I know I said last week I’d try to recommend some form of Christmas song this week - but I couldn’t manage somehow. This a Christmas song in any literal sense, but American Pie feels perfectly suited to this week’s mood: expansive, reflective, and quietly elegiac. Don McLean’s eight-plus-minute folk-rock epic was first released in 1971 and almost immediately became more than a hit single; it became a cultural touchstone. On the surface it takes its title from an emblem of American comfort - apple pie - and opens with McLean’s recollection of the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, an event he later described as “the day the music died.

Beneath the imagery, the song is a rolling meditation on loss and change, charting the shift from the post-war optimism of the 1950s into the tumult of the 1960s, touching on shifts in music, culture and collective mood along the way. McLean himself has been reticent to pin down any single interpretation, describing the lyrics as “poetry. Taken together, the result is a song about the passage of time and the nostalgia that attends it - an appropriate companion to these final weeks of the year when the year past and the one ahead feel equally visible.

This is the week where we are quietly hoping that lightness outweighs darkness, so it feels appropriate that Vienna has added a new line of light to its skyline. Between the two towers of the Votivkirche now hangs Unendlichkeit des Lichtes by Billi Thanner, a 28 meter wide infinity symbol in aluminium fitted with around 4,900 warm white LEDs. It was first illuminated on 16 December and is scheduled to stay until 1 August 2026, which in city terms is practically forever. Thanner describes the piece as “not primarily an invitation to look, but a reminder of the light that connects us,” and has said simply, “light is life… at some point came the impulse to make infinity visible in light, not abstract, but real in the urban space.”

The figure eight shape nods to the eight minutes sunlight needs to reach the Earth, translated here into a horizontal loop that links two neo gothic towers and a lot of passing glances. Officially it is a work about continuity, connection and balance; unofficially it is also a small urban service, making one of Vienna’s most photographed churches look slightly more awake in winter. It fits the dispatch’s current preoccupation with lightness quite neatly. You can treat it as high concept light art, as a mildly eccentric Christmas upgrade, or simply as something pleasant to register on your way past Schottentor. All three readings are allowed, which is part of the point.

If this week’s theme of seeking lightness without pushing yourself into perpetual motion resonates, there is perhaps no better seasonal cinematic prescription than Love Actually - and you can see it on a proper big screen. On Tuesday, 23 December at 20:00, Votiv Kino will screen Richard Curtis’s 2003 ensemble piece in the original English with German subtitles, as part of its annual festive programme.

The film’s persistent cultural place - Heathrow embraces, earnest declarations, tangled romances - fits this week’s mood of wanting warmth. It is not a flawless masterpiece, but it has become a kind of communal seasonal hum: familiar, soft-edged, and reassuring. For a moment between market crowds and last-minute errands, stepping into a darkened theatre where laughter and sighs are already in the room feels like a small inhale before the year’s exhale. Tickets for seasonal screenings tend to move quickly, so if you feel like letting a familiar story do some of the emotional work for you, this Tuesday is a good night to do it.

When: Tue 23st of December, 20:00
Where: Votiv Kino, Währinger Straße 12, 1090 Wien, Austria

We visited Jürgen Koch in his 6th district studio this week, though our story with him technically began earlier - back at Zum Dritten Mann Wirtshaus, where he happened to be guest chef the same weekend we were hatching the Schödl × Simon Kubik wine label. Only later did we connect the dots: the chef in the kitchen was also MAFIA TABAK, the painter whose work you may have already noticed: semi-abstract, cartoon-adjacent, ironic, emotional, and always slightly off in a way that feels perfectly right.

In the full piece we talk about Eisenerz beginnings, snowboarding years, graffiti and its global community, how the studio work went international, why Vienna is still home base, why cooking became a second creative track, and what comes next: travel, a possible stint “down under,” and a mountain hut that sounds equal parts shelter, kitchen, studio and art project. We also got to watch him paint - which is a whole story in itself.

If you want the full conversation, backstory, humour, philosophy, and the mountain plan, you can read the full article below

Sometimes it is important to cleanse the palate and go back to basics in the world of specialty coffee. Schönbergers does exactly that. Housed in a listed former Naber espresso bar in Wieden, it keeps the 1950s shell and quietly upgrades everything inside. Owner Patrick Schönberger took over in 2015 with a simple conviction that life is too short for bad coffee and has since turned the place into a small, serious hub for people who care about what is in the cup without needing a lecture to go with it.

The bar runs on a broad selection of Italian, Austrian and European micro roasters, and the real magic happens when you go in to buy beans. You are not just handed a bag. You are asked how you drink your coffee, what you like, how you brew at home. It feels closer to a sommelier conversation than a quick retail transaction, only with less performance and more competence. In a city full of clever coffee concepts, Schönbergers is a reminder that “basic” can be a compliment when the fundamentals are this well handled.

If you have not yet wandered into J. & L. Lobmeyr, consider it a civic responsibility to correct that. Founded in 1823 and still family-run, Lobmeyr sits on Kärntner Straße as if time politely stopped for it. It has supplied the Habsburg court, collaborated with Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte, and lit opera houses, palaces and theatres around the world. The chandeliers alone justify the visit: precise, architectural, sometimes extravagant, sometimes almost weightless, each one designed less as decoration and more as a way of organising how light behaves in a room.

The glassware has the same discipline. Ultra-thin tumblers that look like they might vanish if you breathe too hard, hand-cut crystal that manages to be ornate without slipping into nostalgia, and contemporary designs that feel surprisingly calm next to the heritage. It all orbits the same idea: light needs good company. Lobmeyr has spent two centuries studying how it refracts, softens, sharpens and returns, which places it firmly inside this week’s theme of lightness. You do not have to buy anything. Step off the busy street, walk into a room designed entirely around light, and let the craftsmanship quietly adjust your mood. Sometimes lightness is architectural. Here, it is also crystal.

J. & L. Lobmeyr, Kärntner Straße 26, 1010 Vienna, Mon–Fri 10:00–18:30, Sat 10:00–18:00

What if a bottle of wine could make peace with your own mistakes. Well, we have 200 of them. Idiot is a limited cuvée from natural winemaker Viktoria Schödl and artist Simon Kubik, born from two slightly unlikely Burgenland dinners and finished at Creators Thursday Vol. IV. The wine itself is a quiet overachiever, 90% Grüner Veltliner and 10% Welschriesling from calcareous clay soils, hand harvested in mid September 2023, whole cluster pressed and left to ferment spontaneously in large oak. On the label, Simon’s text turns “idiot” into something closer to a gentle command to improve, a reminder that being wrong is not a tragedy but a starting point.

Only 200 bottles exist, all of them carrying that work on the outside and the cuvée on the inside. It was poured first at the launch and has now moved online. This is a limited edition available directly via the Schödl website and unlikely to stay there for long. In case you missed yesterday’s article about the full story behind the collaboration, you can read it here.

In this special December edition of “sweat” crushes that are actually realistic, we arrive at the most honest option yet: no sweating, no plunging, no performance - just lying down and letting someone else deal with the consequences of the year. Aisawan Spa Boutique in the 1st district is ideal for this. Tucked just behind Stephansdom on Grünangergasse, the spa inhabits a vaulted cellar space designed to invite calm the moment you step inside. Open daily from 11:00 to 21:00 (including holidays), it offers a broad range of treatments from classic massages and Thai aromatherapy to Balinese techniques, hot lava stone work, and even hammam water therapies, all delivered by experienced therapists who know exactly where December tends to cling.

Aisawan’s concept is nothing if not deliberate: light, warmth, fragrance, water and touch combine into an atmosphere that helps pressure slip off rather than build up.

An hour here feels like pressing pause on the year just before it ends. You arrive tense and convinced you are still extremely busy; you leave a little taller, mildly dazed, and aware that you are perhaps not holding the city together by your shoulders alone. In a week when we are hoping lightness outweighs darkness, this counts as a perfectly acceptable shortcut.

Book here

Literature

This is not a Christmas book in any formal sense, nor does it share the same religious framework, but it fits this particular week rather well. The Light That Shines Through Infinity gathers talks by Zen teacher Dainin Katagiri on what he calls the “energy of life” a continuous current that runs through everything. It sits comfortably beside the season’s language of light, renewal and togetherness without demanding belief. Katagiri writes about how we move through the world: “Meditation lets us witness the stories we tell ourselves… then we calmly step aside from it. When you step aside and let go of your story, you create a space.” It is a book to read in short intervals rather than in one sweep, which suits a week where days are already full of other narratives.

That makes it a companion for a wide range of December realities. Although Christmas is traditionally a Christian holiday, in many places it has grown into a broader seasonal frame for light, a time to rest and reflect on the previous year and the year ahead and to be with loved ones. Not everyone will be celebrating, of course; some meet it as a cultural ritual rather than a religious one, others come from different faiths, and many simply move through the week in their own way, including those far from family or carrying fresh or older losses. Katagiri’s suggestion that “so let go of your strong attachment to your individual self enough to see how your own life is supported by others’ lives” feels particularly relevant when the calendar presents a single story the reality of the week does not always match. Christmas already asks questions about warmth, generosity and connection; this book keeps the door open for all versions of the week, offering a way to sit with whatever is present without forcing cheer, and without looking away.

That is all for this week. May your hearts stay open, the next few days feel bright, and lightness find its way in.

See you next Sunday,
R

Ruby Arabella Wallen tracks the city’s pulse, observes its culture and characters, and works with a small circle of her personal muses to create you a weekly Sunday Dispatch - your blueprint to the week ahead in Vienna.