Dear Sinister, Wow. I think I haven't posted for almost six months. Why? Because I've actually been so busy that I haven't had time to read it since then. And I felt kind of guilty, for some reason, like if I hadn't read it, I shouldn't post, so I didn't. So, I was in Glasgow last fall for three months studying at the art school. No, I'm not from there, I'm from Portland, Oregon, if you forgot. Maybe I should sum up my trip. Before I left, I saw Belle and Sebastian twice in Portland and Seattle, and it was amazing. They really rehearse their songs. At least, they sound like it. After they played, I was happy to get the hell out of the country, considering it was September and a tidal wave of creepy right wing patriotism was beginning to flood the U.S. Is liberalism dead? (This is a rhetorical question, of course, so please, don't start). By the way, I did NOT, for the record, go to Glasgow in hopes of seeing, meeting, or stalking any of Belle and Sebastian, despite them being my favorite band. It's a big city, and while I did catch a glimpse of a few members of Idlewild at an Ikari Colt show at Nice'n'Sleazy, saw some guy from Elbow at a bar in Manchester, and almost bumped into (literally) the football player Juan Veron on the street in downtown Manchester, I wouldn't have recognised any of these people if someone hadn't pointed them out to me. In the case of Idlewild it was a drunken 16 year old girl in her school blazer who was too drunk to stop screaming "Oh my god, it's ___ from Idlewild, I'm so f*cked (ed.-as in, drunk), he's so cute, should I go talk to him??!!" To which I replied, in proper order "Oh, how interesting, really, yes, you should go talk to him." Charming girl, really. Nah, Glasgow is too big to really expect to see famous people. And I've learned this lesson from working in radio: don't try to meet famous people whose work you admire, it only makes it weirder to listen to them sing if you have heard their voice in person. Anyway, I had a really good time, and met some nice people. I stayed in the art school dorms, which, while kind of ghetto, were lots of fun. We had our own rooms and didn't have to share bathrooms, which was nice. We were always running out of those weird little cards you buy and use for electricity. And we had a pay phone. That really sucked. That's really why I never called anyone from the list, because it was really expensive to call mobile phones from pay phones. The dorms are right near the art school in city center up the hill from Sauchiehall Street. Our closest subway station was called Cowcaddens. We liked the chip shop around the corner from the Variety Bar on Sauchiehall Street. I got to see Pulp and Hefner live. That was kind of neat. I got to learn lithography and silkscreen. I saw the Tate Modern and an end of term show at Central St. Martins school of fashion in London. Bought a lot of silly clothes at shops that I probably wouldn't buy from if I actually lived in Scotland, like Topshop and H&M. Actually, H&M is so cheap, I probably would shop there. Now I just shop at the Goodwill, because it's the only place where you can buy men's trousers and turn them into a skirt. top ten slang heard often while in glasgow (in no particular order): 1. get your skates on 2. couldn't be asked 3. stupid muppet 4. innit (from ali g., along with slag, punani, and boyakasha) 5. that's boss (from a person from liverpool) 6. posh 7. go on then 8. dodgy (I don't know how to spell this one) 9. ring (like to call someone on the phone) 10. and my fave: easy peazy lemon squeezy If any of these are actually really bad words and you are offended by them, I apologize. I am just an ignorant American, y'know. Anyway, I'm back in America, wondering how skeleton is an Olympic sport, and again, doing a weekly radio show on which I try to talk as little as possible. More info and bad html code can be found at http://web.pdx.edu/~andreay/. Thank you for your time, and I apologize for having ignored you all for so long. It wasn't cuz I don't like ya. Your friend, Andrea K. Mouse _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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. 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