The once and future London

The new adaptation of A Christmas Carol is, simply put, astonishing.

Zemeckis has done his magic (again), picturing a London that never was, but lively exists in our minds. The ‘Victorian age’ of the movie is not the historic age we know, nor Dickens’, nor Wilkie Collins’. It is a Victorian London made of dreams and half-forgotten memories, made of images and imagination. It is a mythical London – and, exactly for this reason, it is a real London, as real as one can get.

This is the fascination of London: its (her?) imaginery, the mythic world created by writers, comic books artists, poets, filmmakers, game designers, tourists, photographer, copywriter. People.

There are two London. One is made of flesh and concrete, of steel and tarmac. It is a beautiful London, full of vibes and lives, but not as beautiful as the other one. This is the London of the mind, the London of the soul. A London in which the Victorian Age has never past, in which Jack the Ripper kills again and again, Sherlock Holmes has a real home in Baker Street, and in which steam computers are built underground by mad geniuses. Both the cities are full of secrets and joys, but only together they are Wonder. And yes, this city is able to keep together its two halves, its two dimensions.

Go see A Christmas Carol – and dream of a London that never was, but will always be.

Who am I

I am what I am, Popeye’s father used to say.

And that’s what I am.

If you really need other infos – well, I’m not English, I live somewhere in London, and I like to stroll around. The paths of the the city, the paths of the woods, the paths of the country, the paths of magic and life – I walk all of them, and from each I take some pleasure.

This blog is about spirits and imagination, about tarmac and steel. We’ll talk of glass, we’ll talk of ghosts, we’ll talk of hosts, we’ll talk of many worlds, and London among them.

The crossoroads are the places in which the veil between the worlds is thinnest. Everything is possible in them – you could meet the devil, and sell your soul for a song. Literally. But, well, if it was a great song, it could be worth. You could meet Legba, or you could meet Hermes. And you could meet, scariest of scarie-s, yourself. This is what crossroads are: places of danger and magic, and laughter, sometimes.

Legba is the god of the crossroads. I am, more simply, a spirit among others, lost in the crossroads of a city full of wonders, with a faulting grasp of the language and a passion for what the city shows, and what the city hides. This is my unordined, chaotic, unworthy guide. Nothing to sell your soul for. Just something to read. Nothing more, nothing less.

Welcome to my crossroad.