Practically each capital in the world has its own easily recognizable places, yet some of these inevitably seem to be more familiar to people than others. One of these is, or at least I would say it is, Carnaby Street in London. Rings a bell? I bet it does. Carnaby Street, just as the district within which it is located, Soho (yup, that’s the one, you got it right!), is as popular a destination as, say, the Statue of Liberty in New York. Or actually, thinking about it, even more, as there truly isn’t much to be done on that small island apart from taking pictures (no doubt, a perfectly decent and delightful occupation) in the first place, and then obviously telling people that hey, you couldn’t miss it after all, could you?
In this respect Carnaby Street is, you’ll agree with me if you’ve been to both places, very different. There is simply an awful lot to be done here. No wonder if, among London’s many shopping destinations, this is a favourite one, especially because it is, since 1973, completely pedestrian: and that means a lot, in big cities like London.
One of the reasons why Carnaby Street won’t sound that new at all – apart from what, I believe, will count as a rather limited amount of cases – is most probably the fact that there are quite a few songs in which it has a role, not to mention the times it has appeared in films, music videos or TV series.
Last but not least, every year Christmas lights here constitute quite an attraction for many. I can think of a single word to describe them, and that word is actually “overrated”, yet every year I feel like I have to go and have a look at them. Why I don’t know! What I do know is that they’re always quite a surprise.
At any rate if you happen to be in London – be it at Advent or any other time of the year – I’d definitely say that popping by old Carnaby is certainly something worth doing. You’ll tell me if I was wrong.

Text by Laura ”Croft” Vivio

It’s half three in the afternoon, and the night is falling already. There are lights everywhere, sparkling in the dark like little angels, blue, white, red, shiny dancing stars. It’s Christmas time, and most people feel happier for no apparent reason. Yet I can understand why they do, in fact I do feel happier, too. It’s the joy of the families coming together, of friends who will see each other again maybe after a long time, or simply who will get a chance of spending together a little longer than in everyday life.
At Christmas every place gets a little magical, but in London this is even more so. Every neighborhood, every corner of the city is transformed almost in a new world, and walking around here is like finding oneself somewhere between a dream and a fairy tale, somewhere just a tiny bit different from those because perhaps of all the people populating it, or indeed the intense traffic that in a place like this hardly ever stops.
This just above is Covent Garden. This year everything’s gone quite big here, opulent, maybe to express the hope that this time of crisis is actually not as bad as we are told it is.
At any rate, what I see when I wander around this district, or elsewhere in the West End, but almost in any other part of London really, is the happiness of giving on people’s faces in this special atmosphere: they’re looking for presents to give to their dear ones and, as they walk, listening to the many choirs which you’ll see singing carols and collecting money for charity every half a mile.
Of course you might argue that Christmas is just some other form of business after all. And it’s hard to deny that that is quite true, at least to a certain extent. But how could one condemn all the smiling faces it brings us, children or elderly, all the warm hearts, the hope, the cheer?
I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m ready to do that. I love Christmas. And I do love Advent time and its own special magic; over here, in London, I do even more.

Tetxts by Laura ”Croft” Vivio

How many times does one fully realize the real value of things before those things have actually gone? How often do we grasp the beauty of those little moments, moments we’d think of absolutely no importance, before they stop belonging to the present and become part of the past instead?

Surely this sounds like nothing new to most of us, but somehow the need of putting it down in words, yet once again, is strong: it’s what we’ve lost forever that we’ll miss the most, or at least what we know will never come back to us, not in the way it used to be.

This is, I believe, some sort of universal knowledge that we all share, only one that is hidden within our heart somewhere, in the deep, and that won’t come out until its power is no longer able to change anything. That is, until when it’s too late for it to serve any purpose whatsoever.
Let me explain myself.

We find ourselves waiting for all sorts of things, hoping that our current circumstances will change in some way or another. What we want can be anything: more money, a new house, a new playstation, a new pair of shoes, a new partner… Or a different life.
We pray to God, oh please God, give me what I’m asking you, I know I’ll be happy then, I know that’s really all I need to reach pure bliss for the rest of my days.

But then it’s only when it’s too late that we realize that what we wanted to make us truly happy was in fact already there. When we lose the person who was there to support us in our research for the perfect partner, or listened to us when we talked about what we desired. When we were working hard to earn the money we needed for our new car, then we were happy, not now that the car’s been needing a good washing for months. It is when the day we were so much waiting for has come to an end, in fact has perhaps already become yesterday, when what is left of it is nothing but the pale, blurred souvenir of that excitement, that trembling with the emotions of the expectations which preceded that supposedly special day.

It’s been Christmas day today, and this is now coming to an end. The night has fallen, and all the magic the air was so full of in the last three weeks or so seems to have disappeared, exploded and left, never to return.
So what was the beauty of Christmas, this very day in which we’ve eaten too much and got a bit bored (to be quite honest with you)? Or rather the sequence of little moments of waiting, filled with hope and enthusiasm, by which we’ve looked forward to Christmas with dreaming hearts and minds?

I’ll leave the answer to you. I think I know what mine looks like.

texts by Laura ”Croft” Vivio

There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave,
There are souls that are pure and true,
Then give the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you.
Give love, and love to your life will flow,
A strength in your utmost need,
Have faith, and a score of hearts will show

Their faith in your word and deed.
Give truth, and your gift will be paid in kind;
And honor will honor meet;
And a smile that is sweet will surely find
A smile that is just as sweet.

Give pity and sorrow to those who mourn,
You will gather in flowers again
The scattered seeds from your thoughts outborne
Though the sowing seemed but vain.

For life is the mirror of king and slave,
‘Tis just what we are and do;

Then give to the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you.

- Madeline Bridges -

American poet (1844 – 1920)

from therealmikegriffin.com

in this photo: Matthias Church

“The Halászbástya or Fisherman’s Bastion is a terrace in neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style situated on the Buda bank of the Danube, on the Castle hill in Budapest, around Matthias Church. It was designed and built between 1895 and 1902 on the plans of Frigyes Schulek. Between 1947–48, the son of Frigyes Schulek, János Schulek, conducted the other restoration project after its near destruction during World War II.” (from wikipedia)
He stopped reading from his guide (well, technically MY guide), looked up at me with his loving black eyes, and then turned them, in careful examination, towards all he’d just read about.

The view from up there in Buda was something more than just beautiful. It had a living presence that is simply too hard to describe. The Danube flowing calmly below, Pest shining all over in its vibrant little lights, and then the bridges, stretching from one side of the river to the other, making out of those two separate lands a single, unified, stunning place: the Hungarian capital, in all its grace.

I remember having lost myself for a moment in all that.

He was looking that way, too, far into the distance, and the night.

I turned around, slowly, and as I did, I was almost struck by something even more breath taking than what I had been glazing at until then.

It was that incredible view, gem-set between the elements of the Halászbástya, now reflected on that high glass building on the other end of the terrace I had hardly noticed as we’d arrived. I couldn’t help but stare at that reflection, I don’t know why, I just know I did and certainly for more than I’d have possibly imagined I could do.
But soon enough, or late perhaps, or who knows about it, actually?, there was something new that captured my attention among all the things I was seeing reflected there.

It was him. He was looking at me with his smiling eyes, fitting perfectly in that mirror, given me the image of all those wonderful things. I saw him opening his arms, ready to give me, I could sense it, all the love he had.

My eyes smiled back to his and, before I knew it, we were holding each other tight, tight, tight, from up there in Buda, where we’d been so happy together and where just as happy we would have always been.

 

Text by Laura ”Croft” Vivio

Can you stop, can you stop dancing? Do you think you ever could?
Can you stay still when you’re body tells ”do the opposite?”
Can you hear that music and not respond to it, pretend it means nothing, it’s doing nothing to you?

That’s right. You can’t. You never could, you never will.

Music: Music is what makes me the person I am. It is what makes me happy, what makes me sad, what makes me move, and gives me wings to fly up there.

Some people are different from what I am. They are just so different.

How many have i seen in a concert, or a club, or anywhere else where one could feel the music beat from miles away, and than stay still, yes, oh yes. That’s what I said: STILL. Still like rocks, like those mountains over there, not the slightest bit of their body making a single movement, no matter how small.

Me? Oh no, I am just NOT like that. If they’re the mountains, then I’m the sky. I cannot stop. I’m in constant movement. Music is my life, or my lifeblood, or both, music is my lady, my muse, my goddess, and I’m her handmaid. She takes me everywhere she wants.

I can never say no to Music.
I never could.
And I never will.

 

Texts by Laura ”Croft” Vivio

Music can tell a story

I hear the music
Music is love
Music is life
Music can tell a story

Music cheers
But also brings memories
What’s so special about music?
When I listen to music it takes me’
to another world.

Music is my passion
Music soothes the soul
Music can take away the pain
Our life is music.

Music inspires me
The music flows through me
Do you hear it?
The beats of music.

Come dance with me tonight.

Maria Luisa Taylor

He pushed – and then he pushed again -
And when he could no longer push he pushed some more.
He had it all for a moment,
But the moment didn’t last,
And was just the transition before the balls began to fall.

Juggling his life, desperate for success,
Karate-man had the glamour,
The car,
The bird,
The big house,
Money,
Affairs,
Status.

His health went first -
Kidneys, I believe -
But who cares?

It made no difference:
It all began to crumble away.

Built on fast talk and illusions,
In a pseudo-world of deals and regulations,
He played the game like it was a game to be played,
Divorced from reality.
The pornography of business-speak seduced him:
He didn’t realise it was just that,
Fantastical delusion.

When he went down he fought like he thought all good businessmen should,
High drama, an exploding ‘engine’, a big crash -
Last I heard of him he was in a nursing home,
Body smashed.

But who knows?
You can’t live your life from the outside, like the world says you should -
You live it from the inside, and the reality you create reflects YOU!

Actually, that’s what he did.

verse of the poem ”As I walked home”
by Richard MacWilliam