*---* HAPPY BIRTHDAY SINISTER BABIES *---* so, posting to the list again after what has to be a couple of months. and it feels a little odd. can i remember how you're supposed to do this...? oh, one thing i _do_ remember is that you have to talk about tapes that keith's done you, and to say how great they are. well, actually, thanks to the wonders of the tape tree, i _can_ do this. and so i shall. particularly since i should have mailed him personally to thank him already. but, hell, everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't i? (as the cranberries, who _don't_ feature on keith's tape (or actually cd)) once nearly said. so. ok. thanks keith... for the cd. i suppose i shouldn't actually go into loads of detail about what's on it, since, unusually, some of you will actually be hearing this yourselves at some point or other, but i will say that the notorious b.i.g. track on the cd sounds just like something off the first snoop doggy dogg lp. thanks again. oh. and liz daplyn's tape is wonderful. superb. but anyway, that's enough of that. let's talk about something else before i get on with my contractual obligation and post the monday poem, which is why i'm posting the list in the first place (thanks genevieve), after deciding that i'd be better off on the benedictine-monastery mailing-list (fairly quiet in terms of the number of mails, but we brew our own beer) so. thanks to those of you who've mailed me or even the list to ask why i don't post any more. thanks particularly to james errington for his little parable at the end of last week, which i can exclusively reveal to susannah and anyone else who may (or not - please yourself) have been wondering what it was about, was actually about me and honeypaul. and the list. this probably isn't the place for a full sunday-school-style interpretation, but thanks james, anyway (oh. and don't worry, honeypaul. i won't be making a habit (gosh. can't stop the wretched puns even when i'm trying to be serious) of posting to the list. this is a one-off. or counting yesterday's apology, a two-off. whatever.) anything else? vh-1's offering a whole day devoted to the beegees fairly soon, which of course _i_'ll be glued to. any gossip i ought to respond to? not really. all quiet on the preston front. i can, of course, exclusively reveal that the notorious eric griffiths (the 'disrespectful don' of paper fame) may well be a nasty man, but he's also very funny, in case any of you daily mail readers are out there. the chart show's dead, but i'd hate to stir up any trouble about that in case anyone used to watch live and kicking instead. no reviews of the gigs? things _are_ quiet. still, at least the software'll be happy. love 'the boy with'. and 'brilliant career'. can't wait for nottingham and london. and wasn't that muck-raking documentary on the carry-on films last night appalling. so charles hawtry, kenneth williams and frankie howerd were gay. gosh. and they hid it so well. how long before we get an expose of oscar bloody wilde. (who isn't as funny as any of the above anyway) anyway, the poem. a day late. but there you go. by frank o'hara. who was a genius. but you knew that already. and it's called 'the day lady died'. and it's about billie holiday (not the 'because we want to' billie, tho i'm sure simon armitage has already written a poem about her, being the on-the-pulse sort of guy he surely is (and no, stuart g, don't mention murray lachlan young. don't even think about it)). so. billie holiday. not billy bragg. or billy mackenzie, who deserved something like this himself. ok. the poem. 'the day lady died' It is 12:20 in New York a Friday three days after Bastille day, yes it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner and i don't know the people who will feed me I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun and have a hamburger and a malted and buy an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets in Ghana are doing these days I go on to the bank and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard) doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or Brendan Behan's new play or _Le Balcon_ or _Les Negres_ of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine after practically going to sleep with quandariness and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue and the tobacconist in the Zeigfield Theatre and casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT while she whispered a song along the keyboard to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing (oh. and a p.s. a poem by tom raworth. who is also a genius. if anyone's still reading. after which, bye.... (the-list-exile-formerly-known-as-espadrille)) MY FACE IS MY OWN, I THOUGHT morning he had gone down to the village a figure she still recognised from his walk nothing he had explained is won by arguing things are changed only by power and cunning she still sat meaning to ask what did you say ? echo in her ears he might just have finished speaking so waiting and taking the scissors began to trim off the baby's fingers (ok. that's the last from me. i choose the lovely and very bright debbie to do the next one. and nothing from tom stoppard, young lady. ok. bye. i'm going now. or something like that. to listen to my del shannon lp.) +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". 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