From samwaltonyeah at xxx.com Thu May 1 13:07:01 2008 From: samwaltonyeah at xxx.com (Sam Walton) Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 13:07:01 +0100 Subject: Sinister: it *was* a brilliant career Message-ID: hello sinister i've spent this morning reading the archives. and quite a lot of last night, too. and, i suspect, i shall read the archives some more this evening while keeping one eye on the mayoral erection results coming in. thank you to honey for doing all the housework. if you haven't had a look at them, you really should. maybe everybody just likes looking at old photos of themselves at some level (and, i admit, i'm quite amused by my own posts), but there's something more than that going on here – honey's right about them being a massive historical document, but not just in terms of b&s's (and their fans') progress and the history of the social web. they're also really interesting reflections on the news in general: the posts that immediately followed 9/11 (and 7/7 to a lesser extent) are beautifully written and fascinating to look back on with 7 years' hindsight. then there's all the little memes that ran around the list: i came across juicy lucy's poetry parrot somewhere, and a particularly eloquent ink polaroid by stevie trousers somewhere else, and remembered what an education the list gave me. and, in fact, leafing through the archives again, i'm being educated a second time round. and then of course there were the fights. i always found these quite funny, in the same way that i smile whenever i see footballers kicking chunks out of each other – it was always so petty and sniping, and distance has only improved it. but rising above the general ire, always, was mark casarotto's utterly brilliant bolshiness (for just one example, try this for size: http://www.missprint.org/archives/html/sinister/2003-03/msg00020.html). quite spectacular at times. i remember thinking that i quite wanted to be him in 2001 – i was quite a fan. as the art of writing a snotty email has been rarefied in recent years, as everybody learns the nuances of email and how to stick the knife in electronically, casarotto really was ahead of his time. reading the archives has really made me want to see some sinister people again, but unfortunately i can't come to the picnic. it's my girlfriend's birthday on saturday and i don't think it would wash if i changed our plans so that i could go and hang out with some people i met on a belle & sebastian website 8 years ago. but if anyone's going to see tindersticks in the evening, who knows, you might bump into me – please, do come and say hello. but go on, read the archives. reward honey's hard work in restoring it all, and reward your own hard work that you put in 5, 6, 7 or however many years ago. love, (never thought i'd type this again) asm.x ================================ "He's strictly a pain in the ass, but he certainly has a good vocabulary" - Holden Caulfield +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 Thu May 1 12:03:40 2008 From: pinefox1 at xxx.com (P F) Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 04:03:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Sinister: Mayday In-Reply-To: <488ac0700804291051w734b5ba3x5305a28621ba5ba4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <912955.60575.qm@web32703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The first day of May. I just went out to vote. Walking to the pavement, the suburban stones, the municipal world where Londoners come and go up and down the hill. I was transported in a way to the 1990s, the 1980s, by the nature of a polling day, those days of church halls and community centres, requisitioned schools and black and white signs; spaces given over to civic-minded people, usually black people in my experience, who work to make it work, and probably have their own hopes which properly go unvoiced. The streets reminded me of the old posters of the GLC days: black and white uniting, everyone dancing around green gardens, Greenwich: A Nuclear Free Zone. And part of the sadness of today is that, in the most stupid, pointless and shameful way, it could represent the final end (for there have been other ends) of that era, in one personal sense. Not to say that its political legacy is over: perhaps its political legacy is around us now, and will not be stopped. I went looking for the polling station, found it down the backstreets, beside a church; a wheelchair struggling up a ramp. The world of the polling station reminds me of what Larkin found in 'Church Going': temporary importance, borrowed seriousness; a world pausing and behaving responsibly. I actually paused while casting my votes, wondered what to do, which form to mark first. I settled on the Mayor, nervily savoured the two arms of the cross beside Ken Livingstone's name; decided to add the Green in second. (Please don't write in to tell me this is a pointless gesture.) I'd heard the lovely Sian Berry calling for Green votes on the peach form, and this actually swayed me now: recognizing the form, I decided to paint it Green. For the local member, stick with Labour's Len Duvall, a chubby face I'd recognize. Slide them all into the box at once and walk away, into the city tilting on its axis, teetering on its heels. My other memory was of 2000, when Ken first stood - I wrote a sinister post on the occasion of the first anniversary of that victory, I think. May 2000, the era of 'Legal Man' and the vast Sainsbury's at New Cross Gate; of April Dreams England bewilderingly new, hard to imagine now. That is how long Ken Livingstone has been Mayor of London. I suppose they were good years - well, they were better years than they would have been had his rivals won in 2000 and 2004. I am glad that he has been the first elected Mayor of London - I once thought that four years would be enough. Maybe eight years is enough, and I will have to live without twelve. The alternative, though - I will not now talk of the alternative. But yes, 2000: and I thought of picnics, and remembered the 1998 picnic, which thanks to Rachel and Grainne's attention is being properly commemorated on Saturday. I think of that 4.5.1998 picnic as one of life's pivotal days. We have talked about many reasons why, over the years. I think it is ten years tonight since I first met Steady Mike, glancingly, at the end of a Blue Soda - but better call it ten years since the 4th May, when I first properly talked to him. Ten years of sinister, last year, did not move me so much, for I was not involved in sinister in 1997. Eight years of Ken Livingstone, that means a lot. But ten years of Steady Mike! Who could have dreamed that up? The pleasure, the privilege is mine. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 honey at xxx.org Fri May 2 18:08:17 2008 From: honey at xxx.org (honey at xxx.org) Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 18:08:17 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time) Subject: Sinister: it *was* a brilliant career In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sam wrote: > if you haven't had a look at them, you really should. maybe everybody > just likes looking at old photos of themselves at some level (and, i > admit, i'm quite amused by my own posts)... ... and I forgot to mention that, along with all the archives, all the photos galleries, which are 10 years old, were safely snuggled away in my bodice, and even your baby pictures. They're back! And even the lovely sillustrations! Sadly none of the hyperlinks will work in the sillustrations, and because search isn't working you may have to dig around a little to find the posts they are illustrating in full, but they're so lovely. See: http://www.missprint.org/sinister/sillustrations/ Same rules apply to the photos! You sent them in wanting everyone to see for posterity, and I don't care if you had a nosejob since. They're staying! I am so evil. Anyway, apologies in advance if you hear from me a little more than usual right now, chere Sinister, to tell you things like this. If you sent a post since my last one, and it didn't appear please resend - the server filled but I don't think it lost anything. Growing pains! Oh and Stuart was on a programme on the Beeb this week - Caledonia Dreaming or something. It may have only been on BBC Scotland, and did feature Wet Wet Wet, but on the bright side, also Orange Juice and the still startlingly odd Associates. Stuart was smirking at the fact that the only thing that taxi driver in Glasgow know about B&S is how they cheated in the Brits (http://www.missprint.org/sinister/press.html). He failed to mention that Sinister was probably the culprit, but then, I was hiding in a bunker and shaking in fear at Pete Waterman's wrath at the time. About to have a good browse of the February 1999 archive now to reconstruct the trail of evil machinations that caused us to rock the musical world for an hour or so. See you there! http://www.missprint.org/archives/html/sinister/1999-02/index.html Honey x +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 jonathan.skinner at xxx.com Sun May 4 12:03:43 2008 From: jonathan.skinner at xxx.com (Jonathan Skinner) Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 13:03:43 +0200 Subject: Sinister: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?we=B4ve_come_a_long_long_way_together?= Message-ID: Hello, I know there are people out there... It´s strange reading things that I wrote 7 years ago and beyond. As I turn into my 24th year, i realise that nearly 1/3 of it was spent on this list. I grew up, in body at least in that time and the world started to change beyond all recognition, all changes that were reflected in this list. When I joined, i think i was in 2nd year of secondary school, i was 14. Now I am 24, living and working in Barcelona and with an amazing girl. I have been going through the archieves, looking at my own posts and posts that i remember fondly, its like hearing mention of long lost names that you recognise and want to reach out to again. It´s nice to see some action on here again. And its nice to have our pasts back as well. L.O.V.E Jonathan +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 popsingersfear at xxx.com Tue May 6 15:48:31 2008 From: popsingersfear at xxx.com (Gayle E. Anderson) Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 14:48:31 +0000 Subject: Sinister: Days like diamonds. Message-ID: Sinister. Oh! How seeing the archive made me smile! Although, it seems to have disappeared again. I was at University when i found the archives were back, on a three hour break between classes. I attend Heriot-Watt in Riccarton, Edinburgh which is in the middle of sodding nowhere, there is little else to do on three hour breaks except go to the gym or sit on the internet. Except on sunny days, then a walk around campus is another option, it is quite beautiful- although it only kills a little time. Actually, I hate uni and I grudge all the time I spend there, but it is a means to an end and I am prepared to put in the time to get what I want from it. I had put IYFS on in the car, a day or two prior to the archives being put back. I had just felt like a change and there was nothing else I could be bothered with. I rarely ever listen to B&S these days, but as I listened to the album that day on my way home from Uni I felt my heart swell, I thought about picnics in parks on sunny days, and how much fun it had all been and all the wonderful people I had the pleasure of meeting. And I remembered the way I used to feel, the way I felt on my way to my first ever picnic, it was everything I though it would be and more. I made some lasting friends, and some that faded away. I remembered stupidly late nights chatting on #sinister and the #sinister stats, it WAS fun and I remember laughing a lot. And I remembered coming across this a while back, I'm almost scared to post it in case it disappears... but it hasn't yet so: http://home.swipnet.se/~w-63235/sinister/people.html I remembered always having something to do, somewhere to go, somewhere to be and there was always someone there. And it WAS all because of Sinister. I never thought I would ever remember feeling that way again. Maybe one day I will even feel that way again. I was away for a few years, and I stopped going to Glasgow and picnics and meeting new people, and for those few years I forgot all about it. And when I came back, so had most everybody else. This month sees my 9 year anniversary of my first post on Sinister. Wow. Nothing remains the same. #sinister is still there, and auntsadie still remembers you, come along and say hello. Who knows who you might end up running into. post fearless, Gayle E. Anderson. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 dimensionflip at xxx.uk Wed May 7 13:07:23 2008 From: dimensionflip at xxx.uk (Ian Anscombe) Date: Wed, 07 May 2008 13:07:23 +0100 Subject: Sinister: Well, something's lost, and something's gained In-Reply-To: <4820F3AB.3020005@blueyonder.co.uk> References: <3DF7796E9BC4714483487FE20ADF2DE79277C1@VMAIL4.intranet.newham.ac.uk> <4820F3AB.3020005@blueyonder.co.uk> Message-ID: <48219B7B.60108@blueyonder.co.uk> This doesn't seem to have gone first time. Maybe I should take that as a sign, but I'm not going to. Attempt #2 xx Ian Ian Anscombe wrote: > Well, hello Sinister. Its nice to see you again. I'm not sure if I > ever posted to you drunk before. It seems almost unfeasible that I > didn't, and yet I don't remember such occurrences. I'm not really > sure that I'm drunk. I've had such a measly amount of alcohol that I > should be more sober than a Londoner waking up to find they've voted > for a ridiculous Tory Twat to be mayor, but it doesn't feel that way. > > Anyway...what was I going to say? I have no idea. I'm sure there was > a point to this but fuck knows what it was. And fuck is strangely > absent, so I have to recreate my own points from scratch. > > the sinister picnic then... that was nice, 10 years on. It was a > strange situation, walking up primrose hill, very late, but having > driven to London myself - the first change of many. I saw a little > indieboy, lovely hair and his equally cute indiegirl walking up the > hill. The weather was just right, that mix of sunshine and cloud that > seemed to grace every sinister picnic, and always made me think of > such events. I felt like I'd been walking ages, and was looking > forward to seeing you all sitting at the top. It was a far cry from > the first time I attended - seeing you all outside Camden station and > actually walking away initially, before coming back to say hello. And > yet, it still felt exciting. Perhaps this is one of the benefits of > not living in London - meeting your fellow Sinikids still feels > somehow eventful, and unique, and different from real life. > > Perhaps that was the ghost of Sinister-picnics past, the indie couple > walking up the hill. It reminded me of the people that used to come - > some of them were us, although I never really had the hair, or the > clothing, or the girl for that matter - but you all seemed so styled, > and cool, and vaguely intimidating. > What does the ghost of Sinister-picnics present resemble? A strange, > many-limbed beast. Yes, there's still a bottle of something alcoholic > in one hand, but there are new limbs. One holds the hand of a small > child, and though I'm sometimes slightly jealous this seems a > marvellous thing. One might hold a professional qualification, > quietly tucked away for the occasion, a picture of a partner, or a > sense of self-belief that didn't exist before. Oh yes, we've grown, > as I think a singer once opined. And we're not so much joined > together by a strange mutual relationship with a band any more. But > that's okay. > > I saw a new post, from a fragrant princess, the other day, and she asked: >> >> I promised you a long time ago that nothing would be lost right? > and Eric said something that ties in with it: > > If You're Feeling Sinister: the first boy I really had feelings for, > the boy that gave me a mixtape whose side A contained an entire album > from this strange band called Belle & Sebastian that he loved. I never > fell in love with the boy, but my relationship with the band is still > going strong, almost 10 years later. > > > Mine isn't - really. But Eric highlighted something. We do have a > relationship when we fall in love with a band. I don't think I ever > had such a deep one with a group of musicians. And I felt a bit hurt > when they started seeing other people, but they'd warned me from the > start that this is what they would be doing. I can't reconcile the > glibness of recent releases with the incredible tenderness and > fondness for the outsider apparent in the early days. I guess me and > those musicians grew apart, but I met a lot of beautiful friends > through this relationship, and those are people I can honestly say > I'll never forget. Ally said something standing on the hill, looking > out over London, about it all seeming the same, but different, us > being old now. And I felt simultaneously a pang for a feeling of > belonging I'd once experienced, and a gladness that I didn't have to > chase after that any more. You see, ghost of picnics present, I like > you as you are. I hope we'll keep meeting like this. When will I > see you again? > > I think I've been very idealistic about Sinister over the years, > partly because it was the first place I felt really accepted. I chose > to ignore the cliques and the fashions, because they didn't suit my > idea of what I...we....were about. Taking a step back and realising > I've taken my place in those groups is an interesting perspective. > There are people I rush to speak to at picnics, and people I've > somehow fallen into the pattern of not speaking to. Some of us did > eye-contact and a passing comment. I wanted to say more but that old > fear still exists. Fear that its not okay, for some reason, to talk > to someone - and why shouldn't it be? We've fallen into strange > self-defeating patterns of not speaking - comfort, or fear, or some > combination of both. Maybe this lack of chasing belonging isn't such > a great thing after all. > > I'm not sure if any of this is new. Any club has sub-groups. The > strange occasional assumption that longevity is some sort of marker of > quality or verity is an odd one. The excitement created when a member > of some golden age that only existed for...eighteen months, eighteen > weeks, eighteen minutes??.... pops up still makes me smile and sigh in > equal measure. The people I've loved here haven't been experienced > through that age, though they may remember it, so many newer people > have given something of themselves to our collective as the last 11 > years unfolded. We've experienced friendship in the present, and > we've changed the present through that friendship - and its this, not > some marvellous, mythical past, that make Sinister live on. > > Gayle said nothing remains the same, Honey said nothing is lost. In a > strange sort of way, they're both right. You don't really lose > something when you choose to let it go. Its through trying to keep > everything the same, clinging, terrified of it slipping away, that we > lose things. We lose them here, and now, and all we have is a past > when it was really ours to look upon. I'm glad we've grown, and we're > old, and there's still enough in the present to keep us meeting on > hills, miles from home. I'll meet you again, strange, many-legged > picnic monster - and I'm not even going to attempt to name-check your > parts. I'll only miss one, and every part is vital. > And, in a nod to tradition, this isn't the e-mail I intended to write, > but what the hell... I kiss you, Sinister list. In a nice, platonic > way, of course. I hope I'll see you again soon. > > xx > Ian > +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 honey at xxx.org Tue May 27 22:37:39 2008 From: honey at xxx.org (honey at xxx.org) Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 22:37:39 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time) Subject: Sinister: () Message-ID: (This email will be entirely in brackets, as it is almost entirely parenthetical. It's a word! Look it up. I'm sorry if some, any or none of you tried to post to Sinister since I last said it was back and possibly working - it WAS and then it maybe WASN'T again for a bit, but it is again now. Be gentle with it, it's a little creaky. Please post ramblings! And if you post and get an error let me know. Oh yes.) (Oh and hi! Honey x) +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+