(IF ON A SUMMER'S DAY A TRAVELER) Petals, What's your name? Who's your daddy? It's the time of the season for hauling my stuff thousands of miles away to move to a new place, as some of y'all are also doing. My road trip west (from Maryland to Colorado) begins this very day, and I'm fucking scared to drive so far, so I thought I'd take a second of it to think about the things that we have done these past years. Ah, listalgia has been upon me like ink on a polaroid. Ooh, here's one... THE BEST THING EVER Here we are on my last evening in London, on top of Primrose Hill, where the heat of the day has gone and the light is rapidly fading. A fierce playoff of portable, battery-operated air hockey is being fought between Greg and Ken, punctuated by their ladylike noises of distress. Liz (she's multilingual, you know) has just said "more tea, vicar?" and proferred beverages in the classiest of all plastic glasses. Marianna and Stevie and recently deported David are lounging on the grass, talking of sandwiches and songs that stick in their heads and other pleasant things, while I am scanning the skyline and counting all the London monuments I neglected to see in the past year, resolving I'll come back to find them all somehow. This picture is underexposed... THE COLOR OF RED A little while ago Paul wondered: "Also, if its red knicker day soon, is there going to be else to be on the 5th birthday?" And I respond: red shoes! They are the answer for many things: gloomy moods, fashion dilemmas...general lack of, er, redness... Really though, they're the perfect accessory. (Miss Longmire, can I get an amen!) And if they match nothing else, they'll match your pants. It's the way I plan to honor this list's grand oh five and my own grand oh three in this parish. Hmm, that means my time with this list has lasted longer than most other quantifiable things (terms of residence, schools attended, significant others, pairs of shoes) in my life to date...really it is like a romantic thing in that maybe people post goodbyes to grasp at a sense of closure--to get the last word or something. But haven't we all learned by now that CLOSURE DOES NOT EXIST...eh, right? WITH A SHOWER OF YEAHS AND WHATEVERS I've been spending afternoons listening to old tapes--homemade ones, not proper bought tapes. I've been rediscovering such puzzling gems as the one where I copied the self-titled Velvet Underground on one side and Cypress Hill's "Black Sunday" on the other, and discovering that I have a copy of the Nails' "88 lines about 44 women." I have also learned that the Revolting Cocks' cover of "Da ya think I'm sexy" rocks like it did when I was 17. And after all this sonic revisiting of my younger years I've come to the conclusion that the kinetic energy that propelled me through an eclectic variety of music has come to rest mostly on "indie" for the past several years, and this is probably where it will stay. It's a bit nice to have settled...and Anna in Germany, I don't think it's wrong or offensive to say when bands that you care about disappoint--that's what happens (to me at least) when I care about something: when I think it's not as good as it could be, I want it to be better, and there's nothing wrong with saying so. (Unless (like easily embarrassed me, ugh) you unthinkingly say it to a reporter outside a gig who then publishes your drivel with your awful picture for all to guffaw at...eep.) PEELING I haven't heard the Peel sessions yet but that's because I'm inept with the interweb. Instead I had fun imagining melodies to the lyrics that David Moore posted. My brain somehow unconsciously sang along to them while I read his message. It got especially fun when I would get to a question mark and imagine Stuart singing that into the song. Oh the life of the mind. FLYING OFF I had a poem all picked out, "How to like it" by Stephen Dobyns, what with autumn/fall around the bend and traveling impending, but the Poetry Parrot's gone all shy right when I had the appropriate thing to stuff up his beak. Pah, he taunts me so. Yours with transcontinental love, xox SGS PS:SWEETNESS And thanks to Honey creating this place-list-thing, I know much more than when I first toddled out of the nursery--like how to ice skate (cheers Jeremy)--and so many other fabulous people and things and places than I did before and that are too numerous and important to name cos I'll get teary and I have to see to drive in a few hours. So big hugs to Honey and Linda! _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.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 +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+