On Sun, 13 Jun 1999, Robin Stout wrote:

It's a bit disappointing if Slow Graffiti is really so literal, although it goes to show how lucid Stuart's lyrics are I suppose. I mean, even though the lyrics aren't; There's a bloke With a wife Who's been having up the bum sex With the bloke upstairs You can still understand the desperation of this chap's predicament. I've been in two minds for a while whether I want to see The Acid House but I don't think I will. I prefer my own version of events. It involves dirty skylights and tiled floors and a sailor and is really quite exciting.

I always thought the first 2 stanzas of this song was a reference to the opening of Araby but I reread it and the link isn't as strong as I had thought. Here it is: "The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers. Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abott, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant and The Memoirs of Vidocq [I incorrectly remembered these books as portraits.] ... One evening I went to the back drawing room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house ... I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: O love! O love! many times." In the margin, I have 'getting away from sensuality', which must have been the interpretation I was given, either by my high school english teacher or a self-consciously eccentric professor at Stanford. Even if the song was written for a book or film, Stuart must have had his own experience, real or imagined, or other references to write from. But I like the specific things he mentions, and actually my mistaken original interpretation of a mother caring for a child could be a deliberate ambiguity, and he could be open to rude sailors as well. (What does Robin mean by dirty skylights? What do they stand for?) I wonder what Stuart's laughter sounds like. If he read Robin's LLPJ story, would he laugh? Why are all nice boys made to be mothers? Do they force it on themselves or do others take advantage of them? Why can't nice boys break away or satisfy the girls they are with? Why can't Sebastian be a star and decide not to wait for Belle? Is Lord Anthony a song about Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited? (He was played by Anthony Andrews, whom I believe is titled, and unfortunately I watched it on television before reading the book, so all the visual images dominate.) There's a scene in which he and the main character, whose name I forget but who was played by Jeremy Irons, are sunbathing on the roof and they're undressed and the shot is from the back and for me this was always stuck with the line "and the sun shines out of our behinds" in Hand in Glove, but I don't know the order of the two, i.e. if it's even a possibility that Morrissey was writing about the same thing (though highly unlikely). Ailsa asked for a tape of "Reel Around the Fountain". So it was real! I don't know if the lyrics are right for Lord Anthony as Sebastian Flyte because Anthony must be noble only in manner. If I were a boy, I would feel especially keen to ask Stuart about it. (What a compliment for a girl to be thought a boy. Jaarko (sp?), Tim and Let It Be, I think, are the best Replacements albums ... there's a song "Androgynous" on Let It Be that is great, plus other songs appropriate for young male bands ... their later albums tend to be mellower but they're great, too. The way in which the Replacements is good and Belle and Sebastian is good, I think, is the crucial difference between American and British culture. (O when ~(my beloved) introduced himself on the first day of class in a manner that I now recognize from some of your posts, what the jocks in the back row found appropriate to call out! The misunderstanding! But there is American beauty, too ... elsewhere.)) Forgive me for this digression: What is the meaning, other than being rushed, of addressing a person in a post? I've decided that it's a better policy to refer to people by name 'cos when other people do it, it sounds nice (they do it so casually), and though I like to remain anonymous, it's nice to read people singled out. (The Replacements song "Here Comes a Regular" is not just another version of the Cheers theme.) There's also the fun of being permitted to overhear a conversation or if you don't have enough to go on to address a person individually ... I am glad Courtney has had a happy day. Joseph, after watching The Dreamlife of Angels, I can tell you that the way the French say cool is cool, even for New Yorkers. (Joseph, do your friends say the Velvet Underground is cool? they should, right? it's simpleminded of me to compare a single chord to a simple chord progression, isn't it? some kinds of irony are beyond me.) +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". 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