September 2006

So, as I keep banging on about, tonight’s the night when all the streetlights in Reykjavík and beyond will be turned off for half an hour to allow us to enjoy that commodity so precious in our light-saturated cities: darkness.*

All the communities in the southern Faxaflói bay area, including Keflavík/Reykjanesbær, the Greater Reykjavík Area, and Akranes, will participate. It will be lights out from 10 to 10.30 and people are being urged to turn off their lights at home as well. Traffic lights will not be affected [thankfully!] and yes, police will be stepping up law enforcement to some degree.

This brilliant idea came from the organizers of the Reykjavík International Film Festival which kicks off today. In their words, ‘the greatest movie screen of all is the sky’ and they’re out to prove it. We were hoping for clear skies and - in the best of all possible worlds - northern lights, but alas it looks as though that will not come to pass. Still - they said the weather was going to be misearable and rainy and whathaveyou, and right now at 3 pm it’s really quite pleasant - just a bit of wind, no rain, and even blue patches in the [mostly cloudy] sky.

Personally I’m superexcited about the idea and can’t wait. Read a blog post earlier by someone who bah-humbugs the whole thing and says she’s going to turn up her house lights as bright as possible tonight because she can’t see why they have to turn off a whole city when you can get the same effect by driving 15 minutes out. Not the point! For me the point is precisely being able to stay in the city and to see it in a different light - darkness. With the stars up above.

Temps 14°C. Sunrise 07.27, sunset 19.08. And a new season of The Sopranos starts on telly tonight.

*Although you might ask why Iceland, with its imminent onset of SAD, might go to such lengths to actually add to the dark, and you would have a valid point. Probably we’re all masochists.

[PS. Although this is a fairly upbeat post, this is a sad day for Iceland. This morning they started filling the Hálsalón reservoir that will fill up to feed the Kárahnjúkavirkjun dam, thereby submerging 57 square kilometers of land. Waterfalls will shut down, one after the other, and beautiful landscapes, including wildlife habitat, will be lost. Insanity.

UPDATE: clearly not everyone is aware of the controversy surrounding the Alcoa/dam project - I did a post here and there’s a fairly good Time Magazine article here.]

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything from my favourite cartoonist [from Blaðið] but here’s one that’s kinda good.

A couple of days ago it was announced that the government parties have reached a consensus to reduce food prices by lowering sales tax on food. [Yes you read that right - we actually have sales tax on food here. Civilized? Discuss.] Soon we’ll only have to pay four percent sales tax, instead of the 14 percent we’re forced to pay now. Also, there are endless talks on whether we should have trade tariffs on foreign agricultural products to help protect domestic agriculture. So here we have the Minister of Agriculture reading while the Prime Minister looks on.

The caption reads:

Minister of Agriculture:

“We recommend that all food with stupid foreign names like carpaccio, gorgonzola, zucchini and guacamole be banned because it’s so frigging expensive.”

Check the pitchfork the PM is holding - not forgetting he’s just cut an absurd deal with the Americans regarding the base - see previous post.

WEATHER!
It was one of those gorgeous sunny pink-sky silver-ocean days. Went out for a walk around the golf course and spotted four seals lying on rocks, basking in the sunshine. It’s set to get windy now, though, and start to rain and be generally miserable tomorrow, which is a Bad Thing because tomorrow is when the lights are being turned out in entire Greater Reykjavík Area to enable us to see the stars. Which will be behind clouds. Boo. Sunrise at 07.24 and sunset at 19.12. Temps 12°C.

Fréttablaðið on Saturday had a rather mammoth headline on its front cover:

AAH’s orthodontist, a.k.a. Dr. Frankenstein, has me performing a gruesome task at the moment: prying apart her palate twice a day with a metal screw he’s attached to the roof of her mouth.

Frankenstein has determined that AAH’s palate is too narrow to accomodate her teeth [‘dental crowding’ they call it; hence the requirement for his services] and he will probably have to pull a couple before he attaches the braces to her upper teeth [he’s already put them on the lower teeth]. However, before he does that he wishes to widen her palate with a something called a ‘rapid palate expander’ or ‘hyrax’. Because the segments of the skull are not quite coagulated this will widen her palate and allow all her teeth to be lined up all in a pretty row.

In other words, what Dr. Frankenstein is doing is prying apart AAH’s skull to expand it so that it forms a gap that will gradually fill up with bone [we hope]. My job is to stick a ‘key’ type of thing in her ‘hyrax’ every morning and every night, and turn it to facilitate the prying process. Yech!

The thought of it gives me the heebie-jeebies, expecially when AAH tells me how she can feel it running right up her face to her forehead, and when I see there’s already a small gap between her front teeth. I just hope Frankenstein knows what he’s doing. I’ve done some reading online and the overwhelming majority of articles are very clinical and report no side effects except for ‘positive’ ones like improved breathing, etc. However, there was one I saw tonight that went on about potential neurological damage, and while it doesn’t seem particularly credible it still gave me a heavy sinking feeling and had me kicking myself internally for not having gotten a second opinion [or three]. But because Frankenstein is the leading orthodontist in the country and dismissively assured us that he’d done loads of these kinds of operations in the past and all was perfectly fine, I swallowed his reasoning whole. However, I’m resolved to get on the blower tomorrow and make some calls to see what I can find out. Until then, I guess I’ll be turning the screw.

IT’S BEEN A BEAUTIFUL WEEKEND…
Primarily because there has been hardly any wind, and as you will know if you’ve been hanging around the IWR for a while, the weather is always beautiful in Iceland when there’s no wind. Current temps 11°C and sunrise was at 07.16 and sunset at 19.22.

As every blogger knows, Site Meter can come up with some priceless Google searches. Today, amongst the ubiquitous ‘iceland weather’ and ‘magni supernova’, SM delivered up a handful of gems that somehow landed on the Iceland Weather Report page:

hardcore sex uterus close up picture free

… Come again?? - Or on second thought, no. Nononono.

iceland woman no teeth

… Dang! How did you find me?

woman who have had their panties stolen

… Probably our panty thief, trying to remember where he went last.

what they eat in iceland

… Um, could it be:

brains for dinner

… Er, no…

icelandic sheep’s tongue cooking

… Yup, that’s more like it. But not quite.

weather report toy

… Oh sure. Dream on, sucker!

Meanwhile, the best piece of advice I was offered today came from my pal Greavsie. The next time I have a difficult decision to make, all I need to do is ask myself:

“What would Magni do?”

I’m saved! We all are!!

FOR INSTANCE, WHAT WOULD MAGNI DO ABOUT THE WEATHER?
Surely he would have left it as it was today. It was a gurrrgeous day, bright and sunny, even if there was a little hint of chill in the air. The light is so amazing when the sun starts to sink a little lower in the sky, not to mention when it gets a bit colder - clear and translucent. Difficult to describe how the light of the north differs from that of more southern regions, it’s truly something you have to experience. Right now the temperature is 8°C and sunrise was at 07.07, sunset at 19.33.

There are so many jobs available here in Iceland right now it’s ridiculous. According to official figures, 4000 people are needed to fill current vacancies. Everywhere you go – the local bakery, video store, supermarket… there are job advertisements in the window. Bónus has promised a … um, bonus of ISK 50,000 [USD 715 / GBP 380] to any staff member who is able to recruit new workers, and the same goes for various places like nursing homes etc. that are really having trouble employing people. The other day I went to Hagkaup to buy a grilled chicken and there weren’t any. When I asked a floor worker if they were all out, I got a long loonnnng lecture about how understaffed they were and they hadn’t been able to grill any chickens because every person there had to do work equivalent to three people and the store manager had to work the cash and they just hadn’t had the damn time! I actually started walking backwards about 3 or 4 minutes into the lecture and the woman was still talking by the time I made it to the door. Gah!

Then the other day I managed to catch the mailman [actually mail woman] just as she was sticking the mail in our slot – I’d been waiting for an opportune moment to ask the person delivering our mail if he/she could actually read, because for the duration of the summer I’ve been getting letters addressed to my neighbour and she’s been getting mine and we’re forever sorting out each other’s mail from our own. At first I blithely thought, oh dear, the mail carrier has been a little careless today and shall be forgiven because my neighbour and I have the same first name and everything, but as it turned out it wasn’t an isolated incident and this was soon happening every damn day. I finally started getting a little sick of it when mail addressed to my neighbour’s husband started appearing in my mailbox, f’rcryingoutloud!

So anyway, I happened to be going in just as the mail woman arrived and I thought I’d just sort of casually mention this. Imagine my surprise when I was met with a blank stare, after which the mail carrier responded in English. And broken English, at that. Turns out the mail carrier is one of the myriad workers imported to save our asses in these times of economic prosperity, who can’t even tell the difference between Alda Kalda and Alda Someone-Else or Alda Someone-Elses’ Husband.

So it’s going to the dogs, I tell you. Never mind that I currently have more work pouring in than I can handle and was offered a high-paying job a couple of weeks ago that I had the luxury of actually refusing on the grounds that ‘it wasn’t right for me’. The thing is, I’m pretty sure this is directly caused by the economic boom resulting from our current government’s evil pact with Alcoa and all the money that’s being pumped into the country as a result. It will all be over soon but in the meantime we’ve got rising inflation and mail carriers that can’t sort mail and no grilled chickens. To the dogs, I say!

MAGNI UPDATE:
Magni was in a Kastljós interview on Sunday evening. Magni was in a Skjár 1 interview the next day. Magni was a guest on one of the radio programs this morning. Magni was spotted in the Penis Mall cinema catching a preview of the latest Borat flick. Magni will be playing a gig with fellow supernovarockstar Dilana and his old band here in Iceland in a couple of weeks. Magni, consequently, hasn’t been doing much sleeping like he said he would.

WEATHER UPDATE:
Pretty damn fine today. Went for a run along the seashore at lunchtime and was greeted by a jovial fellow in a suit who struck up a conversation [clearly he did not know that you do not strike up conversations with people who are running, but was forgiven because he seemed so happy]. ‘Beautiful day!’ he said, ‘But would probably be better for you if there was a bit of a breeze.’ I assured him that nonononono, breeze is not good for people in Iceland who are running and anyway, there is no such thing as no breeze along the seashore in the west end of Reykjavík. Still, there was only minimal breeze at noon today and that incredible crystalline light that had a hint of melancholy fall in it. Later it started raining and for a while there it was coming straight down, the sort of soft rain you get in other countries but hardly ever in Reykjavík where it tends to be horizontal. It’s getting dark early now, and around 6 pm it was sailing into evening already. Temps are currently a mere 8°C and sunrise was at 07.04 and sunset at 19.40.

Once upon a time, artists and musicians of international renown were an absolute rarity in Iceland. If someone famous deigned to visit our fair country and – wonders! – even played a concert or held an exhibition, the entire nation was profoundly humbled and filled with gratitude. Then came Björk and all that changed. The Elfin One toured the world and did what the Iceland Tourist Board had not managed through decades of funding – put Iceland on the map. [Never mind the fact that everyone believed this country was filled with Eskimos who talked to elves, danced around with spastic movements, picked their noses and spoke English with a cockney accent.]

So now we have international movie stars and pop icons and famous artists coming out of our ears. Hardly a month goes by when there isn’t somebody-or-other famous here, either visiting or doing whatever they’re famous for doing or, as in the case of Quentin Tarantino, getting loaded. Personally, I tend to give most such events a miss unless I really want to see the person, partly on financial grounds [tickets tend to be pricey] and partly because it just verges on overkill.

However. Last night there was an event that I would not have missed for the world. Artist: Pina Bausch. Company: Tanztheater Wuppertal. Title: Água. For those that don’t know, Pina Bausch is the undisputed empress of the art form known as Dance Theatre, which as the title suggests is a cross between modern dance and theatre. Her performances are pretty hard to describe – let’s just say they’re an absolute feast for the senses: beautiful, spectacular and a wonder to behold! All sorts of scenarios take place, almost like little skits that are isolated in time and place, meaning they don’t necessarily make up a whole, except on an abstract level. Some people read all sorts of things into them – political, etc. – but I don’t think that’s the intention. I think the idea is for you to suspend your thinking and just allow yourself to be swept away in a magical, surreal, enchanting world.

And oh how delightful if you manage it! The pieces are so visually stunning – the set, costumes, movements, lighting, and how Bausch plays with the whole. The dancers themselves are in a league of their own – they’re mature dancers, from all ethnic backgrounds, and actually have to be quite proficient in drama and bring a lot of expression to the stage. In Água, the women were dressed in stunning ball gowns and high heels almost for the duration of the piece, which lasts three hours with an intermission – although occasionally they removed the shoes if they had to do some serious dancing. On the set behind them, which was made up of three white panels, was a video broadcast of the most gorgeous scenes – palm leaves moving the breeze, the camera moving slowly through a forest, flying above a rainforest, flocks of birds flying, exotic animals. These were larger than life, so often the dancers in front looked like tiny pawns in comparison.

I could probably go on and on trying to describe what the experience was like, but I have to confess my words hardly do it justice. This was the second time I’d seen a Pina Bausch performance live – the first was in Wuppertal in Germany back in 1989, where the company is based [although they’re on tour for most of the year so they’re hardly ever there]. At the time I was not yet fluent in German so I could barely understand any spoken text; however that didn’t stop me from being blown away.

Then, as now, I found that the hour and a half before the intermission passed fairly slowly, while the hour after the intermission absolutely flew by. Last night it dawned on me why this was. It’s because it took me an hour and a half to shut off my mind. For that first while I kept frantically trying to understand or attach meaning or find some sense in the performance. It wasn’t until in the second half that I was finally attuned enough to that magical world that I was able to relax into it… and, as before, I emerged from the theatre in a virtual trance, absolutely enchanted.

It was so good, in fact, that I’m most surprised the Minister for Foreign Affairs didn’t show up to give them a book.

OUR WEATHER TODAY IS…
Overcast, with the odd drop of rain. Breezes from the northeast, currently 14°C and the sun came up at 07.01 and will set at 19.40. Day getting shorter and shorter!

How’s this for a cool idea: The organizers of the Reykjavík Film Festival [the second film festival to open in the capital this month] have convinced Reykjavík authorities to turn off all city lights for half an hour on September 28 - the opening day of the festival. The reason? So that city residents can behold “the biggest movie screen of them all - the sky”. Personally I’m superexcited about the idea. Hopefully we’ll get the sort of celestial view you normally get only out in the boondocks. And also - if someone could make arrangements with the Powers That Be for us to have Northern Lights that night, that would be awesome.

SPEAKING OF FILMS
I saw not one but two films starring Penelope Cruz this weekend. Now, I happen to think old Penelope did herself a massive disservice by allowing herself to be seduced by a) Hollywood b) Tom Cruise, because for a while there she just brought on the gag reflex on account of overexposure. At the time I almost forgot that when she’s not doing sappy Hollywood fare in broken English she’s a really good actress - especially if she’s in something by Pedro Almodovar.

Film one: Don’t Move. There our Pen played a displaced and sad girl who is raped by a successful doctor, who comes back to apologize and gradually falls in love with her. Heavy drama I know, but it completely had me in its grip after the first few minutes. By no means was it perfect, but I was totally drawn in and by the end was a blubbering mess, I kid you not. Totally devastated.

Film two: Volver. I made good on my vow to see some more of the Iceland Film Festival and Almodovar was at the top of my list because he’s one of my favourite filmmakers in the Whole Wide World. Not only are his films a wonder to behold stylistically, he always has these intricate plots that meander all over the place until the end when he manages to somehow magically draw all the threads together. And I am consistently amazed by his ability to get inside the female psyche. No other male artist I have ever known - except maybe DH Lawrence - can portray women with such exquisite finesse. Not quite as good as All About My Mother, and falls just short of Hable con Ella, but nonetheless wonderful.

AND WHAT DO THE SKIES OFFER TODAY?
Um. Rain. Drizzle. Overcast, all day long. Breezy, too, but mild. EPI and I went for a bracing stroll around the golf course on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula and guess what we saw? A seal, who stuck its head out of the water and observed us for ages. They’re so funny - when you look at them straight on they look just like a dog’s head, which is probably why they’re called Seehunde in German - sea dogs. Temps right now 13°C and sunrise was at 06.55, sunset at 19.47.

PS. So our Magni came home today and sure nuff it was the godawful Minister for Foreign Affairs [who used to be Minister of Commerce and Industry and was instrumental in selling out our beautiful unspoiled nature to evil corporate entity Alcoa, boo hiss]… who came out to greet him and sure nuff they gave him a book. Er, can we have a wee bit of imagination, please, when it comes to the gifts? Please? First Miss World and then Magni - and both of them get a book and what’s more, the same damn book. Gah!

So here I was all ready to drop the Magnisupernovarockstar thing but dang! there’s just too much to tell. I mean, rockstarsupernova was adequate blog fodder and all, but believe me: now is when all the dirt is being dished. It’s only been two days but already any media worth its salt has published/broadcast a Magni interview in which he holds forth at length about what really went down in the Supernova mansion. Yowsa!

So at the risk of alienating my loyal readers who come here to read about waterfalls and glaciers and immortal plumbers and such, I’ve decided to run with the Magnisupernovarockstar thing a little longer - so please don’t leave forever, this madness will end soon!

KASTLJÓS DOES LA
Props to Kastljós, who flew the lovely Ragnhildur Steinunn out to LA with a big fuzzy microphone to sweet-talk her way backstage and give us ‘normal’ interviews with the rockstarsupernova crowd, i.e. contestants and band members. To wit:

Ragnhildur Steinunn to Tommy Lee: So do you think you will come to Iceland and play for us there?
TL: I hope so. I fucking hope so. I want to. We all want to.
RS: Do you know where it is?
TL: … Is it close to… wait. Is it close to… wait. I’m trying to picture the map. There’s Russia… Iceland… Finland… am I … am I close?

Full segment here.

MORGUNBLADID PUMPS MAGNI
So Iceland’s most ‘respectable’ daily got hold of our Magni and got him to dish about the experience. It’s a pretty interesting interview, particularly where he talks about how devastating the isolation was at the mansion. Apparently each of the contestants had their own personal psychologist but people were still losing it, particularly towards the end. The bit where Dilana freaks out and breaks the glass that cuts Magni’s head open wasn’t the worst of it, according to our man. Loads of stuff went down that wasn’t made public. As to how he kept his sanity: “By looking at and observing everybody else’s mood swings. I just focused on everybody elses’ problems. Josh was losing it at one point. I just thought about him, and not me. It totally worked.” Evidently Magni was the ‘father’ of the house - not hard to understand why. He also got the name ‘The Human Jukebox’ because he could play every song there was.

FRÉTTABLADID MAKES A MEAL
Meanwhile, Fréttablaðið got even more nitty-gritty:

• Magni’s most likely going on tour with the Supernova house band in January.
• Magni’s most likely going to play a gig with his old band Á móti sól at the end of the month.
• Magni’s old employers don’t want him to come back to work for ‘lousy pay’ - for the last seven years he’s worked in a plexiglass factory to supplement his income while making music.
• The only people who were ‘unattached’ in the Supernova mansion were Toby and Dana and the rest of them were always trying to get those two together but evidently without success. Apart from that, there was no hanky-panky. [shucks!]
• Josh was Magni’s best friend in the mansion. After he left, Dilana and Toby were his best friends. “It took two to fill the void because Josh was so much fun.”
• The plan isfor the house band to play a concert in Iceland in December, and Toby, Dilana and Storm want to come along. The house band, according to Magni, was the genuine article, “Probably the best band in the world. The drummer is amazing and one of the best people I’ve ever met.”
• Magni wouldn’t have minded winning, but was truly glad that Lukas won because he needed it more than Magni. - Come again? “Yes, because I have a perfect life. And now I’ll just go back to living my perfect life. But Lukas doesn’t really have anyone to go back to.” Except the warm embrace of the Supernova family. Aw.

Anyway, that’s enough for one evening. Sunday at 4 pm there’s going to be a reception in Penis Mall where some bands will warm up the crowd and finally old Magni will get up with Á móti sól and play a few songs. If only they could do away with the godawful Cabinet Minister thing [apparently the Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs are both candidates to ‘officially greet’ Magni - CRINGE! - and if it must be one of the two, please let it be the PM, I’ll say no more] and just let him do his songs so he can go home and schmoozle with his girlfriend and hug his son - I mean, really. Hasn’t the guy suffered enough?

And finally, as to whether the experience has changed him: “Completely. I know I still love my girlfriend and my son, but apart from that I don’t have anything in common with the man I was before.” So there you have it.

AND OUR MAGNI-FICENT WEATHER?
Rained like gangbusters this morning, then we had showers, then the sun came out and it was lovely and mild - then we had showers again. Temps currently 10°C and sunrise was at 06.50, sunset at 19.54.