I watched the much-acclaimed Brazillian film City Of God last night, and was mightily impressed. It’s the story of rival gangs in the slums of Rio De Janeiro in the 1970s and the divergent paths of two boys, one of whom grows up to be a drug lord and the other an aspiring photojournalist. It’s marvelously shot and has a real kinetic energy running throughout it while maintaining a very human dimension. The violence is plentiful and graphic, but never gratiutous or glorified – it’s portrayed very matter-of-factly as if to say, “this is the reality, nothing more or less”. Particularly effective was the closing scene, which was simultaneously hopeful and hopeless. It’s an intense film and worth seeing if you’re in the mood for such a thing.

Curious as to the universality of classic rock, The Guardian sent a 17-year old correspondant to a series of concerts by artists he’d never heard of – dudes like Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney and The Who, among others. The results will shock and amaze you. Well, not really, but they’re interesting and well-written. From The GPC.

Califone got all their gear ripped off in San Francisco this week. If you’re in the Bay Area, keep an eye out for their stuff – Largehearted Boy has a complete list of the goods.

Wilco didn’t waste any time filling in some of the holes on their tour calendar left by Lollapalooza. August 6, the day they were supposed to be kicking out the jams in Toronto, they will instead be in… Maine. MAINE. Sigh. There’s always the Fall, I suppose, though the word is they’re planning on playing larger venues on that tour than they ever have before. Last year they played the Kool Haus, which is 2000 people, so the next logical step would be someplace like Massey Hall, which has a capacity of about 2700 and would sound great. The next illogical step would be someplace awful like the Hershey Centre or Arrow Hall in Mississauga which hold 6000-9000 people, and I don’t think they’re nearly that big – or at least I hope they’re not.

Initial impressions of A Ghost Is Born – while I like to love pretty much all the songs on the record, I’m not sure that it’s come together as an album for me yet. Maybe it’s because I’d heard the material as individual live tracks for so long that I can’t yet consider them in the context of an album, or maybe there’s something about the pacing or the sequencing is still keeping it from fully revealing itself to me, but I’m sure it will eventually. And aren’t records that require some effort the ones that we end up loving the most in the long run?

So I’m spending most of today not only outside of the 416, but the 905 as well – that’s right, I’m going to be out in the wilds of the 519! If I don’t post by noon tomorrow, send out a search party. While our five-year university reunion earlier this month held no appeal for myself or my collegiate friends, we did decide to get together for a barbeque back in Waterloo to quietly mark the occasion. Five years out of school. Egads – people have started and completed entire undergraduate degrees in the time I’ve been out of school, how scary is that? Not as scary as the fact that every one of the attendees to today’s get-together will be doing so as part of a married couple, and all but one are bringing their children. These were my classmates and in several instances, my housemates for Pete’s sake. I can’t believe I’m going to be feeling at least a little self-conscious about showing up single and childless. They’re bringing their babies and I’m bringing a two-litre bottle of Coke.

np – Emmylou Harris / Stumble Into Grace

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