You! Yes, You specifically! I was strolling about aimlessly to-day (fine February days I'll miss most when global warming turns the eastern seaboard into lukewarm bathwater), when I had something of an epiphany, at which point several curious incidents that have occurred to me in the past month suddenly became clear. I have awkward reactions when I encounter strangers. It's only fair to let you know that, if I've seen any of you on the street without knowing who you are, I may have done this to you, too. When I meet people, I often imagine them in various states of undress in ...how shall we say it? classical poses. Characters from ancient myths, nineteenth-century novels, and sometimes Shakespeare. And while this can be fun, it feels a little bit vulgar, and more than a little bit duplicitous, to be talking about perfectly ordinary things while thinking to oneself that they'd probably look smashing, nude, in marble. I was reading Henry James' _Roderick Hudson_ this week (a beautiful novel if a bit tragic; I highly recommend it), when it dawned on me: I'm not a pervert; I just want to be a sculptor! Now that this is all clear, I'd like to apologise to anybody that I may have (anonymously or otherwise) imagined in compromising poses. And for other things... I hope Stu D. leaving is a good thing, although I don't care much for any implication that *any*body can play the bass. In the long run, though, I think that having somebody from the existing band fill in is a lot better than having some strange guy who can play bass and do nothing else (pardon me while I think back to the boy who played bass for Duran Duran on their Medazzaland tour... good, but no John Taylor). I will only say that I won't say anything about intolerance and prejudicial behaviours toward same-sex relationships. I do worry some times that people are too wrapped up in their own definitions of tolerance to realise that they're being intolerant themselves. Like what's going on with the diplomatic isolation of Austria; it disturbs me that other nations will preach about what amounts to a conditional democracy, which is no democracy at all. That said, I'm quite glad I'm not a foreigner living in Austria right now. -Paralis. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead 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 +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+