Sinister: Shape Of The World

[Caitlin Pigtails]

Hello, sinister

Mr Trousers reminded me that it's that birthday time of year.  Yes, my 
posts are reactionary.  I wanted to tell you something, because of a 
few other posts that have been aroudn recently.  But I need to go away 
for a while and find the words to say it with.





Places and people change a lot in five years.  Just after Sinister 
started, it was a very different place.  The people who posted were 
part of a tight little community, it seemed.  I didn't post.  I just 
read what the people said, like someone sitting on the edge of a 
pub-crowd, smiling at all the jokes but never talking.  I still 
remember a few of the posts from those days.  People meeting in 
bookshops to find a copy of The Loneliness Of The Blah Blah Thingy.  
People walking through Edinburgh in winter - hey, places i knew myself 
- and seeing foxes in the snow.  People planning their first picnics.  
People complained that B&S's total recorded output didn't fill a C90.

I didn't know anything much about music then.  Now, of course, I still 
don't - apart from useless trivia like the real name of The Singing Nun 
- but I know that there is so much more that I don't know.  Knowing 
more about the level of your own ignorance is refreshing.  I have 
Sinister to thank for nearly all of the bands that I love.

If I'd never found Sinister, I still would have changed.  I'd have 
changed in different ways, though.  I don't think I'd be the person I 
am.  I don't think I'd let myself be the person I am as much as I do.  
I would still be trying to make myself be someone different.

People on Sinister don't debate tiny sounds in the background of 
records any more.  Did they ever?  There were debates such as: "Which 
was recorded first, Elvis or Fakers?" and "The Yellow Album: Twins or 
Mirrors?" but that wasn't the point of the thing.  The point was, we 
were all thinking in the same general direction.  The band was 
important to us, because they touched us all.  The band touched us all, 
because we all had something in common.  If Sinister wasn't there, then 
we'd still be like that.  We'd just never have come together in quite 
the same way.

A couple of years ago, Carey Lander wrote a post wondering what would 
happen to us when we get old.  Will there be a Sinister nursing home, 
in which we'll all sit mumbling to each other?  It's a beautiful 
thought.

Has Sinister changed?  Of course.  Will it keep changing?  Of course.  
Will people still write wonderful, inspiring things vaguely connected 
to music they love, and send it to a few thousand people around the 
world?  I hope so.


love,
caitlin


--
http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/

Sinister Recipe Tree archives (not that there are many yet)
http://www.joannou.net/topofthestair/sinifood/

Sinister Questionnaire Results
http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/txt/siniq.html

"When life gives us lemons, we just sit there and sulk about it, in the
  corner of the room, in a fetal position."
         - Matthew Henderson, on the Sinister mailing list.
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