blogs. I read them all the time. There are so many of them.
So...many...blogs...
There are boring ones, you know, the ones that are really only for the
blogger and their friends to read. There are semi-interesting ones that
dissolve into self-obsessed hipsters bragging about how cute their friends
are. There are blogs where people post their artwork (I like these) or their
photos. There are bloggers who write about the city they live in. There are
even blogs that talk about food, and celebrity sightings in NYC. This is
seriously eating up a lot of my day. So, in order to inflict all of you with
similar problems, here are some links to some interesting blogs I've come
across lately.
NYC celebs and gossip... http://www.gawker.com/
Photos and whatnot about Tokyo... http://www.hunkabutta.com/
This one covers all sorts of topics, but has a great food section...
http://www.tigerbunny.org/blog/
Anyway, this is enough to get you started, because, as you may already know,
all bloggers have an endless list of links to other bloggers. It's the
rules. Even Stuart Murdoch has a blog...haahahahaha...it's a virus. And of
course, plenty of people here have blogs, which you can probably find (if
you don't read them already) by searching the archives. I can't believe I
don't have one yet. Hmmm...
your friend,
andrea
andrea**kittenmouse radio*mondays 9-10 pm PST
kpsu 1450 am in portland, oregon
in realaudio at www.kpsu.org
kittenmouse(a)hotmail.com web.pdx.edu/~andreay
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+---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+
To send to the list mail sinister(a)missprint.org. To unsubscribe
send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
majordomo(a)missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister
+-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+
+-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
+-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+
+-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+
+-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+
+-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+
+-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+