- Sinister - missprint.org

Sinister: Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 01:52:01 -0000
by Zoe's Mail 27 Jan '02

27 Jan '02

I had started to write an email about sinister and its elitist nature. I want to be a part of this but it seems I cannot afford to. I mean, where do you guys find all that money to travel about the place and meet? I can barely live on my money. I am publicly saying to Vel that I am sorry for losing each other;it hurts. Didn't want this to happen. Hope to hear more from you. Stacey, it was great meeting you, hope things will work out for you in the end. Hope to meet again, can't come to London, no money. George, you are great, glad you are in London. The rest of you, it's a pitty I can't meet you and it makes me sad. It's been great here, I don't want to unsubscribe 'cos it hurts. I won't unsubscribe but I think I'll just not pay attention. Dimitra's post made me think of how being in Sinister it's all about who you know, like in real life. It is real life I suppose. I think I will regret writing all this but hey, you won't notice will you? Cheers Zoe +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: Part 4: People in Sinister have a world that's just that little bit.. sparklier...
by Dimitra 27 Jan '02

27 Jan '02

Then on Friday, the 4th of January, I woke up at 6:51. I left Rachel's house at a quarter past eight. I closed the door and looked up, above the firth and the bridge, to find there were bright orange and pink clouds. Wow, I said to myself. In Greece the sun rises early, and anyway it's never as spectacular as that. Then I looked at the street -*left*, as I am supposed to do over there. But it's hard, it took me twenty years to learn to look right first, like you are supposed to do here, and now I have to do it the other way round. Anyway I looked at the right direction and saw the bus coming, and so I started running, and I never saw that sunrise again. I tried to, but there where buildings between us, and then when the train left the station it was surrounded by thick fog. Out of which it only got hours later, somewhere north of Perth, I realised it was sunny, the light reflecting on the snow covered slops with sheep. Sheep in the snow, I thought to myself and giggled. Half an hour before the train got to Inverness I realised what was happening to me, and I got very excited. I couldn't concentrate on my book and was grinning like a fool. Welcome to the Highlands, said John. This is Inverness. It's like everywhere else, only much smaller. Inverness is small indeed, in the six and a half hours I was there we walked past everything at least three times. It was another bright sunny day -while in Greece it was still snowing, in the South this time. We had a picnic by the river, the grass was green and the sky was blue beyond compare. I sang a song that says 'the sky is green, the grass is blue, I'm pretty normal, just like you'; John stretched out his left arm and said 'this is Johnsheepland'. Johnsheepland is the most sweet, magical and safe place in my world. If I had three wishes, one of them would certainly be to have a secret door that led to Inverness, so that I could sometimes sneak in and then out and John would catch a bus from Dingwall and come to meet me. And we could hide on the steps that lead to the river, somewhere between the town and the water, and look at it float. I cried a bit on the train back home. To Dundee, I mean, but by then Dundee was home. People also think that what happens through the internet is not real life either... 'But then you take a plane to find it to be more real than anything' I told a boy once, and I think he nodded in agreement. I don't know though, I wasn't there. I have been wondering, and I asked Will, when will there be books about people like us, people who meet on a mailing list and travel halfway round the world -some of us do that, though I only had to travel to the opposite edge of the continent, and it's not even a big one- to actually meet, and discover that... do I have words for what I discovered? Maybe, but certainly not words that can finish that sentence. I asked Will, then I answered it myself, 'when we grow up and write them, I guess...'. He probably nodded in agreement, it was dark, I don't know. I digress, and I am confusing myself. I wanted to say, what I did wasn't a holiday, cause it was as real as something can get -as real as anything has ever got. I just went over there to spend a month of my life. And it was wonderful. People say things can never be as good as you imagine them to be, but I found out they can be better. What's next. I spent Saturday in Edinburgh, walking around with Will as usual, and Sunday in Glasgow. Seven hours in the 13th Note Café, with a half hour food break. And it was cold. Cafés are never cold where I come from! That day was cloudy, I could see it out of the window. I could also see some guys with guitars crossing the street. 'I bet these guys are in a band', Sweetie said. A few hours later when the same guys walked in, Richard pointed at one of them: that's my ex flatmate, he owes three months rent. I got a bit more tipsy than usual so that I wouldn't realise I'm leaving and get sad about it, it almost worked. I caught a train back to Dundee. Monday was spent packing and reading and drinking wine with Rachel. In between came thoughts of 'fuck, I'm leaving'. I had got used to being there. On Thursday morning I took some more trains: Dundee, Edinburgh, change at Manchester Piccadilly -running from the one platform to the other. After 7 hours I got in Milton Keynes and met Ken who looked impeccable in a suit. We rushed to his house -'my car is making funny noises, but don't worry', and some more Magnetic Fields- then to another station -'it's closer to my house and to London'- and got another train to London. Then got the underground. By that time I was saying that much as I love trains I don't want to be in one again. For a while. We met Madeleine, Sir David, Stevie Trousers, Jeremy and Marianna in a pub. It was fun, it really was. I lured Maddie back to Milton Keynes with us. Another train ride. This one took an hour and a half. On that day, I was in trains for ten hours. When we got back -and went on #sinister- Ken sang she's loosing it for us; till the 'she keeps the neighbours up all night' line -'actually', he said, 'that's a point, the neighbours have complained about the noise'. And he has a lovely book with a great story on his bedroom floor, he should call you all and read it to you. Not just to Llaura. The next day I took a taxi, a bus, then a plane, and I found myself back in Greece. So I found myself in a different timezone. The language was familiar, as familiar as something can get. There were signs of the new currency everywhere, which felt a bit weird. I took a taxi and the driver said 'If there's snow I stop'. Oh what a feeling to be back. And very soon I remembered something Stacey had said after flying back from London: 'I have been in Greece less than an hour and already a cab driver is trying to rip me off'. I tried not to get sad by stuff like that, and it worked. I found everything funny. Having been back for 30 minutes or something -which means it was half eight, I received a phonecall from a friend who wants to meet me at 11. I'm tired and that of course, and an hour away from the center; but I had this idea that I'd manage to see almost all my friends in ten days, no matter how spread out across the continent they live, so I said yes. Athens was cold, though not that much, and there was indeed snow in some places. And I was so tired it felt like a dream. I sat on the floor of a bar, near the door, and tried not to talk too much about how great it was, cause my friend is in the navy and I didn't want to make him too jealous. And cause, even though he believes me, it feels like he doesn't. When we said goodbye I walked away saying to myself 'all this sadness, all this sadness. how do you expect your life to get better if you don't smile.". See, for the past month I had been with smiling people. But my non-Sinister friend was just a brief interval. The next day I met up with Stacey and we took a bus to Volos. The bus ride from Athens to Volos took five and a half hours, instead of four and a half. The bus had to go slower than usual cause something was wrong with the engine. Also, just before we reached Volos, we were stuck behind a truck that was stuck behind a police car that went very slowly -a man was walking next to it and he didn't have to run. Me and Stacey interpreted this as a sign saying 'Stacey don't go to Bulgaria'. And I think we were proved right. The next day was the 11th of January and a Friday, and almost a month after the day I arrived in Edinburgh. I woke up in Vel's house- me, Stacey Dahling and Paul Field. Stacey cooked as breakfast and we sat eating it, staring at the mess that the living was. The radiator leaked, and the wall-to-wall carpet was *wet*, it went *pling* when you walked on it. Paul had inflated lots of balloons for Vel's birthday, and even though we had been jumping on them the previous night lots had survived and lied in the middle of the floor, on the wet carpet. The carpet also had big chocolate stains, cause Vel had started throwing pieces of birthday cake on us. It was *fun*. Paul thought we should try and clean the room up, and I had the useful though crazy idea that we should remove the carpet. And so we did, we spent the afternoon moving furniture and stuff -lots of it- around and gradually removing the carpet, and cleaning as we went along. This was fun too. Honestly. At some point I sat down and looked out of the window and thought of John, who naturally was at school on a Friday afternoon, and I remembered when I was still in school, how it made me suffer that I had to be at the same place every day, and how it made me dream of all the different things people where doing out there in the city, and how one day I could do different things every day too. And I felt great I was doing something creative and useful and fun -I thought that we could have just decided not to bother and we would be sitting drinking coffee and being bored maybe? And at the same time it made me think I certainly haven't been doing enough. I was too happy to feel guilty, I just resolved to do more. The next time I moan to you about being bored and finding my life uncreative, on #sinister or anywhere else, remind me of this please. So that evening Vel took us out -again: the previous night we went to a bar, where there was the four of us, Aris (a very sweet friend of Vel's), the dj, the waitress and another bloke; and since B&S fans outnumbered the non-B&S fans (6-2), we listened to a lot of B&S and sang along. And some people danced about a bit. Anyway on that night, which happened to be the last of Paul's holiday, and of mine too, we went to a Mexican restaurant and Vel bought us cocktails. I guess we were quite drunk by the time we decided to walk back. They were more drunk than me, I think. That's not what prevented me from singing along with them, it was the fact that they were singing songs I didn't know. I think one of them was by the Sex Pistols though. As we walked by the new hospital building -I wonder if it is used, it looked completely empty- Vel pointed at the fire escape and said 'that's where we're going!'. And so we did. It looked weird and it felt weird too, it made me a bit dizzy, but I convinced myself it was safe and I kept climbing up, Paul in front of me, Stacey and Vel behind me. Paul was the first one to reach the top. He looked at the mountain opposite -it looks a bit weird: it' s not very high, but it's too near the city, and there are two, maybe three villages on it, of which the lights you can see hanging above the city. As we ascended, the lights got a bit closer, but not a lot. It's beautiful, Paul said, and I replied something -stupid- like I'm not impressed. All I meant to say was it looked familiar, and I tried to remember why. It took me a second: I used to live in that city. And I knew a girl who lived in a flat on a rooftop quite near. It couldn't not be near anyway, Volos is small. Which reminded me of how I felt then, in the spring of '99, when I discovered Belle and Sebastian. I thought of all the things I did then; then, I counted the cities I had been in the previous week: Inverness on Friday, Edinburgh on Saturday, Glasgow on Sunday, Dundee on Monday, London (and Milton Keynes) on Tuesday, Athens on Wednesday and Volos on Tuesday. Wow, I said to myself. The world is so much bigger than I thought it was. Than we thought it was. I felt thrilled. And I looked up; I saw some stars, Volos is small and therefore doesn't have many lights, and between them and us a crane, right above our heads. And then I remembered a line from a book; it said something like 'and then the world got bigger, it was almost as big as it ought to be'. When I had first read it -when I lived in Volos- I hadn' t understood it. I wondered to myself, isn't the world *scary* cause it's big? But them I suddenly knew. And suddenly I could give a name to what I had been feeling for the last three years or so -the word sounds stupid or an exaggeration or something, but I was feeling claustrophobic. Now, the world is almost as big as it should be. Cause for the past month, the world was getting bigger. It has been getting bigger ever since I left school, but it generally happened slowly, and it never was enough. But now I can say the world is almost as big as it should be. The next day was a Saturday, and one of those days that, were you here, would make you think it's spring all year round in Greece. Me Stacey and Paul got on a taxi back to Thessaloniki -posh! The idea, but not the taxi itself: it broke down and Paul missed his flight. Soon enough though he had another one -'I'm only doing this for you', the girl at the airline thing said, and from that point on we decided to stop frowning and smile kindly at her. It must have looked funny, three odd-looking kids, tired and panicky, luggage spread all around them, smiling kindly to an air-stewardess. We waved Paul off, then my parents and my dog came to meet us at the airport. We went at the station, Stacey and me. 'There are buses to Bulgaria at 10 pm every night', the man said, 'but not tonight that it's a Saturday'. So we bought a ticket for the next morning and went back to my flat. I was feeling tired, but useful and successful, and it was great. We watched the Virgin Suicides and went to bed quite early. Stacey woke me up six hours later to say goodbye, we hugged, and I went back to sleep. I woke up another six hours later to find a text from Stacey -'of all the fucking fuck. I got deported' or something like that- and my cousins in the next room. and the sparkly world of my Sinister Holiday dissolved into the real. But not entirely, you know. Can I paste a paragraph from another post? I have written 9.086 words, I'm sure it is enough more! Desmond Tropey said: "I couldn't think of a weirder situation than a group of complete strangers meeting up in a park to drink ribena with nothing in common except a band that they like...that's perfectly normal in sinisterland though and that's what's so great about it.. It's the real world.. but not quite.. people in sinister have a world that's just that little bit.. sparklier.." Phew!! I've said so much!! As someone said, 'I'm not fucking twee!!!', but you're making the world a better place. Keep up the good work, and keep the faith, And love, and sparkles, Dimitra +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: Part 3: I guess they'll never understand what we did on our holiday
by Dimitra 27 Jan '02

27 Jan '02

This having to narrate things is hard. it confuses me greatly. The reason I' m doing it.. The reason I'm telling you all this. I met Will in Edinburgh on Sunday as I had promised, and we took some trains -Edinburgh, Doncaster, Grimsby Town. The names of the railway stations fascinate me, even though usually they are just the name of the town/city. I make lists of the stations I've been to in my head. It's something like trying to remember the tracklist of all the Belle and Sebastian albums. In my head also I recite the story of the sleeve of If You 're Feeling Sinister. Once I did so out loud too. And sometimes I even recite posts. Even though I usually only read them once. On the train down to England I caught myself writing: "I don't mind trains. It evens out. I like riding on them. I don't like having them pass. Someone said it's the saddest sound." The days with Will were much more quiet than the ones before them, but actually that was a good thing. And they were sweet. And something I'll have with me for a long time, and something that makes me happy. We went to a Chinese restaurant with his parents after they picked us up from the station; we had both been nervous and a bit scared of me meeting them, but it turned out to be fine. Once more, I said to myself: things are never as scary as they seem from a distance. We went shopping in Grimsby, and to a dinner party where I met his school friends. We had decided to try and not talk about Sinister too much, but it wasn't of much use, someone asked 'so how did you two meet?', just after someone had mentioned the word Internet. Later on we went into town, and if you remember reading Will's Christmas 2000 post, you'll know what happened. Will tried to go with the group who would meet Amy (a girl he used to be in love and exchange letters with) but he tried not to make it obvious. Which means he made it quite obvious. Which was funny cause nobody cared much anyway. I sat back in the loud and hot pub, where as he said 'we looked like Sinister people, and stacked out' -which just reminded me of being in Greece- and I watched him talk with that girl and be happy. I watched her too, her eyes shining and her smile. And it was all so much like that post -I wasn't on the list on December 2000 but I had read it. And thinking of it now, it makes me think of how, when I was little, I used to make stories in my head in bed; stories figuring me and children from the books I read or the things I saw on television; how I always wanted to jump in the books and actually meet them. And how much what is happening now is like that. We had what he called 'a Sinister Christmas' -what made it Sinister being listening to Camera Obscura and talking to and about some of you. We stayed inside. On the second day of Christmas we walked around the village. On the third one, we went further away. We went to the beach, where, to my surprise, the sea was brown. We played with his dad's digital camera, me taking pictures of the beach and Will taking pictures of me. I remember the bus ride back: we were sat on the upper deck of the bus, on the first row of sits; it was raining, there was water on the windscreen which made shapes blur, so all you could see was colours. When we came back we made badges, some of which are already famous. Some others have sheep on them. On the fourth day we went to Sheffield and me John Jennings, who probably thought we were mad. But it's okay cause we are mad, and he seemed to be having a nice time anyway. We wandered aimlessly around, text messaged a few people to make them feel jealous or guilty for not coming, only to get replies like 'why are you in Sheffield?'. It was cold, windy and sunny in a bright way. We walked around a bit more, had lunch, visited some galleries, walked aimlessly around, and then decided to take the tram to the shopping centre and back. Decided means we all said 'I don't mind either way' and seeing as we couldn't think what that other way would be, we took the tram. Then we walked around aimlessly -sorry, to the station. John's train was the only one of the um 20 trains that were leaving at that time not to be late. Ours wasn't one of them. The next day, having run out of Christmas, and patience probably, and things to do in and around Grimsby, we caught some more trains. Doncaster, where we waited for an hour and a half in the freezing cold, but once again, it was bright. There was some snow on the railtracks and our train was extremely late. We bounced around to keep warm, and Will explained to me things about train signals. We got to Edinburgh, rushed to his flat, dropped our stuff, fed the cat, and run back to the station to catch a train to Glasgow. As we were running, we heard a big noise, and I looked up, and saw the biggest firework I've ever see through the stations glass roof. In Glasgow we went bowling with Kirsten, Calumn and Richard. Richard drove everyone back to the centre, after a while of driving around trying to find the motorway entrance or something like that, while all three Jamie, Will and Richard giggled and tried to read signs. We were listening to the Magnetic Fields. I mention this cause I've been in three listee's cars this time, and two of them were playing the Magnetic Fields. Does that mean something? We took a train back to Edinburgh, where we spend the next day wandering around almost aimlessly. We went to a photography exhibition and we bought presents for some people on the list. And we concluded the world is unfair: we wanted to go on the snow-slide, but we weren't allowed. We were too old. I got a train back to Dundee. On the last day of the year we took some more trains -Will from Edinburgh, me and Rachel from Dundee, cause we had decided to see Beanz DJ. We arrived in Glasgow quite early, so we had to wander around aimlessly. I almost sulked, but then I decided not to. And it was a good decision. Rachel had the phenomenally irrational idea to take the underground and go to the Tap, the pub were we had had the pre-gig meet up. I thought it was crazy to take the underground to somewhere we didn't know if it was open, but we did anyway. And it was a good thing to do. We got tipsy, on the way back to the underground station, the one after Hillhead, but whose name I don't remember (Will says: Kelvinhall); I remember walking in the darkness and talking and making them giggle, but I don't remember what I was saying. I remember saying the Greek alphabet is better looking even though you can't really write letters joint, but that was while waiting at the station. We got the underground back to the centre, and it was still early, so we wandered around more. We got chips and walked down by the river, and excited I remembered it was the exact spot I had lied down on in July. We looked at the river float and I thought it was already 2002 in Greece, at times like these time zones seem weird. I tried to call my mum but it didn't work -not that I minded. Then we walked on a river bridge, looked at the trains go by on the next one -where trains running at 10:30 of the 31st December?- and took some photos. We also tried to call John. This didn't work either, and I minded a bit. But then. as I looked around at the city, frozen and shining in the dark, I suddenly realised that, where I anywhere else, that was the place I would be wishing I where. For a while, that thought was overwhelming, it made me ecstatically happy. We walked to the 13th Note Café just to wave to Cal. The girl that was with him and Will seemed to have the same idea: they both kissed the glass at the same spot, on of them on the inside, one on the outside. It looked as if they had decided on it before! Anyway. We didn't like the music Beanz played -at least I didn't- so we sat upstairs listening to some other people DJ. But the music was a bit too loud and Rachel and Will were fairly shy and nervous, and we didn't talk much. So Rachel decided we should take turn to say stories. So New Year found me, glass in raised hand, telling the story of how I got together with my ex boyfriend. I think the music stopped and everyone clapped and cheered; I paused; we decided to go downstairs for a while. Downstairs we found Cal, whom we hugged -then we hugged each other too. Then we went back upstairs, but I think I forgot to finish the story, and I did so much later in an all-night-café. But maybe I'm confusing the stories I told. Anyway does that mean that I'll be telling stories all the year? Cause I think I'd like that. The next few days were quiet again. Me and Rachel stayed in Dundee and had fun. We once drunk champagne in the morning; a boy had brought it: sometimes boys have good ideas! We watched a few films, Gregory's girl being one of them, and I fell over giggling when she told me that Gregory is the perfect boy: he's happy, and has a good imagination. But thinking about it, she's right. We went out for a meal with Rachel's last money -she had lost her card- and on the way back, looking at the pavement, we were saying how Dundee might not be as shiny as Glasgow, but it wasn't half bad. And how being together was great. And that I'll move. And how we'll always travel to crazy places to see Belle and Sebastian. And how we'll cry the day they split up -'Well, you will", I said. "But you shouldn't. Stevie will make a band, and Stuart will write a book". "Yes, she said, Stuart should write a book". Then we looked at each other cause we know it's funny to talk about other people's lives like that. And probably not right. But we know we don't mean it really. And I hope they do too. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: Fw: Part 2: When the band finished playing, they howled out for more
by Dimitra 27 Jan '02

27 Jan '02

The next day I went back to Glasgow, where I gradually met a lot of people. I bought the ticket from Lyns' friend and gave it to Will, and then we all (Will, Jeremy and Ken, Sarah, Matt, Danny, Lyns and me, in case you're interested) went to -guess what! A pub!! Soon enough there were about 30 sinisterines there; we certainly outnumbered the normal people. And I still wonder what these people thought, when they saw the pub get crowded with odd-looking kids. I am not calling *you* odd -in the two and a half hours I was there, I hugged at least six people, one of which fell asleep on my arms, snogged one, *over* the one that was sleeping, I run around a bit, climbed on the armchairs cause it was the shortest way to get somewhere, ate a lollipop and drunk a tequila slummer -I drunk other things too, but they weren't worth watching. And run around. And probably tickled someone. And that was just me...Later on and after at least five 'get ready we're leaving' false alarms we did leave and get into taxis and got to the QMU. I guess the concert was good -it had been a dream of mine, and I guess the band lived up to that dream. But I'm not sure -cause it was the crowd that didn't, I got pushed about, stepped on and even sworn at. During Alone Again Or, which was my second dream cover, the guy standing next to me was both eating crisps and screaming the lyrics. A girl asked me why I hadn't stayed home since I didn't intend to dance. I can't dance. But I thought Belle and Sebastian fans were supposed to be different. or at least allowed. During the first half of the gig I wanted to run away and cry, and the fact that a dream of mine was coming true there just made it worse. I wished there could be a gig just for Sinister. And that I was right thinking that Sinisterines would never act like this. Sometime during the second part I decided to go upstairs -and dragged Danny with me- which proved to be a good idea. It was less crowded and more quiet, and I stood at the stairs watching them from above as they played Fox In The Snow. I watched some of you too: Will Jeremy and Sarah singing, Ken looking so very happy and talking to a girl -beaming-, Rachel looking excited. I was still sad and worried, in a way I had been feeling so all week, but it was beautiful. Sparkly. After the concert Linda found me. "You're going to Belfast aren't you? Give our tickets to someone". I stared, while thinking of what I could do next. "Do I sell them or just give them?" "Well, if it's a friend you can give them... " So I started jumping about, asking everyone I knew 'do you want to come to Belfast?'. Everyone said no, but it didn't matter much, I was looking for Matt, I had a feeling he would say yes. He was the last one I found, leaning on a railing and smoking. "Matt!! Come to Belfast!! Come with us!!!". "I wish I could, darling" -exhales smoke- "but I don't have a ticket and." I was hoping he'd say that. "Look!! Look what this is!!" -I wave tickets about- "Well... How much would it cost?" -then- "No! Fuck the cost!! How will we get there? Where are can I stay?" A minute later I rushed off shouting "I'll text you the train times" to Matt, "I'll see you on Sunday" to Will and "I'll see you on the 28th" to Danny. Which never really happened. After a while spend upstairs and around -bumping on drunk Sinister people, some of them spying on Belfast Bob, some talking -nonsense- about Stuart Murdoch's hat and architecture, we got thrown out; Ken was the first one -he walked out and wouldn't be let back in-, Rich was the last one. I remember Sweetie shouting "Zozie! This is Stuart Murdoch!"(Don't tell me... You know we do have photos of the band in the third world.) "I'll post to Sinister and say he looks silly!!!". Then shouting "Riiiiichaaard come down you've got guests" then whispering "you can tell when Rich gets drunk, he becomes silly". After all these and a few snogs from Cal, we got in a taxi, got to the centre, got off, and I got told I am Russian; we got chips, then walked the dark streets -uphill, past the Art School, through a park. Rachel and Richard even saw some foxes. I didn't, by the time I understood what they were talking about it was too late. And while walking in the dark I realised that, even though I was drunk and tired and even though I hadn't enjoyed the gig, it all felt right. And that I was smiling. Really smiling, for the first time in a while. Richard's room is lovely. It certainly looks like a scene from a film. Very tidy, a Paul Klee painting on the wall -among other things-, lots of cds and videos and a few books. And a polar bear. And a friend who whistles outside the window! He played us some music, made the aforementioned friend make us tea, and gave me and Rachel his bed and slept on the floor. And woke up four hours later and walked us to the station. The text message to Matt said: 'train leaves 8:00 from Central Station, I'll understand if you change your mind, I'll be glad if you don't'. The reply said 'Belle and Sebastian again? I don't think I have a choice!". So when we got to the station, Matt was already there. So there we are, a few hours later outside the station at Troon, waiting for the bus: me, freezing and wondering what else am I going to do for a band, and why I like travelling, and why I like crazy things; Matt, freezing, smoking, and telling us his body is about to tell him 'you care more about the fucking band than you care about me!'; and Rachel, freezing and getting excited. Maybe in ten years I'll remember this and point at it using it to explain the state each of us will be in. The bus came, we got in. Still cold and sleepy. "Matt, why are we here?" "Cause we're fucking psychopaths!" The next thing I know is Stevie Jackson stepping in, guitar on arm, looking around slightly puzzled, then smiling. Matt reached to take his badge out while me and Rachel giggled, and one of the girls that played the violin came and sat in front of us. We went silent. Then Matt asked: "So, what do you think about football?" . "Ummmm. Not much." "What do you think about baseball then?" I hope we didn't annoy them. Not by talking about baseball, by staring and giggling. We never talked to them. I didn't want them to feel stalked, plus probably I couldn't think of anything to say. I did hope they would say hi -it was quite obvious that we were fans. They never did. I hope they didn 't feel stalked. As Rachel said, 'being in the same ferry with a band is good too'. Feeling seasick and telling stories while watching the heroes of our story doing ordinary things: going to the toilet and sleeping and reading newspapers and looking at photos. I hope we didn't make them feel bad or anything. We were just a bit interested . Arriving in Belfast was cold, very cold. I never really saw Belfast. I remember seeing a rainbow there though. When we got to the B&B we were dying of tiredness, however, we didn't sleep. I lied on a bed as soon as we got in the room; Rachel looked around. I like it here, she said, it's as it's supposed to be. Then she looked out of the window -it looks more like England than it looks like Scotland. Looking out of the window she saw a man knocking the door of the house that was opposite. And a man in the house walking towards the door to answer it. And got excited, and decide to spy on them and tell stories about them. 'When I told you in Barcelona that sleep deprivation has the same effect as alcohol, you didn't believe me!!' I complained. "Oh no I did." she said, and started telling stories about Barcelona too. I giggled. She stopped and said "Maybe I'm shy because I'm crazy -cause most people don't understand me when I talk. And I don't understand most people"; then went on saying things. I giggled more, "I'm quite sure you're mad because you're crazy". And it's one of the best things I've ever heard. But look -even Auntsadie knows. "Sunnyset is out of her tree", she says. Isn't it lovely? Later on, we're walking towards the venue; Rachel wants to find it, I want to go to the Sinister meet-up but don't remember where it is; I am almost complaining. But I discover I am too happy to complain, so I say 'oh let's go. maybe they'll be soundchecking'. Without taking myself too seriously, but you always have to try. We go in, are told to come back at half past eight. but I hear something, I walk towards the stairs to discover it is My Wondering Days Are Over. Nobody's looking, so I go down, turn right, look through the doors... and there they are. Once more. I sit silently in a corner, and nobody tells me to leave. If anyone who could have told me to is reading this, thanks. Standing out in the cold again. Talking nonsense once more. "Matt, wake up", Rachel says, "Where are we? We're in Belfast! Get excited!" . I jump in: "Matt, why are we here?" "Cause we're not old enough to have common sense!" "Will we ever be that old?!! " "Hopefully not!" I sold the second one of Linda's tickets for a smelly 20 pound Irish note. Really smelly. I still owe them a present. Writing all this is quite hard. These things seem to have happened ages ago -I guess that the 21st of December was indeed ages ago; and I'd rather tell you about my afternoon by the sea today. About the sun and the three boys sat around me talking about their future, and how they made me use the word faith all the time. Though only in my head. Anyway -I won't talk about the Belfast gig or about us hanging around afterwards though we were dying of tiredness. I sang a dEUS song, Matt sang a Strokes one, Rachel tried to make us dance, then we realised we were too tired and walked back to the B&B. From that point not many things happened apart from travelling back to Dundee, being tired and cold, and talking nonsense about Stuart's car, dog, cat and rat. And not being able to remember who Mike Love is. And saying goodbye to Matt in the station. And getting back to Dundee and freezing to death. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: nigella lawson and physical theatre
by Feather Boa 27 Jan '02

27 Jan '02

hey hey kids. it's been a while. well, it's past my second siniversary, so i figured i should post and say hello, i'm still around. i met a lot of people in the summer, so it's kind of weird, because sinister changes when you *actually* know people who are on it, instead of just knowing them via email, it is really weird, knowing people off sinister.... my band (ladybird ladybird featuring me, stuart h, mummy i grazed me knee and chris c, a lurker) played battle of the bands yesterday (i just spelt battle wrong and stuart h laughed at me), but we didn't get through, despite the presence of Gina and Sam Walton at the gig. *and* we played llpj, but there you go. also i went all jenowl, because the compere announced us as the tweest band in york, and he said that we wouldn't hurt a fly, and then after the first song, i said that i "have actually hurted flies before". oh well. go to http://ury.york.ac.uk/events/2002/bob2002/index.php and hopefully you should be able to hear us at some point. flight 19 is mr stuart h's band, (also featuring jonny who is another lurker), and they're on there. i had a strange dream last night about nigella lawson (she went to my secondary school, along with sophie ellis-hamster and kate beckinsale) teaching a course about food as theatre at shared experience (leading physical theatre company, i used to be in the youth theatre), and i was doing all this acrobatics, and when i woke up, my shoulder hurt like fuck. and actually still does). i'm sure i had more important things to say to you kids (that's not an insult, promise). pip pip, FB X _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: Part 1: How did those days turn into these
by Dimitra 27 Jan '02

27 Jan '02

A few weeks ago, Will wrote: "If I start writing things down, I will get better at putting things into words. If I start putting things into words, I might be able to explain things a little better. If I can do that, I will be able to do anything." If I ever write a book, this will be on the first page. This post has been written over a long period of time -I started it sometime around Christmas- and in a lot of places: trains of course (there's nothing like rail passes), people's houses, a plane, my bed, a french class, my computer room; in conversations with friends; and in my head while I walk the streets of several towns. I don't like warnings, but I think I have to do this: I warn you. This is over 8000 words. And if you find it would take too long to read, imagine what it took me to write it. I write this post in my head every night in bed. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. But I never really remember it well enough the next day. I've been on a Sinister Holiday, and I want to tell you the story; but the story is long and I get confused. One of these days I decided to start from the beginning and talk about everything, then I started wondering what was the beginning. Was it when I left Thessaloniki, or when I arrived in Luton? Or maybe when I bought my ticket. Or when I started looking for a ticket. Or when I left Scotland in the summer and I promised myself I'd come back... Sometimes I wonder too much -and I get confused. I have a book that says that the best point to start telling a story is the middle. The middle is a very convenient point; it can be about everywhere. So: Thursday, the 13th of December. The train from Preston stopped at Haymarket before it stopped in Edinburgh, which confused me. As it exited the tunnel between them I took my head out of the door window and looked up, at the buildings and the lights in the cold. They were high, wet and shiny. And looked a bit different from anything else I had known before -different than winter in Greece and also different than they has looked in the summer -the day of the North Berwick picnic, when we were almost aimlessly wandering around Edinburgh. Wow, I said to myself. I'm back. And I remembered what Jeremy had said a few months earlier. A journey is an illusion. For I had spent the previous 22 hours falling asleep -in trains, taxis, a bus and a plane-, and this all brought me from Volos (where Vel had waved goodbye to me) to Edinburgh. I thought it would be hard, it was surprisingly easy. I looked so much like I knew what I was doing that a man asked me for directions in Luton and an old lady decided to follow me when looking for the right platform at Preston. Back. Had I counted the days between the 27th of July and the 13th of December, I would have found them 136. 136 days of dreaming of coming back... and of not doing much else, I have to admit. But it didn't matter anymore, because these days were over -it only took some buses, trains, taxis and a plane, and those days turned into these. And I was *there*. This might be the land of my dreams. Not because it is better than the one I come from. Just because it is what it is. Or maybe just because I dream of it. The train stopped, and I got off and walked across the platform to meet Will, and my Sinister Holiday started. I use the word Holiday just cause Sinister Holiday sounds good, while I find the sound of Sinister Trip awful, though holiday is a word I don't like. Somehow I find holidays too shallow, too silly, I don't like the concept of escaping from your life for a while, going somewhere and having fun just to come back and continue from the point where you left... are two or three weeks on an island what you get for working five or even six days a week for the rest 11 months of the year? People in Greece have this habit of wishing each other a good winter when they come back from their summer holidays, sometime in August usually, when the temperature is still over 30 degrees and the first signs of winter are yet very far away, approximately three months; what they actually mean, and they don't say it without some spite, is 'welcome back to real life'; and it is depressing cause it means that whatever you did on your holidays, it's not 'real life'... When I came back to Greece in August, my mum told me -just as I had expected- 'that's how life is, holidays end sometime', I said 'It wasn't a holiday, it was a trip' and she said -just as I had expected- 'That's how life is, trips end sometime too', she didn't mean she thought it wasn't real, but it did sound like that. I sighed, thought of the months ahead, of the exams, and started to get a bit depressed. Even though I had decided to not let anything get me down. A couple of hours later on that day I caught yet another train, this time to Dundee. I caught *lots* of trains from and to Dundee. But who wouldn't? People say Dundee is awful, ugly and devoid of anything interesting, but I find it cute and it makes me happy in a simple way. And Rachel is there, and Rachel is FAB and very interesting, I can assure you. Especially after a couple of glasses of champagne. For the first few days I didn't take any trains, however some other people (Will and Danny) took trains to come and visit us. So we had something like a party, which Rachel insists on calling 'weekend of educational fun'. We were educated on how to go to the cinema, to the super market, how to cook fachitas, how to make sangria and how to drink it (and other things) and get drunk. And how great Rachel is drunk when she's not quiet at all. I know you don't believe me. You should have been there to see it. You know, we had invited you. But you didn't come. The next day we were too tired of too much education. And of pursuing happiness, I guess. Don't ask me what this means. You asked me to tell you the story, so I'm telling it, but I don't know everything about it. I just know it happened. This weekend was like an introduction to whatever was to come, telling me: things from a distance look more scary than they really are. Just go ahead and do them. So anyway we did nothing but walk Belle and make a mix cd, which very surprisingly isn't crap at all. We decided we should all choose four of our favourite songs, then we took turns to put one each on the cd. We managed to only have two Belle and Sebastian ones on it!! And only one by Hefner! Aren't we great? We are, but there probably are more serious reasons. Anyway. The weekend was over and it was time for me to ride on trains. I went to Edinburg on Monday. Me and Will somehow started talking about food, and he mentioned too many words I didn't know; then he tried to explain them by using some more. So we went to a supermarket ('it's just around the corner' -the corner being 15 minutes walk away) and he pointed at things and repeated the words. Later on we walked halfway across the city (damn hills) to meet princess Honey and Linda in -what Will called- a posh pub. Posh is one of my favourite words now. Anyway it certainly was worth it. Honey is one of the sweetest things in this cold and lonely world. And Linda is real! When I was new to this list I used to think that she didn't exist -that Honey had made her up just so that she could tell us off and stay our beloved mummy at the same time. But she exists; she's very nice and afraid of her mobile phone. They talked about the necessity of having internet in car, then they talked about how this could be possible. And they reassured me that it will happen in a few years. I just watched. However, they (Will and Honey) insist they're not geeks. 'I don't like Star Wars and I'm crap at computer games'. They even have the same excuse! What do you think of the idea to put a webcam on a cat? I got tipsy, then got on a train to Dundee. On Tuesday I went to Aberdeen to meet Lyns. I enjoyed the train journey a lot. Looking out of the window I wrote 'Scotland feels both home and foreign, and I like that'. My mum called me and told me there was one metre of snow in Greece. This has never happened in the last twenty years or more. Honestly. In Aberdeen it was cold but sunny and the sky was blue. Lyns took me to the cafe where she works, then to a computer room at the university, and when we realised we had spent there too long, to her flat. I liked it a lot, along with her cd collection, her living room view and the curry she cooked. After this and even though we wanted to fall asleep on the extremely comfy sofas, we went out in the cold again, and walked to -guess what!- a pub!! We drank cherry beer which comes in a posh (hee-hee) bottle and tastes funny but nice. Lyns knew I was looking for a spare ticket -I had one, but I had promised myself I'd find one for Will. Just to prove that things he considers impossible can happen. And cause I hate it when my friends are miserable. And cause if I did, I'd get to keep his Christmas present. She knew it, but she never thought she might have one. Sitting in the pub, she said, 'I am so disappointed my friend Victoria can't come to the gig...'. I looked at her and asked -without believing in it much, but you always have to try- 'You don't happen to have a spare ticket, do you?'. 'I might do' she said, and called her friend. And told me she does have one. I grinned. Needless to say, I got tipsy; we walked back to the station. I took a train back to Dundee. On Wednesday I went to Glasgow. Matt was waiting for me at the station reading the NME; he was however a bit surprised when I walked up to him. "Do I look that twee?" was the first thing he said. "I tried not to, but I guess I failed". I don't know what twee means. I just have a talent for spotting listees, I made a list of all the Sinisterines I've met; then I counted the ones I have spotted, the ones no one introduced me to but still I knew who they were the first moment I lay my eyes on them. And found them to be 26! I can't really explain this. But if you really ask me about it, I'd say you'd all look slightly different than everyone else in a crowd. Or more than slightly. In a quite similar way. I already feel bad about saying this; please, don't think I am trying to categorise you. It's just the way I see things. Neither of us knew much about Glasgow. Matt took me to a record shop he had spotted, which turned out to be the one Gavin works at. He greeted me as if he had last seen me yesterday, which made me ask 'you remember me don't you'. We looked around for a while -I saw a William it was really nothing 7" and had to tell myself a lot of times that to buy it would be a waste of money. I don't have a record player. I don't have much money. I bought the 3 6 9 seconds of light one to compensate. It was 7.5 times cheaper, I think. Then Matt said I should decide what we would do next. And I thought it would be better to try to do it than try to avoid it. But all I knew about Glasgow was what Richard had showed me in July. So I asked Gav to tell us how to get to the Lighthouse. He drew a map (crap, I still have it) and he gave us directions, which where better, and we found it pretty easily. We climbed to the last floor -the 'viewing platform'- and sat down on the floor -there were no chairs, but I liked it anyway; and looked down at Glasgow as the night was falling. Appropriately, we talked about Sinister, and wanting to move to Glasgow. Or at least I think so. Then I decided we could walk around till we got too cold, so we did. Surprisingly enough our steps led to the 13th Note. It started snowing just as we reached the doorstep. We went in. We talked about Sinister, and wanting to move out of Mobile, Alabama, and Thessaloniki, Greece. And about art. Maybe. And got a phone call from Rachel who had locked herself out of her house. I got tipsy, we walked back to the station -it had stopped snowing, and it was cold, but in a way I liked. It almost always was cold in a way I liked. "You know, the best, or the worst, I don't know, is when we talk to each other with B&S lyrics. Like, I was having this huge fight and Will told me, maybe you're just having a backward relationship. But Will, I said, does such a thing exist, or are we just imagining it? What?! Will said, haven't you heard a century of Elvis?!?!... Um, I have, I said, a bit embarrassed, but I can't hear all the lyrics..." " I love that, I love that, I love that." I got on a train back to Dundee. I don't remember much about this, apart from thinking how Matt renewed my faith in Sinister. I met Rachel at the station, and I told her that. "I guess I should tell him that, I said". You should, she said and nodded. Looking at Glasgow from above I said to myself 'This is Sinister all over again". Cause part of what Sinister is to me is taking a train to a city, meeting someone you haven't met before and spending the day with them -almost all the days end in pubs somehow! And I am each time a little surprised of how I can have a good time with all those different people, who I haven't even met before. And how it is really more than just having a good time, how each of these days has something great in it. And what is the glue that binds us. Whatever makes us so gosh-darned compatible, as Stacey said once. Stacey said that before she came over and met you, and I don't know if it still is what she believes. Guessing I would say it certainly is partly -but I'll quit guessing and talk about myself. Obviously I say this after I've been over twice, and I still don't really have a clue of how to answer that question. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: B&S invade AICN
by Spike 26 Jan '02

26 Jan '02

I will write a full-grown post at a later date. However... I was reading Aint It Cool News, looking for tips to help my Hollywood Stock Exchange portfolio. (http://www.hsx.com, tell them Bungo refered you, I get more cash.) There is a story about New Line changing the title of the next Austin Powers film due to copyright reasons. I looked at the talkback section and found the following: "Crap! I was really looking foward to hearing Shirley Bassey sing a revamped version of 'Goldfinger' as well. If they turn it into 'The Man with the Golden Knob' or whatever, they should get Belle and Sebastien to do the theme to the tune of 'Boy with the Arab Strap' huh? huh?" Will Spike Sanity is not my strong point. _____________________________________________________________ Get email for your site ---> http://www.everyone.net +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: Mornings Are Just An Intense Sunshine Bath, Except Asleep Under This Indoor FUL
by DansonHatcher＠aol.com 26 Jan '02

26 Jan '02

Ethel, Joyce, Daisy, Gemma, Yvonne, Patrisha, Lottie, Abbie, Heather, Wendy, Lolita and Carol are all good names for a spider. But do you really want a spider Jenowl?, they are just about the most terrifying things on the face of the planet. Oh I watched Get Carter the other night, this is such a cool fil-im. All day the first twinkly bars of the title tune have been running "daada waa wa" stylee through my head all day. Isn't it violent though, I'm sure there was less blood last time, I must've been watching the family teatime edited version or something. I love it though cos it's so realistically shot and in places that are "real" to you. But where on earth did they shoot the final scene were Carter gets it , wow that huge gravel dumping thing is wow! where is it?, is it still there? All this week I lived at work to make some holiday-pennies fast. The last two weeks job is operating a machine that just requires you to position a part between a press and anvil, press a little green button and remove said part, over and over, during 64 hour weeks. As you can imagine, you ether concentate and get bored stupid or separate your mind and body and drift into dreamyland. Dreamyland wins of course and over the last two nights I have been so productive, I have written (most of) four songs and have refined the perfect "Double your temp job income" scam. Thing is after a while in this state you start to make mistakes and I woke up with great gusto when the soft focus cleared and the scene before me was of a stray finger just brushing the underside of the decending press thing (and its twelve ton pressure). Bang bang bang went my heart Theres this bloke who works next to me and looks like the pink(?) one off Trapdoor and has a name like a welsh railway station. He just stared straight at the press and wispered something inaudable then laughed quite loudly to himself. Should be in Poland next weekend, hey! But first to drive to London, Dolly's excited already with her chrome bits twinkling in the rain. Na sod it I'll write about this when I come back, see you in Brighton. James +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: If I were a good man I'd understand the spaces between friends
by ben 25 Jan '02

25 Jan '02

Greetings and sinitations, Okay the subject of this mail bears no relation to the content but what the hey. If it bothers you then I'm sure you could twist it to be related to almost anything, you know 2 + 2 does equal 5 for very large values of 2. I have also been blessed enough to get a copy of Camera Obscura's BBHF. I've been totally blown away by it, best thing since sliced B&S. I never thought anyone elses voice would affect me as much as the fragrant Ms Campbells. I'm afraid I have to disagree with Robin's email. Lego is nothing when compared to fuzzy felt. Lego gives us well established boundaries to our imagination, but real dreamers use fuzzy felt (with scissors if anarchy is your bag)! Anyway, it's 8:30 on a Friday night and I am at work. Due to my mental survival instinct kicking in around 5:30 I have been trying to amuse myself for the last 3 hours on the internet. I've invented a new game. It's loosely based on the Kevin Bacon game but for B&S. If you go to allmusic.com, they have allocated for each band their own related artists. So I start from some arbitrary band (usually cringingly bad) and see how few jumps I can make to get back to B&S. I know, not much of a game but then I am extremely bored. I just got from Bon Jovi to B&S in 9 jumps. Bon Jovi - Cinderella - Guns N' Roses - The Red Hot Chili Peppers - blink-182 - Green Day - Supergrass - Gene - The Divine Comedy - B&S. Of course a lot of these jumps are extremely tenuous, but that's the fun. Well if you stretch the word fun to mean less boring than work. Maybe B&S can do a cover of one song from each of these bands in their next gig. Then again maybe they want to keep some fans. I couldn't think of any new words myself so I have stolen 2 that I liked from an online childrens dictionary. womble - to wander around in a sleeping bag at night, and buzzle - to look funny but nice. 15 days until the sinister Brighton meetup! can we get half of us to come dressed as mods, and half dressed as bikers? and can I be intimate with Leslie ash in an alleyway? please. I'm off to buzzle up my hair in case the pretty cleaning lady comes round the office again. Ben _________________________________________________ FindLaw - Free Case Law, Jobs, Library, Community http://www.FindLaw.com Get your FREE @JUSTICE.COM email! http://mail.Justice.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

Sinister: Come out of the whatsit, and into the sunshine. Or snow. Or whatever.
by Will Salt 25 Jan '02

25 Jan '02

This probably counts as list abuse to some people, but it's no worse than what other people do. It *is* one of those awful confessional posts, in case you always like to skip those. I have this terrible desire to be honest. I don't want to feel that I'm hiding things from you. There's been something on my mind for the past few months, and I've often referred to it in my posts -- but never directly. I've been thinking about it more and more, and I've decided that the only way I'm going to move on in life (bah! cliche!) is if I deal with this head-on. So, instead of putting little in-jokes in every post I write, or writing obliquely about what I want, I'm just going to be honest and tell you all. (A few of you -- well, at least one -- did see the little things in my previous posts and work out what I am like. More of you replied to my posts, and I ended up telling some of them what I was talking about anyway. But that's besides the point.) Ever since I can first remember looking at myself and thinking about what I look like, I've been unhappy with it. I know I look pale and skinny, but it's not that. I have learned to *like* being slim, and I'm used to my skin switching instantly from "milky-white" to "sunburnt". The real problem is -- well, a bigger problem than that. In short (with a deep breath): I am transsexual. I want to have a female body. I have known this at the back of my mind somewhere since I first became aware that the difference bewteen boys and girls was *important*, but for a long time I kept it hidden away. It was something that made me feel guilty, and that I had to keep hidden from people. I hated buying clothes, but I would keep some hidden at the back of my wardrobe terrified that my girlfriend would find them. Before then, when I was a teenager, I would sneak into my mother's bedroom when my parents were out and try on her clothes. She probably knows this very well, but I've never dared mention it to her. Occasionally, when she is talking about children with her friends, she says things like "I wish I'd had a daughter too," and my heart squeezes. It's snowing outside, but fine dry flakes, not the big fat ones that settle fast. About nine months ago, I told someone for the first time, this secret that I'd kept all my life. It felt good, that my friends were beginning to know who I really am for the first time. The problem with this is that it made me want to go further, until I am completely open about my life. But being open about my life makes me happier, and having to hide things is hard. Having to remember which friends I can talk openly to and which I can't is hard, too. Telling people is good. I can't afford to go to a counsellor, I daren't go to a doctor, and so telling my friends is the only way to start to accept myself. Since I have told people what I want to be, I've been able to accept it myself much more. A couple of years ago, this was a guilty secret I hid at the back of a cupboard. Now, I know that this is who I am, and I'm prepared to accept that. I've reached the point where I'm able to consider being completely open. I can even contemplate telling my parents. I can *even* contemplate going all the way. Telling you lot all this is another step along that path. Sorry to use you for my own therapy. The snow is getting thick. After I finish writing this, I'm going to go for a walk down some quiet suburban street where it will still be lying pristine and noone will have touched it. If you meet me at a picnic, and I'm wearing nail varnish or I have my hair in pigtails, you know why it is. If I'm wearing makeup, you know why it is. If I get drunk and start referring to myself as a girl, that's because that's what's written in my brain somewhere. Don't take photographs, because I don't look like this on the inside. Just give me a smile, and try to accept me. When you next meet me, you'll know who I really am. love xx gneissy -- ICQ 66321009 http://www.btinternet.com/~wpsalt/ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1 0