HANOI TRAIN STREET

HANOI TRAIN STREET

Sep 21, 2024 | JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG, WORLD, JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG, WORLD

Hanoi Train Street is something I discovered thanks to the TV showBeijing Express.

Unfortunately, I only ‘travel’ through others, thanks to the stories and images shared in several ways.

For this reason: images, I like Beijing Express.

Since it is broadcast on pay TV I have to wait for the free version, so only a week ago I happened to see Fru sitting at a table in a bar in Hanoi Vietnam for a coffee.

What could possibly be strange about that? It is true that I here celebrate the coffees of all those who give me the privilege of sharing, but why am I talking about a coffee seen on TV? 

This indeed wasn’t a coffee of the ones I like to call ‘calm.’

Train Street … the name leaves no mystery, but did you know that train tracks literally pass along a street in Hanoi just a short distance from buildings?

Hanoi Train Street

It was a discovery for me and so I couldn’t help but try to find out more.

The railway in Hanoi was built by the French in the early 1900s and buildings sprang up later in time.

In the second decade of the 2000s the narrow space between the tracks and the houses, also considering that the speed of the trains doesn’t particularly decrease as they pass through, became a tourist attraction growing to the point of being extremely dangerous.

The mania or perhaps we should say the urge to take pictures feverishly seizes many people and the Instagram wild created a risky as well as uncontrolled crowd.

This is why the authorities in 2022 closed access to tourists.

But you know: business is business.

Once upon a time, they used to say: ‘once the law is made, there’s always a loophole’ … so the buildings have been transformed into cafes that can safely accommodate visitors, with timetables and rules to follow.

So after telling you about The Happiness Trains we are now chatting about the Trains how? You tell me.

aTUTTOCUORE

aTUTTOCUORE

Jan 27, 2024 | MUSIC, MUSIC

aTUTTOCUORE with all my heart I would like to thank my brother and sister-in-law because after Twelve Notes again this year my birthday present was a wonderful experience.

A musical experience but also a visual and sensorial one, because at every concert Claudio Baglioni manages to amaze with different versions while remaining true to himself.

After the debut in Pesaro, the indoor version of aTUTTOCUORE started at the Mediolanum Forum in MILAN on 20, 21 and 22 January and will continue on 5 and 6 February.

A show that you shouldn’t miss.

aTUTTOCUORE opens with E tu come stai? And it is just as if Claudio wanted to pick up the thread of the conversation with his fans: like a long public dialogue but at the same time intimate because of the way he gives himself.

This is followed by Dagli il via… and of course ‘the start’ is only the beginning of a long sequence of surprises.

Then Acqua dalla luna … hurry audience … you will see …

you will see the wonder created by the perfect combination of costumes by and choreography by Veronica Peparini directed by Giuliano Peparini.

I will continue with the set list:
Con tutto l’amore che posso and Quante volte featured by Claudio Baglioni’s funny dance moves and by the powerful peculiarity of this show: the images on the maxi-screens blending with the play of light and the evolutions of all the artists up and down the stairs of the stage set create an enthralling three-dimensionality. 

Then Un po di piu’
Gli anni più belli
Domani mai
Quanto ti voglio
Fammi andar via
Niente più
E adesso la pubblicità
A tutto cuore.

Claudio puts his heart into everything, in the sense of energy, in the sense of wanting to make music at its best, using his heart which, as he said in an interview, can also be considered a percussion instrument, as well as the calendar that marks our time.

And more: Mal d’amore
W l’Inghilterra
Sono io
Cuore D’Aliante
Uomo di varie età
Le ragazze dell’est
Uomini persi
Noi no
Amori in corso
Un nuovo giorno un giorno nuovo
Con voi

and with us Claudio sang illuminating the audience with multidirectional and totally inclusive beams of light.

Unmissable Questo piccolo grande amore
Dodici note
Io sono qui
Amore bello
Solo
Sabato pomeriggio
Porta portese in a current version enriched with a riot of cheerful playfulness.

Avrai
Io me ne andrei
That masterpiece of Mille giorni di me e di te
My favourite for ‘the hair-raising coffee Via

E tu
Strada facendo
La vita è adesso
and concluding with the music of Poster.

At that point, instead of going far away, you just want to stay so as not to interrupt the magic, but on the screen the faces of the countless musicians, choristers, dancers, artists and performers scroll by.

One above all is the dancer Antonio Ciarciello, chosen after an epic casting, given the number of candidates, who all the time dances as a sort of alter ego.

What do you say? The set list is quite long, yet there are always a few songs missing from the poems in music that Claudio has written.

As many as there are songs, as many are the jackets that Claudio Baglioni has worn: a different one for each song, without ever a moment’s interruption, in a constant succession.

Also incessant is the kaleidoscope of images, futuristic and current, as well as evocative and suggestive by light designer Ivan Pierri. 

Paolo Gianolio, who has collaborated uninterruptedly with Claudio Baglioni since the 1985 album La vita è adesso.

Many years have passed since then, and yet … La vita è adesso: life is now … is it?

Which is your favourite?

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