Anyone see Before Sunrise last night? As I blubbed into my chrysanthemum of kleenex I realised I’d completely forgotten the scene where the Julie and Ethan are in the record shop and she picks up a record which they take to the listening booth. It’s a small masterpiece of embarrassment as this beautiful beautiful record plays and neither of them knows where to look. I squinted up at my tiny tv as the credits rolled and discovered that the song was ‘Come Here’ by someone called Kath Bloom, but there were no label details or anything. Does anyone know anything about her? I would sell my left leg for a whole LP of that stuff. Continuing on a cinematic note, I was intrigued to read the other day that, in a Travoltaesque career resurrection, Robert Forster has landed a role in the new Tarantino film, Jackie Brown. What next? Lindy Morrison to have a cameo in Godzilla? Grant McLennan to oust George Clooney as the new Batman? Oh yeah… the Monday poem… WN Herbert hails from that hotbed of contemporary poetic talent, Dundee. Introducing himself to readers of Poetry Review, he wrote: Picture this: the Picts were not absorbed into the general population of Scotland, but remained tribal and ran the chip shops. Their enigmatic symbols now mean ‘Frying tonite’. The Scots did not abandon their language, and in any pub in Dundee men say ‘Aye, Eh wiz at thi dirrye dantoun yesteern richt eneuch’. And are not beaten up. Aliens landed last Wednesday and implanted the concept of capitalism in everyone’s brains. Just before Star Trek last week we were living in a moneyless society. Captain Beefheart went to my school; Iggy Pop is in telepathic contact with the bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth. And Mark E Smith is the editor of Poetry Review…. This is world I attempt to create in my poems… WN Herbert Independence Blues So ye were born in New Cumnock and went tae thi skail and learnt hoo tae parse and talk proper, there wiz Burns and his spider and Bruce wi thi moose and Watt thi inventor of porridge, and ye played fur thi Rangers each playtime or plunked but wid ye no like tae be Scottish? So ye went tae thi college tho yir parents were puir and yir best freends aa cleaned fur thi Cooncil, there wiz apeshit Monboddo and auld Burke and Hume and MacDiarmid that lived in a cottage, and ye learnt that oor learnin wiz pure sceptical but wid ye no like tae be Scottish? So ye warked in thi Borders in a sma legal firm and mairriet a maik hailed fae Melrose, there wiz bairns and thi Ridins and rugby and bools there wiz agein if ready or not-ish, there wiz one thing not proven in all of yir deeds sic: wid ye no like tae be Scottish? So ye early-retireit and bocht a wee croft and tried tae dig peats and speak Gaelic, there wiz Duncan Ban Dorain Big Moog o thi Sangs and midges tae nip at yir dotage, and ye bagged aa thi islands yir yacht could swing by but wid ye no like tae be Scottish? So ye voted “Yes Yes” when Sean Connery asked like thae lassies that geed in tae Bondage, there wiz Pussy McFlora and Folly-a-Bloom and Jean Mon Amour of the Forest, and yir parliament sang “So we anely live twice” but wid ye no like tae be Scottish? So ye died and were buried richt next tae yir dug and went tae thi place God expectit, there wiz Knox and his trumpet and plenty Wee Frees and MacKellar Watt’s meatiest sausage, but Saint Andrew strolled over and said “are ye dead or could ye instead jist be Scottish?” ----------------------------------------------------- Stephen Poetry Society: http://www.poetrysoc.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------