I'LL KEEP ON LOSING YOU It had to happen, provided I lived this long. I am, possibly, reading, after 10 years' preparation, William Cooper's Scenes From Provincial Life. It seemed the book for me. Ten years ago. And now. But is it? We don't know yet. HE BURIED PAUL The other day I finished Bracewell's ENGLAND IS MINE at last. If I had it with me I'd tell you what was good and bad about it, in detail. What's bad about it: some bad sentences. What's good: the way that he links pop experience back to the everyday - to the mundane geography of Britain. That's my kind of thing. He really does get better as he goes along. He's fine on Bowie, amusing on Loughborough University, kind of convincing on The 80s: and when Morrissey turns up as the last avenging angel it makes Sense. Has nobody else anything to say about this book? My editor was going to review it once, but didn't. The fact that he didn't is like Eliot having never quite got round to reviewing Ulysses. DON'T TREAD ON ME Another book that I have bought is The Selected Letters of S.J. Perelman. I liked the look of all the addresses from which he writes. Beverly Hills, Calif; Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel; Erwinna, Pa; Washington Square North; Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin; Alpes-Maritimes, France; SS 'President Cleveland'; 513-A Sixth Avenue; Hotel Lutetia, Paris; New Stanley Hotel, Nairobi; East Grinstead, Sussex; Hong Kong Hilton, Hong Kong; Key West, Fla; Grand Hotel, Taipei; Onslow Square, London; SS 'Tjisadane' en route Batavia; SS 'Kasimbar' en route Batjan, Moluccas; Oriental Hotel, Thung Mahemek, Bangkok; Ambassador Hotel, Rome; Gramercy Park Hotel. That is my contribution to any poetry contribution that happens currently to be running, that I may not have heard about. I'm sure that Gramercy Park Hotel, where SJP lived out his dog days, is the one where B&S stayed c.1997. Right? That's Content, that is. DAISY WHEELS Another book that I am interested in is Gavin Lambert's Inside Daisy Clover (1963), complete with old-time Yankee book design still intact. I was worried for a while that I might have bought the wrong kind of book here - you know, the kind that Peter Miller likes. But it doesn't look like it. I am still looking for the second Bell Jar, you see, though presumably it doesn't exist. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@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 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+