Sinister: And for the savannahs, infrequent rains. But rain enough.

[Ruvi Simmons]

We are approaching my very favourite part of the day or night. It is my
favourite through the very fact of being neither day nor night. It hovers
between the two and reminds me of the dragonflies I watched mating in
Guangxi Province; the red one attaching itself to the green, and flying in
an elegant line across the brown waters where boys swam naked with the water
buffalo. Contrary to popular wisdom, this narrow space of time, which shifts
from season to season, is the real witching hour. The popular wisdom was
designed to scare kids to an early bed, but now is the true magic hour, the
hour of transition when the waking world exudes a mingled scent that I would
die happy if I could define.

I haven't seen sunlight in days. Sometimes, if I've overdosed on French
poetry, I think I am a perverted moth with an abnormal life-span. And no
wings with which to fly.

On Monday I was arrested for drunk and disorderly. On Tuesday I shaved my
eyebrows. On Wednesday I lay in bed with hangovers and shame. On Thursday I
wrote about horizons. On Friday, well, to me it is still Friday, and I want
to see the sea.

I have been thinking about the Sinister Christmas Present Exchange. It is a
lovely idea, of course. However, I can't help but feel that Christmas is not
the best time to exchange gifts, because that is when families and friends
give presents to one another, when there are trees, lights, carols and
high-stacked tables for gluttonous orgying. Or at least that's how I
remember Christmas being, in the good old days when I would put out a mince
pie and a glass of milk for Santa. Or, at the suggestion of my dear Pa, a
glass of sherry. Then the glass got progressively bigger and, in time, I
came to wonder whether Santa really needed that whole bottle with his mince
pie. Was present-giving such thirsty work, and were all the other kids so
stingy? But be that as it may, it strikes me that the best time for
exchanging gifts is when the trees, the tinsel, the carols and the pies have
all been stored away with the Happy Memories and fading photos. When January
descends like a great bore and we wear two pairs of socks for the cold,
waiting for Spring. After all, it is in the dark hours when the kindness of
strangers, or virtual strangers, or real strangers, counts for the most.

And as for Christmas generally: Bah, humbug. What I remember most of
Christmases in the family home was the glut of arguments, depression and
head-bowed returns to duty that proceeded them as inevitably as indigestion
after Christmas dinner, and hangovers on Boxing Day. The thing that puzzled
me as a child, and still does, is why confine all that giving and "quality"
time and sharing of hospitality to a few measly days at the arse-end of the
year? Why nail magic to points on the calendar? Perhaps it is easier that
way, but wouldn't it be better make every day a sort of Christmas, and every
day a birthday? There may well be a nice symbolism to Christ's nativity and
our own births, which serve as sledgehammer reminders of the miracle of our
existences and the primacy of loving kindness, but wouldn't it be far more
miraculous to extend those feelings across every day and every hour,
spreading a little light into all the Januaries, Mondays and hours when no
celebration has been prescribed?

I've been dreaming in vivids and swirls recently, but one's own dreams are
never interesting to others. So I shan't say a thing about them.

If you couldn't tell, we have walked together through the witching hour and
out the other side. In fact, 3 hours have passed, and we are firmly dug into
the morning. I get tired just thinking about the movement and life that has
begun on the streets and in the offices of this city. Unreal City, under the
brown fog....and nevermind all that. I'm tempted to go to bed and dip my
feet lazily into books I can't be bothered to commit to fully reading. But
didn't I say something about the sea? Yes. When the grind becomes audible,
and the thud of a million feet invokes a languid, smug indolence, it's time
to move. Now, rather than a moth, I can be like a perverted Cliff Richard
going on a Winter Holiday. He can keep his Peter Pan antics and hordes of
platinum blonde Rotherham adorers. I'll be the Lao Tsu of Pop to his short
tennis, any day of the week.

And finally, a reminder that my
now-very-much-or-perhaps-only-provisionally-titled magazine, Glass Beads, is
still desirous of contributors. Well, let's face it, I am desirous of
contributors. If anyone is interested, they are more than welcome to get in
touch.

Did you know the English peasantry used to refer to one another as 'souls'?
Can we trace the crumbling of community to terms of address falling out of
fashion? Probably not.

Did you know that, as I write and you read this, the tides are on the move
and, though the moon is hidden, they are trying to reach up and touch
its/his/her cheek?

Until next time, souls,

Ruvi.





+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
        +---+  Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list  +---+
     To send to the list mail sinister at missprint.org. To unsubscribe
     send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
     majordomo at 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                 +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+