Hello, sinister Mr Trousers reminded me that it's that birthday time of year. Yes, my posts are reactionary. I wanted to tell you something, because of a few other posts that have been aroudn recently. But I need to go away for a while and find the words to say it with. Places and people change a lot in five years. Just after Sinister started, it was a very different place. The people who posted were part of a tight little community, it seemed. I didn't post. I just read what the people said, like someone sitting on the edge of a pub-crowd, smiling at all the jokes but never talking. I still remember a few of the posts from those days. People meeting in bookshops to find a copy of The Loneliness Of The Blah Blah Thingy. People walking through Edinburgh in winter - hey, places i knew myself - and seeing foxes in the snow. People planning their first picnics. People complained that B&S's total recorded output didn't fill a C90. I didn't know anything much about music then. Now, of course, I still don't - apart from useless trivia like the real name of The Singing Nun - but I know that there is so much more that I don't know. Knowing more about the level of your own ignorance is refreshing. I have Sinister to thank for nearly all of the bands that I love. If I'd never found Sinister, I still would have changed. I'd have changed in different ways, though. I don't think I'd be the person I am. I don't think I'd let myself be the person I am as much as I do. I would still be trying to make myself be someone different. People on Sinister don't debate tiny sounds in the background of records any more. Did they ever? There were debates such as: "Which was recorded first, Elvis or Fakers?" and "The Yellow Album: Twins or Mirrors?" but that wasn't the point of the thing. The point was, we were all thinking in the same general direction. The band was important to us, because they touched us all. The band touched us all, because we all had something in common. If Sinister wasn't there, then we'd still be like that. We'd just never have come together in quite the same way. A couple of years ago, Carey Lander wrote a post wondering what would happen to us when we get old. Will there be a Sinister nursing home, in which we'll all sit mumbling to each other? It's a beautiful thought. Has Sinister changed? Of course. Will it keep changing? Of course. Will people still write wonderful, inspiring things vaguely connected to music they love, and send it to a few thousand people around the world? I hope so. love, caitlin -- http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/ Sinister Recipe Tree archives (not that there are many yet) http://www.joannou.net/topofthestair/sinifood/ Sinister Questionnaire Results http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/txt/siniq.html "When life gives us lemons, we just sit there and sulk about it, in the corner of the room, in a fetal position." - Matthew Henderson, on the Sinister mailing list. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+