At the turn of our century - no, start again, at the turn of the previous century, W.B. Yeats went to see A Doll's House: '"Art is art because it is not nature", I kept repeating to myself, but how could I take the same side with critic and washerwoman?'. Imagine sitting next to him. You wouldn't be able to make out much of the dialogue, with WBY mumbling about art vs nature the whole time. I hope she slammed the door good and hard. A semi-wise man once advised me to keep walking past open windows (I think that was how he phrased it). I trust that the lad Gillanders is doing the same. Mind you, the windows are not so high in Glasgow. Except the ones from which the Care Bear regards her domain, the city of the living, the city of the dead. The lad G was talking recently about all the books he'd read, and I can't say his taste was bad. Far from it. Let me advise him not to go back to D.H. Lawrence. It's not worth it. It may *sound* like a good idea, but it's actually a very bad idea. I wonder what Scotland is like for New Year's Eve. I really do. Youn talked a while ago about what a certain line in 'Judy and the Dream of Horses' meant ('Judt I don't know you if you're gonna show me everything'). It was ingenious stuff. My own reading is: he 'wrote' the line spontaneously, happy enough to get something rhythmic, while he chugged away oan his wee guitarr. The Sense didn't come till later, when you did him the service of putting it there. I was cheered to see Edna Welthorpe back in the mists of space, a while back, talking about the way that the pinefox's endless repetitions are a mirror image of Lloyd Cole's. I wonder whether anyone else has a view on this line of Simon Reynolds': 'Demystification just kinda took the mystery out of everything'. Is it a joke, very poor writing, or - in between the two - a very poor joke? This reminds me of the story that Simon Reynolds has been buying up old 80s music papers - just think about that for a moment - and of the Saturday night programme Forever 1989. Actually it was Forever 1988 the first time I saw it, whihc was, whisper it, even better. It reminded me of how I've *always* liked Debbie Gibson. I must remember to use that as a bargaining chip in my next crockery-throwing pop argument with my editor. Also featured: Taylor Dayne, 'Give It To My Heart' (unforgettable); Climie Fisher, '...' (I've forgotten already); Jane Wiedlin, 'Rush Hour' (look, here's another bargaining fish. I've *always* loved that record, ever since going to watch Paul Gascoigne lose a boot on his home league debut and hearing it on the tannoy); T Vamp, 'I Want Your Love' (I have always wanted to see more than 5 seconds of that video); Primitives, 'Crash' (I think we've said all there is to say about this record, Elton); Morrissey, 'Suedehead' for goodness' sake. I have a feeling that I know the narrator of the programme. 'Know' is an exaggeration. Mr Moore sometimes comes on and talks about how good new bands are. In his absence let me report back that I, like most folk round here, saw the Red & White Stripes on TV the other day. They looked good. The concept - yes, that was good. But I can't quite stretch to saying they *sounded* good. I think Peter Miller has been reading the archives. Are you glad? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.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 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+