Thu
06-May-2004

scissor sisters at brixton academy

Dan M, Alex, myself and two of Dan's friends from work travelled down to Brixton last night to see the Scissor Sisters, Queens of Noize, and Lamb in concert. The venue was the glorious Art Deco 1920s picture palace magnificence of the Brixton Academy, with its impressive columns and statues and a ceiling painted black so it looks like the roof is open. Scissor Sisters were excellent, really rather rocking. I took speed and reflected on what a good drug it is for guitar music - it gets you bouncing!

a thousand clouds of peace fence the sky, love; your being love will never end

Matt and I went to see this lovely Mexican film at the NFT. Its untranslated title: Mil nubes de paz cercan el cielo, amor, jamas acabaras de ser amor.

I really enjoyed it. It's a slow moving, dreamy, black and white story centered on Gerardo, a seventeen-year-old who has broken up with his lover Bruno and now wanders the streets of Mexico City seeking his proper place in the world through a string of unsatisfactory sexual encounters. The bright black and white cinematography transforms the squalid settings of the film - the empty alleys, parks and railway bridges that Gerardo restlessly cruises - into rapturous scenes of intense beauty. Each time he has sex, the other person usually offers him cash. At first he tries to refuse it, but he always accepts it in the end to try and prevent himself from being too hurt and not to expose himself as someone who had entered into the encounter with the hope for something more than just sex. The film is very melancholy and Gerardo is never able to escape his all-consuming pain. He dies at the end, apparently of a broken heart.