Sinister: what are days for? days are where we live

[ian]

i feel honour-bound to point out that saint peter did not, in fact, write
the following.  it was me.  quite how this confusion of identity came about,
i have no idea.  the world is a peculiar place - or, as the buddha once said
"fuck me with a long hot baguette, i'm buggered if i know what's going on".

i hope your sundays brought you joy, my fluffy friends.  i can only
apologise for my technological inadequacy.


-----Original Message-----
From: Saint Peter <dimensionflip at xxx.uk>
To: Sinister Mailing List <sinister at missprint.org>
Date: 17 February 2002 23:25
Subject: Sinister: what are days for? days are where we live


>i built the house entirely of lego.  i knew it was a silly thing to do, but
>it appealed to my sense of simplicity.  the walls were a pleasing yellow,
>the roof an aldi shade of blue.  my friends had yellow faces, like the
>simpsons but squarer and less defined.  they sat on identikit red chairs,
>waving their claw-like hands at one another.  we didn't have a fridge.  i
>knew i had to leave soon, because every time i used the toilet the water
ran
>through the cracks and onto the floor.  it didn't seem to trouble the
>lego-people.  they didn't eat.  they didn't wash much either.  i tried to
>point this out, diplomatically, but they just looked back, their
>never-moving faces smiling curiously at me.
>
>i think they felt sorry for me.  they sensed i wasn't one of them.
>
>i miss them.
>
>an interesting fact... if you take kirsten kenyon, and you divide it by
>kirsten kenyon, the result is one.  however, if you take sarah clarke and
>multiply it by the sunshine that hovvers on the edges of your mind, then
>esme will lose her voice again and old mother shipton will never go back to
>
>her cave.  the moral:- as barry manilow once opined - hang on to what
you've
>got, don't let go, girl, you've got a lot.
>
>i don't know where this post is going.  i don't know where it has been.  my
>head was so full of things to say, but my other thoughts all got in the
way.
>i wanted to tell you all a story, i wanted to sing you all a song, but
these
>are only dreams, you see, and my voice is quite out of key,  it chants a
>chord of somebody, a person who might just be me but somehow doesn't seem
to
>be and sounds so very wrong.
>
>the last time i met you all was in january.  you were saying lovely things,
>you told me about the boy you knew at school, about the woman you loved,
>about the smile within the emptiness, and you blew me kisses, even though
>you didn't know me.  i would have liked to reply to you,  but my fingers
>failed me.  and, now, i would talk about the dreams you had then, but who
>wants to talk of old dreams?  they die, as they should, and numerous
>nebulous numinous nonsenses fill their place.
>
>do i love you....do i?  doesn't one and one make two?
>
>no, not always.  if you take a lump of plasticine and add it to another
lump
>of plasticine all you have is one big lump of plasticine.  numbers are a
>human construct and bear no relation to reality.  therefore, any theory
>constructed from the use of numbers must be infinitely approximate.  this
is
>not the same as being approximately infinite.
>but i don't think cole porter thought of that when he wrote the song..
>
>sometimes i think you want me to touch you.
>
>i reach out to the screen and imagine you're there, on the other side of
it.
>but all that greets my fingers is the hardness of a screen.  if i could
live
>in your head, for just one day, would i see the world your way?  and would
i
>like it any better?
>
>there was an old woman who lived in a shoe.  she would have preferred a
>house, but times were hard.  at night, the rain fell in through the
>lace-eyelets.  she would lie, looking up at the sky, wishing she hadn't
>beaten her children so soundly and made them run away.  cloud mounts on
>cloud, until it seems there is another world, only twenty miles above, and
>she wonders if life would be any different there, or if it would be just
the
>same existence, but colder, and greyer.  when the downpour comes, the water
>falls in a steady stream onto her forehead, and it runs down her nose and
>mingles with the tears on her cheeks.
>
>ever felt like giving up?  i've felt like giving up.
>
>i watched a programme about seal pups.  from the first time they climb in
>the water there are sharks lurking underneath, watching them and thinking
>about their next meal.  sometimes i think if i was a seal pup, i'd just sit
>on a rock, and feel the sunshine on my fur.
>but then i'd never know how it felt to dive through a wave.
>last night my friend got hit by an iron bar by four men who were shouting
>about the taliban.  he'll be okay.  physically.
>i'm sure there's a metaphor in the above somewhere.
>
>when i was little, i wanted to be an astronaut.  my mum told me that you
>couldn't be an astronaut if you were british, that you had to be american
or
>russian.  sometimes i wish she hadn't told me.  i still dream of the moon,
>but i know i'll never get there.
>
>i'm going to make myself go blind tonight, i'm going to make myself go
blind
>tonight...i'm going to build a shrine for the wasted days.
>
>i didn't build the shrine from lego.  i learnt from my mistakes.  i found a
>record that didn't want to be played any more, and i melted it.  i curved
>the sides up into an arch, and i threw a few remnants of used tissue across
>the floor.  i built a wall of televisions, all set to switch channels every
>five minutes -  a picture of a refugee camp in the congo is replaced by an
>advert for toothpaste.
> inside the shrine sits a man.  he is the keeper of the shrine for the
>wasted days.  his name is brendan.  brendan watches the wall of images, but
>his mind is not on the pictures.  he is too busy wondering if refugees
clean
>their teeth.
>
>sundays are dark days.  the long, dark teatime of the soul allows no
refuge.
>
>i should go.  i love you, yes you.  and i promise i'll write soon.
>
>ian
>
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        +---+  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                 +-+
 +-+               Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut!                +-+
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