From pinefox1 at xxx.com Thu Mar 3 20:19:42 2005 From: pinefox1 at xxx.com (P F) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 12:19:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sinister: It Feels Like Overground Message-ID: <20050303201942.93221.qmail@web53408.mail.yahoo.com> English voices grow harder to credit the longer the trip goes on, the further I get from the sodden island. Charles and Camilla the story like an Amis replay. Running along moving walkways, running and gasping at airports, always the walking way. Behind a lady flying to DC, beside a dude who sleeps then watches a movie. The mechanics of flying bring less thrill than sometimes � no equivalent of the curling cruise over Dublin bay; we rise above England and are up in the clouds. A calm channel plays birdsong: it�s hard to turn it off. Virgin aesthetics: the safety video with its cartoons of cool people, a long way from the real fear of a crash, voiced by Behr and Reeves. Even the sickbag has its own commissioned painting, perverse defiance of the object. Garden State�s first shot is inside an aeroplane, heading for a crash: extraordinary what it�s OK to show on a plane nowadays; so much for censoring all worries. The film�s atmosphere ought to be right � NJ, autumn, rain, drifting � but it�s just like a mediocre TV show, a Portman�s Creek, resorting at times to �this is the part of the movie where you�re supposed to say� type lines. Alfie is worse still. I have managed not to see Law much in films all these years: here he�s utterly obnoxious, and not in a way foreign to his reality. The style of speech, the expressions, the voice, the confidences � it�s all his as well as the character�s, makes me think him hopeless. Turbulence, rocky times in the air, but at Dulles I am back in the USA. Think of Ireland again, the stony ground of the casual airport. Customs line: long time since I�ve been framed as such an alien. Perhaps they�re tougher on all this now, amid their flags and painted soldiers, while a TV above dismally shows the Beckhams, of whom thousands of miles have not spared me the instant sight. The green cards asking if you�re involved in terrorism, or crime; somehow the request whether you were involved in the German government 1933-1945 carries a different piquancy, in its political specificity, its tabbed years. They photograph your face and thumbprints, in a scared new world. The voices gone across now, transferred to another accent, seeking Transfers, sent back from those heavy queues to Check-In where it�s sparse, light, downtime in the great halls. Miss the flight, lose my case, lose my jumper. I am surprised at Customs making me unlace and cool my boots, then abandoning me to don them again on the other side. Boarding gate sprint down modern, down contemporary culture vacuum halls: risen above the runways are the coffee shops and the stalls selling US T-shirts including don�t blame me, I voted for Kerry. How that smarting wound lingers. I think I could be late � no, I am early still, the pilot and hostess assure me; sit and read, they advise, for the plane�s delayed. The boarding gate moves, the number changes: a customer like a cheerier Merritt inquires about it. I wait with The Fortress of Solitude, black and white boys playing stickball and talking Spider-Man. How books, like records, can claim a place, fill a time, a Washington hour. The light changes a little, from a 1950s afternoon to a drowsy American evening. Smaller plane, internal flight. I�m beside a mid-aged brother, working man with a mobile. Lights of DC golden circling below; I wonder where the big famous things are, the white sepulchres, whether W is in town, why I can�t see the Beltway. My man thinks we�re going over Philly when it must be Jersey. Newark's bliss of no more Customs, that ordeal fully performed: up and down escalators and stairs, round one dulled carousel after another. Directions are remarkably bad: half the time in New York I will give better directions than the natives. Talking polite English doesn�t quite work with some of these folk; not till the Hotel Mona Lisa will everyone be so polite back. At Info they tell of a door-to-door van: I go get $100 out, sign up for the van at a panel of redcoated characters, 2 Hispanic, one lady like it�s 1985 and Queen Latifah is back. Bill Murray needs to walk into shot and begin some banter. In no time I hear them call my name (I hear them call my name) and a tubby Colombian is showing me how my suitcase rolls; reassurance of this Virgil, this agent of the last lap. Others in front of me, Europeans maybe, don�t talk through the journey: it feels like a roundabout route to Manhattan, for the great landmarks are visible on the skyline out left from the start, and we drive away from them, plunge into stilled Jersey traffic, slow roads at eight o�clock like it was still rush hour. Towers, freeways, factories coming and going on either side; cars with their number plates declaring New Jersey / Garden State, don�t remind me, or occasionally a more specific New York / Park Avenue. The radio is on, dumb perpetual news whose casters also read the adverts: you enter a world and find how fixed it is on these local vexations, local news and chances. Madison Square Garden to buy ground for a new stadium. Bigger things too: you can encounter large changes through the sudden slant of a foreign radio. Vicious New AIDS variety discovered. And the one that counts for most: Miller was the author of Death of a Salesman, also wrote The Misfits for his wife Marilyn Monroe� the past tense tells you, like with Diana, what�s happened. Broadway dimmed its lights tonight to honour playwright Arthur Miller. The news goes round and round. Through the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan at last, uptown, a ways to go to drop off these passengers and get down the grid. Lights, buildings, avenues and streets, thrill of signs, yellow cabs, this world like no other, Broadway boogie woozy. It may be hard to realize at the instant but this is as vivid as anything that will happen: the first New York hour is the epiphanic centre of it all. One by one the van sheds its load; a woman writing on psychology and here �to party�, no, she doesn�t mean it (but it�s funny the way Yanks say �party� for having fun), is the last before me. Then my geezer drives me a long way round, giving me a tour, the Park there, Rockefeller Centre flashing by on our right, 5th Avenue, - you�ve heard of Mr Donald Trump? Look, his face on the side of this building; polite interested responses and questions; he lives in Queens, goes to business school, yes it has things to do; he tells his associate he has 3 more to drop off when it�s only me. Madison Avenue, the narrow front of the Hotel Sal Mineo: he�s out on the sidewalk telling the doorman who I am, and that dude in his suit is fulsomely welcoming the minute I get out. Their management must make a big deal of first impressions, sidewalk encounters: where would it count more to treat the customer right? I am at an intense centre of politeness, consumer manners, attentive positive discourse. I try to clamber to their level. Thank you, it�s great to be here, I say, like I�m celebrating the triumph of the journey. I�d make a good Yank, all this positivity. He loads the case onto a rack and all is happening at once � I pay my man $20 and keeping the change is taken for granted, I keep a receipt, now my man is wheeling me in, I grab my bag and we walk in to the lobby, muted yellow light, taste, chic, a live jazz band playing to our right, he smiles at this, hey, that�s nice. - Would that be the *real* Jacques Derrida, sir? - Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Up to reception where two pretty uniformed girls wait, and they�re kind of pros, not menial, this place is high class: even menial work here is a cut above, is a career. She swipes my card to cover expenses, they�ll be big don�t you worry. It�s about 2:30am my time, I tell her, I think I�d better just get some rest. The room with one wall orange, three white, a minibar that looks enticing till you see the price, everything provided but everything you use bearing an ogre of a cost to pay at the end. After 21 hours on the go you�d think I would sleep long. I don�t. I wake at five in the morning, fourteen flights up. __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From o-lowery at xxx.com Fri Mar 4 16:02:10 2005 From: o-lowery at xxx.com (owen lowery) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 16:02:10 +0000 Subject: Sinister: a stranger's hand on my favourite dress Message-ID: <6702B58650AF65C4EA8E843E3C53D3DE@o-lowery.care2.com> Well Hello there Thought I'd de-lurk for a quick post That's 2 years in a row I've posted now, I wonder if I'll manage in 2006 or if it'll be back to the good old days of lurkerdom like 2003. Earlier this week I rediscovered the fun of going to gigs, I'd not been to a decent one in ages (one of the problems of living in a cultural backwater like Newcastle) but got to relive my childhood when an old friend rang out of the blue to say he had a spare ticket to see the Wedding Present.So what do you do when somebody offers you a free ticket to see the guys who were your favourite band 15 years ago? Well one upset girlfriend and a small argument later and I was on my way. So I ended the night with a broken toe, a cigarette burn, a few pints of beer on my clothes, multiple bruises and a huge grin on my face. Just like being 17 again rather than 27. So now of course I feel the need to go to more gigs. Obviously there's nobody good playing here for the next year or so but what the hell, I'll just see the local rubbish and have fun anyway. I suppose a few trips to visit friends in Glasgow and Edinburgh could also help the situation as they seem to get a hell of a lot more gigs than we do here. Anyway, here I am waffling on with no content whatsoever, you lot should get back to writting loads of cool, witty and touching posts and I wouldn't have to bore you with my ramblings. Go on you know you want to. Owen PS Good luck to Sunderland tonight all we need is a draw and we're top of the championship Ha'way the lads so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens (William Carlos Williams) http://www.Care2.com Free e-mail. 100MB storage. Helps charities. Make a Difference: Tell car makers to clean up their act - http://www.care2.com/go/z/cleancars +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From johnnythreeb at xxx.com Sat Mar 5 23:51:37 2005 From: johnnythreeb at xxx.com (John Wojcik) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:51:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sinister: DJ Johnny Royale spins Brit power-pop - Saturday, March 5, 11:55pm Message-ID: <20050305235137.718.qmail@web20823.mail.yahoo.com> DJ Johnny Royale spins Brit Pop at the Lucky Cat. Saturday, March 5, 11:55pm. Im going to try to do a power pop show. Mighty Lemon Drops, old Soup Dragons, Woodentops, The Smiths � London, Belle and Sebastian � Legal Man, etc. The Lucky Cat � 245 Grand Street � Williamsburg � Brooklyn http://www.theluckycat.com/ You might say I'm limiting myself. How can anyone come up with enough power pop with enough variation to make a mixed tape, let alone keep a crowd interested for a few hours? Admittedly, it wont be easy. Its these limits that spur creativity. With poetry, rhyme and meter are constraints that help focus thinking, and bring the mind to places which, without these self imposed limitations, would not normally be reached. You will never find the word orange at the end of a line in a sonnet, sadly. Tonight's limits are sound, genre, and the owner, as I probably wont get to play at the lucky cat again if I play reggae. And I'm going to play the Fall, cause they are really good. John ===== John Wojcik johnnythreeb at yahoo.com +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ "I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom." --Noam Chmosky __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From s.santabarbara at xxx.uk Mon Mar 7 08:46:00 2005 From: s.santabarbara at xxx.uk (s.santabarbara at xxx.uk) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 08:46:00 +0000 Subject: Sinister: The book of Stanley Creep Message-ID: <1110185160.422c14c889c07@webapps.qmul.ac.uk> My Dear Sinister [Home sweet home] I rarely desired to get back to my place and have a bit of rest as after a prolonged pilgrimage around Eupore, at a certain point I wasn’t even sure were I was (I’m never sure who I am, so that’s not that disconcerting) and were I was going to be the next week a bit like one of the ball in the lotto machine the 53, or whatever came out on the Venice board and the Italian Republic god knows how managed not to declare bankruptcy well, I haven’t won by the way, I stop to play lottery quite a while ago, even though I’m positive I’ll become millionaire via drug smuggling, that is why I still am in science. Yes, we have lot of fun, testing substances. However [Pecksniff, The Book of Stanley Creep] Before getting back to England and entering a flu-infested exile, I had the fortune to see a gig by this Italian band, called Pecksniff. I knew for a while they were labelled as the Italian B&S. In fact they are better than that. is not that they are better than B&S, but being the Italian or ‘xan’ whatever looks to me as pretty good cover band, which eventually find some good new titles for someone else’s tracks well, I’m glad that Pecksniff are not the Italian B&S but have plenty of interesting similarities. Their new album the book of Stanley Creep is indeed very good and the life was as funny as enjoyable. The fact they manage to write the songs around child instrument is in itself rather interesting but the whole thing is absolutely well done, and if it weren’t I wasn’t drunk enough I would have dance along on my own actually I don’t know precisely how I contained myself as me feet are still a bit hitching. [Mr 60, Mista Sixa From Outta Space] They were supporting Pecksniff, well supporting when your playing in front of thirty people there is nothing like supporting, is pretty much playing with. Other surprise. Might be not that innocent, and not that much funny, but equally enjoyable. I’m rubbish at writing reviews for anything in general, so I’d better shut up, but is quite rare that I go to a gig, especially of Italian band and get surprised by how good they are, in fact in general is the opposite bless them then. [ATP vs. Slint vs. Mogwai] I have been to SLINT organised ATP. I have to admit I am quite deluded by most of the bands. Mogwai were great as usual, they played a couple of new songs, the first one definitely rocked, while the other were pretty much anonymous, Like Herod at the end was fairly noisy in fact all the set were fairly noise, as it should be. I was quite surprised by how good Melvins still are. Last time I heard them live they were supporting nirvana and more or less I was at high school oh my Slint were fabulous and as one guy shouted, I can’t believe I’m seeing Slint I almost can’t believe it either, although I’ve seen them a again a couple of days later in Lundun, in company of Jim purpletrousers and they even play a better gig although the fact of seeing them for the fist time was unbeatable, when you’ve been waiting or such a long time. Now I really hope they won’t do another record or anything like that . other band, mighty flashlight were quite funny especially the guy who turned out completely plastered 5 minutes later and pay different songs compared to the rest of the band for the whole gig: mentalist. White magic were also rather good. On most of the other bands I prefer not to comment . Mhmh that bad? worst [Flu vs Cold vs TBC] After an heroic battle against any sort of lung disease to see Slint on Thursday, I am not the kind of heroic chap, and particularly I am not against any kind of disease, in fact I am rather weak indeed, I had no other option that spend the rest of the week in bed so I have finally noticed that, one my flat mate has left the place and the other is on holiday. That meant I have been the only human being around the place for the whole week, and god knows how long, unless I find a new flatmate as I should. Last time the house was this empty, I had a flu: that makes it recursive. And it was snowing as well: that makes it even more recursive. Good news, for me, is that I’ve quit smoking. That I had started, seriously, when I was home alone, still believing I could get my life back on track, trying to cure a flu, which might not have been wise. In fact is not and I am not a wise human being. New step is the sanatorium: ah, the fresh breath of the countryside. (Joanh, I’m not that serious, I’m actually fine. Now ) [Primavera festival] Is anyone interested? It seems quite nice and finally in a warm location! http://www.primaverasound.com Take care Stephanowic [from the inna electron shella] [The Journal of Fucked-up Gourmet] http://ilsantuzzari.splinder.com [Stay indie, get eaten by squirrels] http://www.eatenbysquirrels.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From lazyline-painterjane at xxx.com Thu Mar 10 00:33:33 2005 From: lazyline-painterjane at xxx.com (J Stewart) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:33:33 +0000 Subject: Sinister: Aye Write! and the First Post Nerves Message-ID: Hi everyone I just wanted to write a little about the Aye Write! (Glasgow Book Festival) event that Stuart Murdoch did last month. It was called 'Songwriting' and Stuart talked to about 400 (according to Glasgow Evening Times) smiley B & S fans., myself included. It was brilliant. Because we don't know Glasgow very well and didn't really know how to find the venue (a library) and due to loads of excitement , we arrived a ridiculous one hour before the thing was due to start. So we decided to run around the library looking for Things to Do. We went to the wee bookshop. There weren't very many books though. We looked at the photo exhibition - but that didn't take long to go round. Then I spotted the ladies' toilets. Lovely old-fashioned wood and frosted glass doors - must be the most decadent toilets in any Glasgow library : ) That wasted a few minutes. Anywaaaay... We spent the next 46 minutes sitting in the foyer where I got hot flushes or something (not old age though - I'm just a young thing) which was possibly due to my burning desire to be in the same room as Stuart Murdoch, poet laureate of the star-gazing hipsters. Or maybe it was just my scarf. Took a gamble on the fact that it was the former and kept the scarf on for comfort value. So enough about my scarf - interesting as it is - a woolly stripey one. Finally they opened the lecture theatre doors and we all tried to run up the stairs towards the seats without looking like we were running really, you know quite casual ....(''yeah we're gonna see Stuart but och yeah I saw him on the bus the other day... so what? ") So yeah we all sort of ran without trying to be too obvious and the venue slowly filled up. I think it was sold out. Stuart was introduced by .. someone from the press. And then Stuart came on stage and picked up the guitar. He then stood leaning on it and said he wasn't going to play yet, he was just going to use it as a 'prop', 'Jasper Carrott' style. After that Stuart gave a great talk about the inspiration behind some of B&S lyrics and melodies. He's a star - he seemed a bit nervous at first but he was so interesting and funny, that it didn't take long until he was on fire. In between, he would sort of look over to the wings (where Stevie, Chris. and Mick were sitting) and gave the Secret Signal (or someone would just shout "Song!") and they played a few tunes to break it up a bit. They played three - Dog on Wheels., a good new song not yet released and then I'm a Cuckoo. The acoustics in the theatre were brilliant. I'm no expert but it gave a really good sound, like Lazy Line Painter Jane , that rich sound. It seemed to really suit their songs. It was really a treat. The gig was only supposed to go on till 9 but Stuart was taking questions from the audience here and there too, and he was talking so well he lost track of time and then realised it was 9.15 and time to finish. Afterwards Stuart came into the foyer and said hello and we all said thanks for a great time. It was a great atmosphere, very positive. We skipped out of the venue with that feeling you get when you go to school in the morning feeling really crap and then someone tells you the pipes have burst and you have a day off. We skipped to the station. That's my first post -phew-I'm going to have a cup of tea now. *Strella* PS Just in case you're wondering (and some people have) THE ABOVE IS NOT A DREAM I ONCE HAD - It really happened : ) Felt like a dream though ... aww... yeah ok whatever I'll say good night now.. _________________________________________________________________ Don't just Search. Find! http://search.sympatico.msn.ca/default.aspx The new MSN Search! Check it out! +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From Hugo Johan <12813249 at xxx.za> Fri Mar 11 11:14:34 2005 From: Hugo Johan <12813249 at xxx.za> (Hugo Johan <12813249 at xxx.za>) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:14:34 +0200 Subject: Sinister: Aye Write! and the First Post Nerves Message-ID: dear sinister hello cuddlebuns! how are you all? for most of you spring must be almost sprung: come out and play children! the sun will always shine again! (to those still feeling a little under the weather - extra sunshine from me to you!) here it's moving into autumn, which is my absolutest favouritest season (all blue skies but chilly goodness in the air, with just a hint of melancholia... tailor-made for me, that is!) just wanted to say "hi" to strella really, which i could have done off-list i suppose, but wasn't that just such lovely nuggety feedback-goodness? one of the things i love you all for so much! and - as usual - admiration mixed in with a faint undertone of envy... thanks for sharing some of the perfection with me (us) though! it's turned into one of those weeks where "i'm half in love with every girl i see"... which is to say fully in love with life i suppose. cruch-weather too - and i've forgotten the value of a good "nothing will come of it and i don't really want to either" crush (though i might have bored you with this sortof thing before?) anyway, it's good to know they're out there - these people that you dream about: sometimes its nice to dream that you're a man, because for a moment you can believe that you're a beautiful beautiful butterfly... though to be honest, if i am, i'm still very much stuck in a nondescript cocoon... but things are happening - i can feel it, a vague something in the air, a quickening... but i'm waffling. i'm very excited about the singles compilation jeepster is putting out - especially since i've given some of my ep's away, and i miss them so much! and having them all in a single "never-have-to-change-the-disc" feeding frenzy... sounds great. just a pity it doesn't seem as if they're including the peel sessions, which i really really want to get my grubby paws on... especially since i fell in love with miraculous technique (thanks anna!... are you still here dear?) and i think it all adds up to both the greatest "lost" album of the '90's, as well as the perfect intro to b&s - let the evangelisation begin, i say! thanks for sticking with me (if you have! if not: i can understand why!) lots of lovely love to all! JohaN +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From pinefox1 at xxx.com Fri Mar 11 18:03:30 2005 From: pinefox1 at xxx.com (P F) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:03:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sinister: Murray Hill, Murray Hill, Hold On Tight Message-ID: <20050311180331.58050.qmail@web53406.mail.yahoo.com> 8 o�clock in the Mezzanine at the hotel Clarence Ashley: quiet hours before the leisurely tourist breakfasts begin. A strange grizzled foreigner in a foreign land serving a foreigner just a coffee, Clarence Ashley own brand no less, cooked up by a reputable beanier, twitching that I don�t want to hand him twelve bucks plus for a croissant. Yellow cabs pass below on 31st street and I wonder about generations of capitalist aesthetics: the 1920s, 1930s, 1950s, whatever are OK, but take the black checks off the cabs and everyone says the romance is gone. How long will it take for millennial Manhattan to look gilded? I read the Rough Guide, five years out of date, telling me the subway will cost $1.50. Adjusting prices from this book is like converting from sterling, a perpetual and imprecise necessity. Tales of crime in the city are five, maybe thus ten, fifteen years outdated. The New York postal system, the book warns, is poor. Stillness, waiting for the world to wake, New York starting its Saturday, till back upstairs out of the white the telephone rings. It seems to buzz from different corners, bleeping like a fire alarm, impolite with unconventional urgency. Odd world of hotel calls, aimed at transience, passing through. I call Brooklyn, find it awake on the bright morning. Space. Past the doorman I head out; - how are you today, sir?. � Oh, I�m good, thank you: yes, determined to have a real good time. Art of positive replies you must learn. I am surprisingly unprepared for the city�s majesty: through the doors to the sidewalk stones the impact and momentum of its late-winter air, the rush of location, back in the land of the high green street signs. The Empire State is a sudden casual sight, waiting for my arrival, hanging on when I�m long gone; the strange happy durability of buildings is something that those who live among them don�t quite see. The early-spring wind of the world�s finest film set, arbitrariness of the way across the grid, east seeking a first diner: blitzed by the sensation of the avenues, tunnels of air, magnificent lines of vision, epic scale of moving city. Park Avenue, Lexington Avenue, casually they come, I wonder if I even know how to cross a street here, and think of �Sunday Morning�, all the streets you crossed, as the world�s most famous roads just drift past like they�re Tressilian Road or Chandos Place. That all this can still happily catch me unawares catches me unawares. Modesty of the eastern streets. I order a regular folks� breakfast, Belgian waffles with syrup, plus two little sausages that are actually tasty, five refills of coffee. I am determined to read the whole guidebook this time out, discovering Chinatown on the plane home if need be. I read the Rough Guide to Murray Hill. Like Chelsea further west, it lacks any real center, any real sense of community and, unless you work, live or are staying in Murray Hill, there�s little reason to go there at all; indeed you�re more likely to pass through without even realizing it. Odd how they�ll so deprecate such places; this is the heart of Manhattan, people! Get excited! I plan payment like a military campaign, try to work out where the tip goes, how much extra cash they�ll add, time movements, till, table, door, across the street and out of range. Noon South down Madison: the local mixture of history and the now, the new America that isn�t the same as all that though it walks the same streets, that has places to go and Britney Spears videos to watch. Union Square�s great Saturday spaces. Place to await a lassie. Upstairs in B&N below the painted writers I read of how The Gates costs $20 million but not a penny from the city. She shows and on the road shows me her badge. Line of unorthodox cops, Ironside, T.J. Hooker (no, he�s orthodox, that�s his schtick maybe), Spender, now the ex-bus driver and frustrated Orange Juice fan in DMs. Out in the air the guidebook bespeaks a slightly gone world; we try to map this one to it. Seek the American Savings Bank, lose Tammany Hall. The road into the East Village, where everyone and their daughter used to work for the Voice; the brown signs of Broadway tutti frutti that seems to start to split and multiply, as though its shadowy Bowery cousin weren�t diagonal enough. The local talent assembles for the week�s first fancy a pint, fancy a burger, FAB. In and out of the candle shop: scents on sale include Laundromat, Dirt and Ginger Ale. Out of the SoHo crowds like Suze Rotolo. Right from the start I couldn�t take my eyes off her. She was the most erotic thing I�d ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid�s arrow had whistled by my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard. Unbelievable bathos of that paragraph�s end: �She was just my type�. Tom & Jerry�s: ambiguity of the name, queer instability of local knowledge. Who would have thought so many different bowls existed with �Tom & Jerry� on them? The reasons are unfathomable. Scrabble is in use; only game in town is count the numbers for the forthcoming FAPs. Everybody has plans round here. Back at Union Square�s subway pavilion the day going, going fine, how to buy the necessary card at something like 2/5 of the equivalent London cost. No wonder the tunnels are dirty. I like the stops� earnest announcements: �This is - 14th Street - *Union Square*�, or is it, �*Union* Square�, where the stress falls. In the Hotel Chloe Kiel the telephone rings: a voice out of Mike Leigh that yet seems to know his NYC. Share a cab downtown? No � see, I�ve got this *card*, I have to make it worthwhile� From West 28th street I head south to where every other query is a mock exam question, every other assertion a prank. A Miami man wants to drink beer with me. I never do make it. Derrida�s infinite capacity for making dumb people feel like they had just said something very interesting: �a genius, in that sense�. I make it somehow back up the cold thirty streets North. Another doorman coated against the night awaits to welcome me in. - Would that be the *phenomenal* Paul de Man, sir? - Oh, I wouldn�t go that far. Cars both ways on 5th Avenue, the terrific morning bright and crisp. Flatiron building a scaffolded postcard. On 12th street it needs more assurance than I yet have to pass the guards without blinking. A blonde in black with no trace of Red Indian. Outside the downtown skyline against a pretty Sunday, nineteenth century Wall Street, halted docks and stern ministers, Henry Fonda joining the trek to church out in the civilized West. 6 hours later I hear a new definition of the function of criticism: to remind you of how good books are. Don�t laugh, I could buy that one. Leigh�s pal walks me home in afternoon light, marvelling at sudden skyscraper visions: marvelling even though it�s not new to him, 20 years ago he would fly to and from his Brooklyn girlfriend. He likes the locals� pride in their city and the naivet� he finds in the acronyms: SoHo, TriBeCa, so simple. A kind soul, he says he�ll come by with a sleeping pill; I never see him again. Sleep won�t come, the day�s still light, so out at 5 uptown on 5th, passing bars and pubs and wondering about them, wondering why they feel more occulted here, not advertising themselves to me. Perhaps it�s the thoughts tristes of solitude, the lack of anyone to discuss or seek them with. The Empire State lit red white and blue at its top, the steps of the Public Library that�s just closing near six, where Peter Venkman seemed about to start to sing in Ghostbusters. The midtown city is fading and beautiful, mobile and lonely, tantalizing and memorable. At the Hotel Freddie Francis I call Sugar Loaf, talk to a father. His daughter calls me back out of the black on the K-mart bill and we rate the imaginary museums. Down the street I seek the right price for a bite, ask a gay fellow in Pinch for a pizza: first unnerving thing he does is ask my name. - So you want 7 inches, huh? It looks slim to me, tasteable enough but not quite my idea of $9. Under the stilled television, by the high window, the Brooklyn lager label�s artful symmetry is beautiful. I have brung three LRBs, which proves optimistic (I never get through the cellophane of more than one) or pessimistic (this is New York � it�s too important to be spending your time reading the LRB). �Unfortunately, Will In The World is very much not that book�: odd mix of negation and emphasis for a closing line. I pick up the book of the week, read something like They circled under the on-ramp to find stone stairs up into the sunlight of the bridge�s walkway, then started across, over the river, traffic howling in cages at their feet, the gray clotted sky clinging to the bridge�s veins, Manhattan�s dinosaur spine rotating into view as they mounted the great curve above the river. Line by line you can tick and nod your way through a book, even one as overlong and partially rebarbative as this; but looking back out of order, I wonder how a writer finds so many fresh phrases, so many different ways in one book to say �Manhattan�s dinosaur spine� (which is fine, to start with), and notice the buried echo of �The Great Curve�. Blue light on the clock fades out, waking time civilized by one hour, just another Manhattan Monday below, unpromising skies above. In the Mezzanine a shaven fellow who never visibly sits tells me I can return for a refill: when I do he congratulates me. - That�s good, taking advantage. Always the cool music playing here, not even quiet enough to be background. We talk about location, the quiet centre. Murray Hill: yes, a hill; mostly they were razed when they settled Manhattan. Algonquin, Manna-Hata: Island of the Hills. Downtown in the rain on the arrayed, at the foot of Madison Avenue I walk into Wendy�s, no luxury spot, and buy a combo meal whose price shoots from $5.99 to �biggie� (?) 50c extra to taxed $7.04, jeez, bargains always vanish into air. I eat upstairs, scribbling on Hotel Donald Regan paper my introduction, while a plump Plutonian in the corner sings along with the bad music, a live recording of an old ballad. That�s what I get for trying Wendy�s. Wild ride around the corporate halls, watching and listening to the enforced greetings. In their rows of desked seats the kids gather: contra yesterday�s rumour they�re not all armed with laptops. Sarcastic mode of the US professor addressing the unruly class, wondering out loud how long the assessment should be � 3k? 5k? � asking one of his former students, the last person to ask. On 12th street hours later the rain is lashing carelessly. Over one beer after another I talk to a high roller, have to admit that I don�t like HobNobs, Snow Patrol, Garden State, don�t remind me. A voice twelve years dated says Queer is the new way in: there aren�t two sexes, there are thousands. I can�t think what they�re called. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From idleberry at xxx.uk Thu Mar 17 23:10:29 2005 From: idleberry at xxx.uk (idles) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 23:10:29 -0000 Subject: Sinister: artistic license Message-ID: <000901c52b46$86916db0$6501a8c0@KRISTIN> It's a while since I wrote to Sinister. I guess I've fallen out of habit, gradually and steadily. I've fallen into different habits, different thoughts, different ideas. But I still have a little place for Sinister. I've been working on a little side-project. The sort of little side-project that you don't put a lot of effort into, because really, there's already so much resources there, all you need to do is a cut'n'paste and a bit of stapling together. All you know, is that it'll be there for your own devices, whatever those devices may be, and hell, if anyone else benefits from it, so much the better. The little project, resulted in me asking a friend to do an illustration for me. It's a fact, that I gave up my career as an artist, at the age of 8, when a girl in my class drew a picture of a cat, for a school frieze, which was "apparently" better than mine. Hers was a white cat with black splodges, based on her own pet cat. Mine, was a deluxe tabby. I still don't see how her cat drawing was better. Her cat was fatter, certainly. Mine? Much more sleek and feline. Anyway, back to the present. My friend, this girl who draws fantastic illustrations. She's got a real flair for it, although she plays it down. She plays down all her talents, far too much. She's a lot more mysterious in that sense than I am. You know, if I had a talent at all, I'd be singing about it (if singing were one of my talents) from the rooftops. Hell, I sing about the things I can do, even if I'm not very good at them, anyway. It reminded me of Ulla's artwork, and I showed her some pieces that Ulla has done. I showed her Ulla's blog, and then the Sillustrations. And that took me, naturally, back to the one that was done of me by Vu Sleeper. I'm proud that number 61, is based on an old post. And that got me reading my old post again. And so that made me want to post again. I guess that explains it. If you want content... well.... drop me an email and I'll tell you something B&S related. I'm not going to say it on here, I feel far too self-conscious. It's nothing bad, or juicy, it's just... something. I thought it was interesting at any rate. If someone emails me, and I tell them, then they can share it with you and not tell you this was what I didn't want to tell you, they can just tell you, like it's their own news. You follow? Take care love idles xxxx +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From lazyline-painterjane at xxx.com Sun Mar 20 21:56:31 2005 From: lazyline-painterjane at xxx.com (J ********) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 21:56:31 +0000 Subject: Sinister: More on "Songwriting" ( Aye Write! ) Message-ID: Hello everyone, Just wanted to post a bit more info about the Songwriting thing I was at last month (if you don't know what I'm on about, read my first post) Grainne asked what the new song that the boys played was called. I'm sorry but I don't know. They didn't say the name, they just launched into it. Either that, or I was lost in a dream when they said it. Sorry! It sounded very sunny, Augusty. Maybe they'll release it this summer? Good song, anyway. Ian asked if I could remember any of the stories Stuart told about how he writes songs. The one thing I really remember, is that he said he gets a lot of his songs from dreams that he has. Not just the lyrics, but the melodies too. This is why a lot of dreams and sleeping is mentioned in B&S songs. (I could be dreaming, you made me forget my dreams, "judy never felt so good except when she was sleeping" ,etc) It occurs to me that I should have been taking notes or at least taken a tape recorder along as I really don't remember the specific songs he mentioned and where they came from. But I just dropped out of college, and taking notes in a lecture theatre - even if it is a fantastically cool lecture - don't get me wrong..I just don't want to do it anymore. Stuart did reveal that pre-B&S he had had a post-viral infection for about 7 years, which put his life on hold in a way. However, during that time he spent a lot of time in bed ill, and so he started writing things here and there. Then those bits and pieces turned into songs. (Hurray!) He said that that 7 year 'pause' when he was ill is referred to in the lyrics of 'Summer Wasting' (7 years = 7 weeks...). Hmmm I'll think on and see if I can remember anything else. I still can't believe no one else here was there. Either that or I'm the only one who's posted about it ... Was it all just a dream...? Strella _________________________________________________________________ Take charge with a pop-up guard built on patented Microsoft� SmartScreen Technology. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=http://hotmail.com/enca&HL=Market_MSNIS_Taglines Start enjoying all the benefits of MSN� Premium right now and get the first two months FREE*. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From angela.msmith at xxx.com Wed Mar 23 01:36:14 2005 From: angela.msmith at xxx.com (Angela M. Smith) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:36:14 -0500 Subject: Sinister: New(ish) b&s release Message-ID: <36ca5dd505032217363034c56b@mail.gmail.com> Found on productshopnyc.com (his words, not mine): Belle & Sebastian will release a compilation of their seven Jeepster EPs and singles called Push Barman To Open Old Wounds, will be released by Matador Records on May 24th. Most B&S fans are already quite aware that they're singles and eps have been much better than their last few albums and while they may already own many of these songs, this is a great comp where you can find them all. Here's the tracklisting (via Ambitious Outsider): CD1 Dog On Wheels The State I Am In String Bean Jean Belle and Sebastian Lazy Line Painter Jane You Made Me Forget My Dreams A Century Of Elvis Photo Jenny A Century Of Fakers Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie Beautiful Put The Book Back On The Shelf CD2 This Is Just A Modern Rock Song I Know Where The Summer Goes The Gate Slow Graffiti Legal Man Judy Is A Dickslap Winter Wooskie Jonathan David Take Your Carriage Clock And Shove It The Loneliness Of The Middle Distance Runner I'm Waking Up To Us I Love My Car Marx & Engels love, Angela +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From pinefox1 at xxx.com Wed Mar 23 17:14:21 2005 From: pinefox1 at xxx.com (P F) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 09:14:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sinister: Leaving The Island Message-ID: <20050323171422.99922.qmail@web53405.mail.yahoo.com> Soft sweet scented sheets of the hotel Blossom Dearie: yards of sumptuous unused bedding, virgin territory. Mysteries of the substances they give you for the shower. Mysteries of the shower, for that matter. In the 14 down elevator always different characters: odd European business associates this time, encountering each other here during descent, the group forming around me as though by accident. The elevator seems a running joke, the one qualm anyone has about the place, save also the coldness of the breakfast buffet at which rogue English voices sigh. Downtown on the corner the Strand�s dollar shelves hold what seem interesting volumes that gradually replicate themselves on one shelf after another. Graffiti and fire escapes, failed bagel venture on 1st Avenue, 50c for a cold bagel off a stall as I head too far North up Lexington, little India and all, for noon�s latest rendez-toi. In the lobby Tokyo Rosemary in pinks from the shocking to the merely surprising admires the swish surroundings. It�s like Hal David could walk out any minute. 34th street, a new Korean in a new town. On Park Avenue we seek a bus, in the cold wind that snips between the skyscrapers that frame the Empire State against the snappy blue. I try to find out about Manhattan�s place in the history of aesthetics. The bus never comes, the subway does, up to the edge of Spanish Harlem, into reach of the rattling drums. East of the park, over the cliffs mew the wildcat charms: Barrio land, deadbeat side streets, up to a point. The Museum of the City of New York somehow asks that its whole name be recited: not the New York Museum, no, the Museum of the City of New York. Grand old marble halls tricked out to neat modernity, best of two east side worlds. It�s a $5 bargain, kids: don�t miss Radicals in the Bronx, socialists, communists and cooperative housing, factional badges, red diaper fables, FDR�s Democratic Party an exotically conservative option by these flashing lights. In the Glamour halls I wonder at the frisson of being a yard from the yards that gave Nicole Kidman a frisson. Cyan and red upstairs the Puerto Rican walls; the mysteries of the US commonwealth. Guidebooks are sold as Not For Tourists. I object: we are all tourists in someone�s life. Anyway, why trust the word and feeling of a local? They (and we are all locals in someone�s town) are less apt than the despised cashspilling migrants to look up and see the light. The Park waits to the west with its lifelines traced in the orange of Christo�s Gates. Oddly mundane repetition of the pattern, orange cloth hung on orange poles, like some Kurosawan feudal structure perhaps but uniform all across the green miles when so much might have been gained by variation, the chances once so good for diversity. In two minutes you could toss together a notion that would improve it: on this path every gate bearing a handwritten quotation from a New York novel; on this every orange cloth emblazoned with a bird of America. Nothing doing. The Gates seem always excused by circumstance, some condition that�s absent: - They�d look better in the wind; - O, they�d look good in the snow. Nature beats them like it casually trumps much artifice: the setting sun behind the Reservoir Jackie Onassis peels more than one shade of orange across the silhouette-strewn sky. In the hotel David Crosby I crack a new gold drink, Brooklyn Pilsner: the variations keep coming. For storing that in the fridge some Krusty will add $5.44 to the bill. She has written the address in a cute hand on petit paper. Into early evening once again, with my hat on and my dollars dry, and the coated doorman hauling glass aside. - Would that be the *real* Tracer Hand, sir? - Oh, I wouldn�t go that far. These hot dog stands are useful it turns out, not just some retro decoration. Past the Empire State�s blessed eternal landmarking, Herald Square � why do you only ever hear of Herald Square once you're in Manhattan? mystery of its obscurity abroad � and the Broadway woozy tootsies: the subway to 103rd street, reading all the way about the land above none of us down here can see. Quietness of the norwest reaches; Manhattan Avenue sounds a name from a Massachusetts past. The Ding Dong Lounge flips suddenly into view: through the door the lugubrious sound is a sudden bath of absinthe and petrol, �Epitaph For My Heart�. I would like to report cocktail shakers and parasol tremblers, maraschino waitresses and tinkling ice-buckets, but it�s dark and downhome, great spatial rifts of echoing rock between one table and another. At the bar the bearded tender serves me a pint of naturally Brooklyn; he probably wanted a tip also. The bogs are splattered with old punk posters, samizdats and slashed photocopies, vague early-Reagan satire, loose shocks, unknown support acts who peopled the glacial history of the electric guitar. At a table at the front I open the Rough Guide and wait. A fellow from the bar follows me like an agent in a Deep Throat drama, asks for whom I�m waiting. O.Nate, his name punctuated as mysteriously as a modern rock band�s: an international businessman and a grindcore fan from Hoboken. To a mere foreigner his voice sounds way out West, possessed of one of those mysteriously other American textures. In fact I think he�s Californian: West, OK, but not quite what I had in mind. We name a few names: the Rocking Vicar and YMOF, Lara Byrne and Bertie Ahern, that class of thing. Distant grey Atlantic drops, it is only 2:30 in the afternoon in Dublin. New arrivals now come thick and fast: Eater looks younger than his 31, is unsure whether to consider that a compliment. Ally Zay Garance Dallas really exists after all these years. So does the pinefox for that matter. Their meeting�s like a summit, though not Joyce and Proust: perhaps Myles na gC and Mary McC. She remembers having to talk about Adam Ant in the shower. East in the dark the unfinished Cathedral waits unvisited. Tracer H arriving late, elegant and lean: a confidence man, drawling in that outstate voice and disarmingly setting off unexploded bombs of charisma. The Mod is framed by vast headphones, a Mod scientist at his desk of sonic inventions and wax equations: his mere gaze is packed with a spraining overload of intelligence, ferocious numeracy. How, I ask, do you know so much about computers? � I didn�t date in high school. That sounds a good answer, but hold on� nor did I. In fact � I didn�t go to high school. From his box of magic he pulls me a track by the Boredoms: refreshingly, for all the space-age math talk, it�s a load of silly banging. Dollars on the counter. Nabisco shows last, having least distance to travel. Eager thought in his smiles, motion in his conjecturing voice, the fast train of intellection speeding through chuckles and hypotheses. The gang of smokers forms and fumes on the street: A, B, C, A, C, B, A, coming and going in and out. The shop across the road provides bad crisps: crisps to rank with the ones I bought at the Hotel Lev Yashin seven years ago, don�t remind me. Perhaps not that bad. The bartender orders tacos: I have never seen the GHS order chips. The subway seems a labyrinthine trip. In the late lobby of the Hotel Alan Sugar we find the right personae for the place. - So, things seem to be moving forward. I�ll call you about the deal � - I still need to check some things with my people. - Of course; but I think things are looking good for us now. Green 6 line downtown from 28th and Park Avenue, past Union Square with Bleecker Street still to come; follow the song one more time and get off at Astor Place. East into the mysteries of the Village, harsh geometries of Alphabet City, gungy low-rise land out of keeping with the island, scrawled walls and stacks of iron stairs, free papers and Jews performing themselves on street corners. Tompkins Square, gritty, dry: I walk into a closed public library and the camp librarian thinks I want to hand over my Rough Guide. The Life Caf� is clean and glossy enough, but also �vegan-friendly�, Mexican and all that: uh-oh, I only came here for a Yankee breakfast. � Sit yourself anywhere: as I deliberate the blackhaired waitress Rebecca says, - you want the perfect spot, don�t you, I know how that feels. She brings fine coffee, refills it 5 or 6 times: it takes all of 5 refills to jade the tongue out of wanting more. Strawberry pancakes, syrup, eggs easy over she explains, hm, I thought it was over easy; wish I could have the bacon � why not? order that too, holiday indulgences, playing with the casino�s potatoes. Sumptuous it comes, a decent feast at last. I read the rough guide to Staten Island and Queens, politely pose her questions: she tells of a neighbour here who lives in Queens, the chances still so good for diversity; she�s from Brooklyn, recommends nothing in it; I ought to go to the Met, or the Natural History Museum. Big numbers. She stops to seat and serve, comes back, carries on. For once a $4 tip seems the least that�s needed. North, taking snaps down the eastern streets till a clodhopper leaps from a caf� and shouts mockingly, Buddy, take a picture of me, too� yeah, not so interesting now, is it? Tosser. Back to Tompkins Square through the wire fences, wary guards, dusty yards, seeking the memorial to the 1904 Slocum disaster. I walk right past it, double take and turn in my tracks, find the faded stone, melted by decades of air. Mr Bloom might have sought it too. Check the paper. Great battle Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish �200 damages. Gordon Bennett. Emigration swindle. Letter from His Grace William +. Ascot Throwaway recalls Derby of �92 when Captain Marshall�s dark horse, Sir Hugo, captured the blue riband at long odds. New York disaster, thousand lives lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral of the later Mr Patrick Dignam. Five words drowned amid the millions. Down the Western street I happen on The Source where the postcards seize my random eye. The longhaired midaged vendor hands them back in the shop�s own bag, newsletter enclosed: tie-dye colours, psychedelic community messages. I�m later struck by how central this spit of a shop seems to think itself, or be. St Mark�s Books is clean and tidy, doesn�t claim to be cheap. Yank editions of everything from Lethem and Didion to Terry and Joyce. (Why have I never seen this John Bishop 1999 FW before?) A dumb droning conversation drones dumbly at the counter. Odd stupidity of the wouldbe intellectual. I stop and scribble notes to myself, pick up DeLillo and Fred Jameson for the bulk of $30, walk out knocked out laden. Time to drop this load, to scurry uptown encore to the Hotel Siri Hustvedt. Across the vague traffic dangers at Astor Place, in and out of the 4 or 5, thinking of Richard Dalloway crossing town with flowers, is it?, in his hands. In the morning mezzanine I�d awaited again the slow lift coming: turn to the besuited hairless assiduous attendant and mention breezily that they say the Staten Island Ferry is worth doing, and it�s free and all. � Oh, I�m not sure that it�s *free*, he warns, I think it *used* to be. I�ll look into that for you, sir, and have someone find out for you. Plunging into the next hours and no second thought to that exchange, but suddenly now the telephone rings: a dude from who knows where calling to tell me that the ferry is free and it runs every half hour. � Oh, thank you very much � well, you know, I think I�d like to experience it� and how long does it take? � It takes a half hour. � Oh � yes. I can�t let that promo cat down now: I catch the trains to Bowling Green. At the island�s tip skyscrapers without famous names. Imposing Ferry terminal, new, glass and steel, the ferry announced in giant letters. The brave new dock is but a great vast waiting room: white and black, white and blue collar, cops and kids stand and shuffle. Anxiously I ask where you board the ferry. The query must sound silly: right there � you can�t miss it. Industrial strength of boarding a ship: the seriousness of water, the heaviness of bolted steel. The orange southbound boat toots its horn like a picture-book character and sets its backwash flurrying across the Sound. Scant space outside, and wind and rain force me out of it, set me watching weather through stained glass. Liberty vanishes into the heavy vapour. Mundane insides: functional benches, opportune snack bar, inaudible tannoy. To most their books and talk must hold more fascination than the trip itself: commuters from the real world to home. A class of Geordie boys seem to have joined me. Oddness of the English voices � dull, unimpressive, silly, even though on my shores those Shearer sounds would hold more romance than mere Estuary. I retreat to the back of the ship, listen to a guide tell others of Staten Island. � Is it true, I ask, like the guidebook says, that they want to secede from New York. - *Oh*, no, he laughs the suggestion out of the water. Out of the water the rain is pelting down. I head straight through, seeking the momentum to carry me into another Borough. In the dripping immediate bus station I board a bus, the wrong one, kind of, swipe the MetroCard wrong at least twice till the silent disdainful driver swipes it for me, ponder the route, disembark, board another, the right one, sort of, swipe the MetroCard wrong at least twice till the silent disdainful driver swipes it for me, ride as one of the wet huddled masses West down the island�s edge, just a suburban run, black folks, laughing cops, no tourist mile. Suburban America, the rest of America, that�s how it feels when they let me off and I�m on the edge of a road tracking the shore, and asking a chick the way to Snug Harbour Cultural Centre, as though I�ve any reason to attend it. Stop signs, school buses, like Massachusetts in 1979, 1988; another green world. Sloping roads from the shore past spaced houses; America, the stretched land of the rainy day movies. The Cultural Centre is many old houses; it�s odd to arrive, alone in the rain like I have a purpose, when I don�t; like Gradus coming for Kinbote or someone seeking a known job, not an aimless visitor making up sketchy relevance. In one building I see some local art; on walls Dreiser or Melville are quoted about Snug Harbour, a haven for sailors. I turn around and get out of dodge: walk all the way back East as buses Not In Service pass one after another. On the side roads to the sea the gold and black school buses queue patient as cows. Past the stadium, up to the pointless top of the bus terminal, back down to pick up a $1.60 coffee and donut with a cop waiting behind. (Cops! All these cops!) In the hall I await the ferry for 20 minutes or more, reading the guide on the Village; a business type asks me the ferry is how often? On the way back to Manhattan too, some Indian type wants info from me, about subway lines and the like. The weather has cleared: Liberty�s visible to our left, Manhattan an epic of downtown highrise against a stunning sky, the air cleared and painted like October. February. Off amid the eager hungry hurrying crowd into the city: the pointlessness of my come-and-go, there-and-back trip to nowhere stays a safe secret from the purposeful citizens. Quit the subway at Union Square, out of its little pagoda, head West and get as far as 5th or 6th Ave, with an old tune in my head, the building visible North (I wrote it on 5th), the thought of new lyrics that could salvage its glory� till I realize I�ve overshot for the Strand, which turns out to be directly south of Union Square. Hand over the bag and take docket #42. Many things round here take me a while to understand: in maybe three visits to the place I try to exit by the entrance. Lethem�s Men & Cartoons looks an uncertain bargain at $15, Levin�s James Joyce first edition for $7 (hm), Fast-Talking Dames at $5. I am unsure of this place, amid the afterwork shoppers at what must be six, later; miles of books to go but it�s time to stop, to go. On the Union Square platform I watch the Express go by. Local trains. In the Hotel Roger Williams a jazz band is playing again. Naturally I like it for its tipped hat to the first night I arrived. I dare the telephone�s complexities and talk to the Hand. Tennessee is not the state we�re in. With a guide�s expertise he says they stopped charging for the ferry cos they realized it was uneconomical; with a tutor�s reassurance he says sodden Staten Island may have felt a lost hour to me, but many New Yorkers haven�t done it. With vast and sincere charm he says he would have loved (that is, *loooved*) to be the one to show me Chumley�s. I might go anyway. � Well, do, do, he says (that is, *doo�. just dooo*!) I am leaving a message on Nabisco�s rolling tape or invisible space when the telephone blasts off again; always it seems to ring from the corner of the room, though the central set�s the one I put down and grab back. How does the song go? - Who is on the other end talking / Am I even home? South down 3rd Avenue, to the narrow fa�ade of the shebeen. In the cosy indoor twilight the Stones play all night. They�re Dartford�s answer to the Pogues. I take a table like I know how, the midaged waitress may be Irish, calls me darlin� time and again. I order a pint of Murphy�s, gulp it down while penning a Chrysler card. Molly�s Classic Burger, a pint of red, a pint of black, the stripey paper of the Hotel Bridget Riley. American diners come and go. If memory serves Greil Marcus said that �Gimme Shelter� was the best rock record ever: a few blocks from here Simon Reynolds agreed and said that in a post-rock universe the intro would go on for 15 minutes. I kind of wish it did, now. The check (yes, the � the check) is alarming: $28.65 pre-tip. It�s only alarming in American: in translation it�ll look fair enough. I wait thankfully in vain for their eyelids to bat when I hand over my card. It�s now destroyed I am surely. I leave a five dollar bill like I know what I�m doing, walk home like another New York drunk. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Sign up for Fantasy Baseball. http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From lcallaghan1981 at xxx.com Fri Mar 25 11:53:50 2005 From: lcallaghan1981 at xxx.com (Lynsey Callaghan) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:53:50 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Sinister: Updating my address book Message-ID: <229477.1111751630562.JavaMail.Administrator@win01> Hello I would like to include your contact information in an address book I am creating for myself. Please enter your particulars using the link you see below: http://www.bebo.com/fr1/12203566a426161976b181000028c701300837d20 This is a really easy tool that will help you exchange and keep your contact's information up-to-date . When you update your information the changes automatically appear in your friends' address books. Many Thanks, Lynsey +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+