Sinister: Here comes the sun....

[James Gilmer]

    Dear Sinister Siblings,

    The blur of winter is wearing off and spring is getting it's ass in gear
finally. After suffering a brief bit of apathy and a slight dip into maudlin
thoughts the arrival of LLPJ slipcase helped to hearten me, as did the
arrival of several books by Harlan Ellison including a collection of his
essays for the LA Free Press which rekindled my spirit and gave me a swift
kick in the butt, waking me out of my winter blah induced haze that had been
hanging around for about two weeks. This was mostly due to several run-ins
with (in no particular order), a rabid bigot, a sexist, a homophobic moron,
a pack of religious zombies, and an ex-girlfriend. However, besides  LLPJ
and Harlan several other things cheered me to no end.

  1)  American Beauty swept the awards. Which it deserved even though the
Insider was a brilliant piece of filmmaking as well.
2) Hilary Swank won for "Boys Don't Cry", as she said in her speech sunday,
the amazing thing is that the movie was even made (which would have been
unthinkable three years ago), let alone won an award. Which just goes to
show how far we've come in such a short time.
3) By September same-sex civil unions will be protected in Vermont. This is
almost assured to pass despite objections from the Moral Majority Midgets,
welcome to the twenty-first century, please watch your head. Though I am
reminded of the many states where these legislations are being shot down and
of things like the bus situation in the UK and the fact that we as a nation
couldn't pass the ERA so what hope do civil unions and laws protecting equal
rights for homosexuals have?
4) I spent a day at an elementary school reading Winnie -the-Pooh to fifth
graders and was rewarded with a group of smart, sharp as tacks, kids who
joked around with me and expressed an interest in reading. I am also going
to be spending this summer working with kids as part of a day-camp program
through the local community ed.
5)Thanks to those who turned me onto some very cool stuff after I mentioned
that I liked B&W photography and was developing a greater appreciation for
phtography as art (though to be honest, can we please avoid the what-is-art,
what-is-music bits?). Having said that I hope Erica won't mind if I point
out something that I thought was just brilliant,
www.chickpages.com/rants/golighty/art.html

    I'm not sure if Erica did all that herself but I think the middle pic is
amazing. There's some other brilliant pics on her site, especially the
London pics. Of course, I can look at pics of dog turds if they're b&w, I
just love it.


Idiot of the day:
"Darwinism equals Communism"- bumper sticker at MSU...no, I'm not making
that up.

    I'm not sure where I'm going with this one so bear with me, though I do
promise actual B&S content and a bit of it to boot. This will prolly end up
longish, so apologies about that. Oh, I may spout off odd quotes at
times...I apologize in advance, I'm feeling verbose today...

"Sure, I'm a vegitarian, but I'd kill a cow in a New York minute for a cool
looking jacket"- Bobcat Goldwaite

    Nothing really to say about the above, just that I wanted to share that.
Also, the fact that if I'd love to be a vegitarian...but, I just likes the
meat too much. *sigh*, I guess there are no morally pure positions in the
world.

    Onto the B&S stuff then; The new album. I'm excited. It's a new Bell and
Sebastian album (plus we have the promise of a new Delgados album this year
too, what? not listening to the Delgados? Run out and buy Peloton right now
and pick up "the Virgin Suicides" by AIR while you're at it) so of course
I'm excited. As to the whole idea of "retro-sixties", jeez, does it really
matter? I'm of the mind that B&S is in part descendent from those folk-rock
roots anyways. Retro? It doesn't parse for me, the titles and look of the
album still owe to where B&S have been.
    If it is retro-sixties it is in the idea that B&S are musical
descendents of the folk groups of the sixties in the same way that rock of
the fifties grew out of skiffle and country/westen and blues/jazz. You'll
pardon me but I get in a slight sniff when the term retro is used as a
pejorative. Which it can be pejorative in the same way 'camp' is. When
people today try and do camp they usually make a fine mess of it in the same
way people who *try* to 'do' retro stuff end up with a lackluster product.
But there's a difference between "retro" and simply playing folksy music
with a semblance of sixties nostalgia.
    But I don't think we are seeing anykind of concentrated effort to
produce a retro-album with "Fold Your Hands Child.." (am i the only one who
can't do the abreviation?), instead I think they are building on what
they've done before in the same way "Sinister" and "Boy with the..." did
from "Tigermilk". Will it be a new sound? Maybe, as Mike said (in far fewer
words and much better than I) "There's only so long you can keep doing the
same thing". It remains to be seen if the album is as strong as previous
efforts, but I've got faith.

    "I write to remind you that you are not alone, we are all in the same
skin, all heirs to the terrors and wonders of simply being human"- Harlan
Ellison

     The Ep slipcase: Dare I say brilliant? Oh, I've heard them all before
on mix tapes supplied by my Sinister siblings, but now I have them in CD
format for my very own enjoyment and all for $17. I went into the local
Harmony House (which kinda stinks in comparison to my usual haunts at Wazzo
in Ann Arbor or Tower) and asked if they had it. To my suprise the women
knew exactly what I wanted and even commented that one of the girls that
worked there had been looking to buy their other copy and that they had sold
another copy of the set earlier that day.
    (My friend Bryan submits that he had a similar experience in Tower in
Ann Arbor. He was looking for something to get me and asked the girl at the
counter if she knew who the spin-off groups from B&S were. She rattled off a
long bit about Looper and Gentle Waves and B&S and how "absolutlely fucking
brilliant" they were and he should buy every album by all of them. He ended
up getting me Looper, which I already had but anyways, and buying Tigermilk
for himself which he absolutely loves now)
    The MSU radio station, the Impact 88.9 continues to play B&S on a
regular basis and I've also caught them on "Brave New Waves" which I dimly
pick up from somewhere in Canada. A rather brilliant show to as anyone who's
heard it should know.

    Judy: Well, our little girl's all grown up now isn't she? Went from
dreaming of horses to pharmaceuticals to the dickslapping. Hmmmm, we had
such high hopes for that one too. Not sure if I need an extended
dickslapping though, the regular version should be quite enough for me thank
you very much.

    "It is precisely at their worst that human beings are most
interesting" - HL Mencken

    Non-B&S stuff: A book store in my little Michigan town was picketted
last week. It's a little New Age store that sells incense and tarot decks
and books on meditation and philosophy and Wicca and the like. About thirty
people stood outside and prayed for it's closure and then went inside for
over an hour and informed the owners in stern but soft voices that they were
going to hell and that their satan worship wouldn't be tolerated in our
town. The television news caught wind of the story and ran it as; "Churches
protest Satanic Bookstore".
    I shouldn't even have to mention that there wasn't anything remotely
satanic about the shop, that it was just a regular New Age shop that had
some overpriced incense and power stones and a few tarot decks and some
books on meditation and Wicca and Buddism that normally I'd give a rat's ass
about but decided to check into since the stink was going on.
    Sorry, but I wanted to share that because I think it's sad that some
people forget just what the First Amendment means and that people like that
reverand managed to instill the FEAR into thirty people and have them
'praying' that a store would close. WWJD? He'd run the hell away from people
like that. It's the twenty-first century and we still have the specter of
the witchhunts over our heads.
    It is with much pleasure that I learned that many, like myself, were
spurned to action by this and have in fact increased traffic at the store by
coming in and spending money there as a form of counter-protest. I'm also
heartened by the fact that the overwhelming majority of people wrote into
the local paper in defense of the store and its right to be there.

    Books and such: Anything single book or collection of stories or essays
by Harlan Ellison. "Dead Girls" and its sequels by Richard Caulder are mad
novels about sex, death, fashion, living clothing, pop psychology and other
fun subjects set in a cyberpunk universe by way of Alice in Wonderland.
    "High Fidelity" which has already been mentioned by others but needs to
be mentioned again because it's just *that* brilliant. Oh, and "Empire of
the Sun" by JG Ballard because it's so beautiful and tragic and told with
much humility and humanity.

    That's all for now, "Goodbye Rag! Goodbye Tag! Goodbye Bobtail!"

    Be Sinister Children.....

    Jim (who's mood is much improved thank-you-very much)

  "...a young boy takes a feather out of his mouth"- Jeff Noon, "Vurt"

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