Sinister: The sky's a hazy shade of winter

[JAMES GILMER]

Snow.

I’m a bit tired of winter, and I’d quite like to see the sunshine and green 
grass of spring soon, but we’ve a couple more months of winter to trudge 
through.

Madison (and things are quite toadie up here ~stine, thanks for asking) 
didn’t get hit as hard as Chicago did, only a few inches if that to be 
honest, but I’d still be quite happy to see the back of winter.

The cold thickens the blood, makes me feel a bit sluggish when I’d rather be 
out running about, taking stock of the new city with its streets beneath my 
feet. Getting lost in a new city is one of my favorite past times. Every 
city has a different feel, a different vibe. I like to cut loose, get the 
city under my feet and walk aimlessly until I get used to the city, get to 
know it and let it get to know me, then I can be comfortable.

It’s too bloody cold for a decent ramble though. The Situationists had a 
term, derive, for the act of walking a city, making it new and strange. 
Fancy that, the Paris intellectuals had a term for something I’d been doing 
all my life out of habit.

I’ve been domesticated, as Elise pointed out in her email a while ago, and 
yes, much to my pleasure it is indeed bliss.

Domestication suits me far better than I ever thought it would. I’d have 
never guessed six months ago that this is where’d I’d be right now, in the 
best place I’ve ever been in in my life.

Hell, just a few months ago I’d been thinking about fucking off from going 
to grad school or back to college and taking another trip; maybe overseas in 
the other direction. Japan or India (obviously before the war and such) or 
somewhere and racking up some debt exploring the world.

Now I’m working for the Man (actually the VA hospital here in Madison) and 
working 9-5 and coming home to the girl who’s more perfect for me than 
anyone has a right to be.

I’ll spare you all any gushing about how wonderful Elise is, I’ve already 
said all the important things to her and I don’t want to bore you.

I will say that I’ve found a lot more novelty, a lot more challenges and 
thrills and emotions and real fucking life in the few weeks of domestication 
than I’ve had then in every trip, every club, every night of drinking, every 
drug, and every other experience thus far.

You want to experience the whole universe? It’s all there in the 
interactions of two people’s lives.

Quantum love.

We just found out the Moldy Peaches are playing Madison tomorrow, and a free 
show as well, so it looks like we’ll finally get to experience the joy that 
is a live Peaches show.

If you haven’t checked them out yet, you really should.

I do believe I have a new favorite movie of all time:

SIX STRING SAMURAI

Dear lord, it’s brilliant.

No really. It is.

And if any of your artsy friends give you grief when you go to rent it, just 
tell them it’s all a metaphor, them artsy types like words like that. Toss 
in the words ‘transcendent’, ‘allegory’, and (and this one’s the deal 
breaker) ‘edgy’.

They love bullshit like that.

Seriously, it’s a movie about a Buddy Holly lookalike in a post-nuclear war 
wasteland who’s trying to get to Las Vegas and be crowned the king of rock 
and roll.

It also features such stunning dialogue as:

“Nice tuxedo...nice tuxedo to DIE IN!”

Best movie of 2001? I think so.

Does Amelie have sword fighting? The Russian army? The final showdown 
between Rock and Roll and Heavy Metal?

Didn’t think so.

Though, I’ll cop to the fact that I really did like Amelie, and I strongly 
recommend it. Elise took me to see it and I was a little worried when it 
started; my pretentiousness alarms were going off, but it turned out to be 
an utterly charming movie.

But still, SIX STRING SAMURAI has cannibals.

A lot of people have brought up “The Perks of being a Wallflower”, and since 
Elise just read it, I asked her what she thought:

“It’s an okay book, but I don’t think you’d like it”
“Why not? I like a lot of different things. Is it because it’s twee?”
“Well, yeah...it’s twee...really twee...”
“I’ve seen it called ‘twee as fuck’, is it that twee?”
“It gets less twee as it goes on...but...”
“Is it just like a really long Sinister post?”
“Yeah...but a really long Sinister post written by a total pussy”
“Jesus, that’s twee...but you liked it, so I’ll try it...by the way, can I 
quote you?”
“Errr...yeah...but *only* if you say that I liked the book”

So, I intend to read “perks of being a wallflower” this week and see for 
myself whether or not I like it...or if the shear tweeness will overcome me.


Hmmm, music....not really listening to much new stuff. I think I’ve 
mentioned The Wonder Stuff before, some very cool old school indie Brit 
stuff, and thanks to Elise I’ve been listening to Tram and the O, Brother 
Where Art Thou soundtrack. Otherwise, not much new on the music front for 
me.

Oh, I should mention that absolutely *everyone* needs to listen to Bran Van 
3000. They’re nothing less than genius. Momus does a guest spot on a very 
cool track as well as some other hip hop artists and such.

If there were more music like Bran Van 3000, I’d be a happy man.

The whole love and loss and shyness and depression thing has popped up again 
on the list (though it’s never really gone is it? On the list or in real 
life) and I had a few things on my mind that I wanted to say.

I know what it’s like to be depressed and down and just fucking crushed 
under the day to day shitstorm that life can be; but I think too many of us 
don’t realize that it’s far easier than we’d have thought to get out from 
under that.

(Quick aside; everyone should read Bertrand Russell’s THE CONQUEST OF 
HAPPINESS, it’s the best book on life and happiness and living ever written. 
Period.)

I think too many of us use our pain, our shyness, our anger, our whatever as 
safety blankets and it annoys me enough when I see teenagers doing it; I 
really can’t stand it when people who are supposed to be adults do it.

Because I don’t think we realize we aren’t our pain. We aren’t our sadness 
or our shyness or even our happiness.

Those are all things we can feel and ways we can see the world, and none of 
those things make us special or different or anything.

I mean, look at the list, you’ve all read posts from hundreds of people. 
You’ve all watched them go up and down the roller coaster ride. You’ve all 
read about them falling in and out of love and going places and doing things 
and laughing and crying and the whole lot.


When you’re seeing the world through those glasses of loneliness or sadness 
or anger then the world looks like a pretty fucked place. You look at 
yourself and you don’t like what you see, you look at other people and you 
don’t like what you see.

But you don’t realize you can take the glasses off. That you’re not your 
loneliness and you’re not your sadness or any of that.

I’m getting into Zen territory aren’t I? Well, I do respect a lot of the Zen 
ideas, because I think there’s a lot to take away from them. Not too much 
mind you, sitting on a mountain and staring at your belly button isn’t much 
of a living either, but I do think there are lessons to be learned.

You’re not your sexual preference or your sadness or what bands you listen 
to or what clothes you wear.

The hardest part of life is just living, and accepting. You won’t be able to 
truely be comfortable with anyone until you’re comfortable with 
yourself...which is a cliche, but cliches are cliches because they tend to 
be true.

I see so many people using their sadness or anger as a pose and it’s just so 
fucking tiring. Little latch key kids listening to Limp Bizkit and trying to 
act hard and pushing their anger and boring fucking goth wanna-be’s and twee 
prats wearing their sadness like a set of clothes.

It’s childish, and it’s sad, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Which isn’t to make light of depression or sadness or loneliness; but 
instead I really think too many of us don’t understand how beautiful we are, 
and we let ourselves be defined by this crap because that’s the way it goes.

We play a role when we don’t realize we can be anything.

Quantum love.

How do you want to see the world? Who do you want to be?

Take the sad glasses off and see the world through new eyes.

It’s observer theory. Matters of perception.

Don’t use your pain as an armor if you really want to live. Don’t make a 
flimsy excuse.

You can be anything you want.

Grant Morrison said it best;

"I haven't feel geeky or dumb since I was 17. I don't feel marginalised or 
outmoded and neither should anyone else in this thriving, multiplex society.
When will successful, creative, intelligent people stop thinking of
themselves as childlike outsiders and start engaging with the real
high-stakes world? Wake up fanboy, wake up fangirl.
Don't you want to rule the world?" - Grant Morrison



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