When I got to campus this morning (at the ass crack of dawn I may add) I ran into this guy who apparently works in the office above mine. He wished me a happy Singles Awareness Day. (I have been randomly chuckling about that all day, much to the amusement and bewilderment of my office mates.) The next person I saw wished me a happy Comomdify Your Love-Life Day. I just want to say that I am in full support of this trend of open hostility to manufactured holidays. There, that bit makes this post relevant (it's still St. Val. Day where I am). But ... oh dear... I'm afraid this next bit may be a little dated. And besides, I've already posted once this week. See, I have written it several times since realizing I needed to do it but none of them have come out right. I'll just try it this way. (not so) Recently there was a post about how it is hypocritical for people who have bad jobs to get mad at bands that sell their songs to adverts. I agree with the spirit of this but not the tone or the direction of the anger. For me, music is much more than what someone does for a living (while I am aware that there are people who can do it full time). There are songs that once had great personal significance that have now been given corporate significance (and in my world, the later cancels out the former). But I rarely blame the band for this. Fairly often, I assume, these business decisions are beyond the bands control (particularly true for bands that no longer exist: poor, poor CCR). However, I have no problem raising an eyebrow (and perhaps an angry fist) at record executives and advertising agents (and all the other players) who sustain a system so powerful that it can turn deeply sincere expression into a sales pitch for potato chips. I know that even I become one of those players when I buy the album, or the chips or whatever but don't think I don't look for alternatives and take them when I can. I apologize if that is excessively dramatic or romantic but isn't excessive interest in music - particularly the kind that you can still get close to - the reason we all got together in the first place? Damn, that still seems a bit more aggressive than I wanted. Is it possible to sincerely state a deeply held belief without compromising your twee-ness? I'll leave that up to you all ... I must be off to class. Stewie Louie [Amour Fou is always illegal, whether it's disguised as a marriage or a boyscout troop--always drunk, whether on the wine of its own secretions or the smoke of its own polymorphous virtues. It is not the derangement of the senses but rather their apotheosis--not the result of freedom but rather its precondition. - Hakim Bey] _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+