March 2007

Went to see our third film tonight at the French Film Festival: Lady Chatterley, a.k.a. Where They Fuck All Over the Forest and then Fall In Love. It won a slew of French César awards, including best film and best actress, and seeing as how I’m a fan of French films and moreover of Lady Chatterley’s Lover [one of the most tender and moving love stories ever written in my humble opinion] and also a sucker for costume dramas set in England, I figured it couldn’t miss.

It … turned … out … to … be … the … slowest … film … I … have … ever… seen. To wit:

LADY CHATTERLEY: [to lover] What … is … that … sound …?
[15 seconds pass]
LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER: It’s … the … pine … trees.

Despite all that, it was good. Well, apart from the ending. Unbeknownst to me, crafty old D.H. Lawrence actually wrote three versions of Lady Chatterley’s Lover [too much time on his hands if you ask me, plus some of us have trouble finishing even just one novel … but then he probably had nought else to do but sit around and write] and this was not the version of which I was so fond [i.e. the one with the happy ending] but the second version [with the could-have-gone-either-way ending] that I did not even know existed. Boo. Plus the fact that films are hardly ever as good as novels as we all know, and very important elements were left out. Like the dichotomy between the hard, cold intellectual view of the world [represented by Lord Chatterley, who is a cripple] and the soft, warm, tender and erotic sensation of the world [the Lady and the gamekeeper], which is pretty much the salvation of humankind according to the novel, and far be it from me to argue. That wasn’t really highlighted as well as it should have been because, you know, it’s important.

As a matter of fact, I’m kind of amazed that it won Best Film at the Césars, because while it was very artsy and slow and everything [3 hours!] it certainly didn’t measure up to the film we saw last week, Tell No One, which was superexcellent. But then, maybe that’s just because I hadn’t read the book.

TODAY IT WAS UTTERLY GORGEOUS
The sun was out, and there was just the slightest breeze. A slight nip in the air, but nothing to warrant a winter coat or anything. The sea was so amazing in colour – almost perfectly still and shimmering a light shiny silver blue. And next week is Easter! How the time flies. It’s a five-day holiday here in Niceland, and if you’re planning on being a tourist here at that time you have my full sympathy because you’ll probably be eating at the Falafel House every night. Temperatures currently 3°C [37 F] and the sun came up at 7.01 [sharp!] and set at 20.06.

Here in Niceland there’s a current affairs programme called Kastljós that is on after the news each day. It’s had its ups and downs, but with the current crew on board it is almost always excellent.

Not so long ago, they did a series of interviews with grown men who as children were placed in a home for ‘young delinquents’, in Breiðuvík on Iceland’s West Fjords. The ‘delinquent’ part was often questionable – in some cases it was just a matter of things at home being less than ideal: single mother, alcohol abuse, poverty, etc. The place was ghastly – completely out in the middle of nowhere, they were kept there as prisoners, their phone calls were listened to, letters read, they were locked up in a terrifying isolation chamber for minor offenses, and subjected to horrible abuse by the sadistic couple who ran the place, as well as by other staff members and/or older children.

When the first man spoke up, years later, his story seemed too outrageous to be believed. Then another came forth, then another and another, until there were so many of them that they had to be taken seriously. For days and days Kastljós ran interviews with individual men speaking about their devastating experiences. Each time I sat riveted in front of the TV, shocked into silence, amazed at the courage it took for these men to speak up. Not least because it was such an obvious ordeal – many of them broke down in front of the cameras.

Then last Sunday, Kastljós ran an interview with a woman – Linda Drake – who seven years ago wrote a book under a pseudonym about sexual abuse she’d had to endure as a child. It was the first book written in the first person to address the issue in such a forthright manner. The man who abused her was a police officer, and when she went to the station – along with her sister – to press charges, the officer on duty more or less refused to help them. It was a very moving interview, particularly because she has managed to turn her life around and is now unafraid to appear under her own name and speak about her experience. She has shed the shame that she had been made to carry.

Nonetheless, she described the overwhelming fear she felt when the book came out – because her family would know it was her, and people would see her, and know what had happened. She imagined that some sort of catastrophe would happen, the sky would come crashing down, something. But nothing happened. Except that she felt better. And she liked the fact that people could see her – see her – and know what had happened. She was freed from her fears.

In the comments to the last post, Gary wondered whether I was still finding it as difficult to post about the events in my past as I did initially. That made me think a bit, and I realised that I felt a lot like the woman on the programme – this feeling that something catastrophic would happen if I spoke the truth in a public forum [I had been speaking about these things for years, of course, just not publicly], that fire and brimstone would rain upon my head if I actually opened my mouth. But nothing happened. Except that a lot of people sent me messages of love and support, and validated my feelings, and said that they could identify, and that what I wrote had helped them. In short, I gained a lot – and lost nothing.

It’s crazy, this fear of speaking the truth. But logical. When you live for a long time in a dysfunctional system, where a lot of people have a vested interest in everyone conforming to the rules, the messages are incessant: keep your mouth shut and do not rock the boat. They may be overt or covert, and the people in the system sometimes don’t even know they in it, or that they’re perpetuating it, like the fish who don’t know they’re wet. And those who choose not to conform [because they can’t], who love that which Goethe calls the ‘one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans…’, and who decide to follow that truth, are often cast out, become the black sheep of the family, are dismissed. And sadly, they often get trampled underfoot. Because not everyone is tough enough to make it outside of the system. Particularly when they are children.

Anyway. Old news, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, or some variation thereof. What fascinates me now, though, is the seemingly newfound willingness of the black sheep and the underdogs to bare their souls, to come forward and speak out - en masse. And I am heartened – nay, thrilled – by the fact that these people are not condemned as they would once have been, but are listened to, believed, and even celebrated.

It may be too soon to hail this as the salvation of humankind, but positive change is definitely afoot: since the Breiðuvík revelations the Icelandic government has set up counselling centres for anyone who was placed in any of those horrid, heartless homes run by the state. I’m also sure Linda Drake feels like a winner, secure in the conviction that her story has helped others and may even help deter potential abusers, because if victims become accustomed to speaking up, the perpetrators will be the ones living in fear. Who knows, slowly but surely the crazy backwards dysfunctionality of the systems may be turning around.

AND AS FOR THE WEATHER
… it is also turning around. That horrid wind we had all last week has dissipated and now we have lovely, spring-like weather. Well, except for the snow we woke up to this morning. Pseudo-snow, really. It only stuck on the ground for an hour or two, and then the sun came out and reminded us that spring is just around the corner. Right now it’s 1°C [34F], sunrise was at 7.05 and sunset at 20.03.

Soon after my mother and I moved to Canada, she met a man. He was quite a bit older than she, was a professor at the Royal Military College, spoke with a British accent and was in the process of separating from his wife.

He’d come and spend nights at our place and he was always very nice. At least I thought so, but then again by that time I’d developed a rather distorted sense of judgement. He once brought me a pack of Wrigleys gum as a token of thanks for a meal I’d cobbled together [being of the age where I was learning to cook], and kissed the top of my head. Another time he drove me and my mother out to a shopping centre on the edge of town so I could get my ears pierced. I couldn’t believe his kindness. Having learned not to expect too much, I thought this was the best of all possible worlds.

Unfortunately, it was. That was pretty much the extent of his kindness. The moment my mother and he began living together, a toxic cloud somehow descended over everything and he became incredibly controlling and manipulating. I don’t even know exactly how it happened, I just suddenly found myself horribly self-conscious, second-guessing everything I did, and not wanting to go home. [Happily there was a shopping centre next door where I spent innumerable hours.] My mother’s new boyfriend watched my every move and his fault-finding was incessant: If my shoes were not lined up properly next to the door, if the closet in the hall was left open a touch, if my elbows were on the table, if I took too long in the bathroom, if I flossed my teeth anywhere near the kitchen table, if I messed up the tassels of a rug that had just been vacuumed, and on and on ad infinitum.

A year later he and my mother bought a house in the suburbs. At that his obsession with control reached new heights and his stinginess bloomed in all its dysfunctional glory. If there was a special on at the supermarket – say if Campbell’s tomato soup was reduced by 2 cents a can – he’d go out and buy three cases and stash them down in the basement. Soon the corner of the ‘recreation room’ – which was basically a storage area with bare stone walls and concrete floor – was filled with canned and dried items bought on special. When soap was on special he went out and bought loads of them, then brought them home and proceeded to unwrap and stash them under the sink so they would dry out and last longer. When I made tea with a teabag I had strict instructions to dry the teabag so that it could be used again. And under no circumstances was I to squeeze the dish soap out of the dishwashing sponge – it, too, could be used again. He was also enormously uptight about the telephone and how long phone calls lasted. Why? Because we had a party line. A party line meant that we shared our phone line with someone else, someone we didn’t know. When they were on, we couldn’t use the phone, and vice-versa. This reduced the phone bill by half.

His obsession with control was insane. In addition to the things I’d become accustomed to – lining up the shoes, not upsetting the tassels on the rug, etc. – the list of dos and don’ts grew ever-longer. When I was helping to put the groceries away I was not to leave the refrigerator open for more than a few seconds – instead everything was to be lined up on the counter next to the fridge first, then the fridge was to be opened and everything put inside quickly so as not to waste energy. The world was facing an energy crisis, didn’t I know? The same applied when using the oven – ideally things should saved up and baked at the same time so the oven only needed to be heated once. Eating between meals was not permitted. I had my own bathroom downstairs next to my room, and at the time I had thick hair down to my waist. There were strict instructions [via my mother] to always turn off the water in the shower when I was shampooing my hair and/or applying conditioner. We had to conserve water [energy crisis – didn’t I know?], so if I wanted to have a bath [which was frowned upon], under no circumstances was I to fill the tub – I was to use ten inches of water at the most, and in the winter I was to leave the bathwater in the tub until it cooled down so the heat didn’t go to waste. And because of the aforementioned energy crisis, under no circumstances was I to put the thermostat up past 60°F [15.5°C] during the day. When he and my mother came home from work, he himself ceremoneously turned the heat up to 65°F – and I can remember one Christmas when it was particularly cold that he agreed to turn it up to 70°F [21°C]. Unfortunately for me, however, my room was down in the basement and the basement was submerged and had virtually no insulation, whereas the thermostat was upstairs. This meant that when it was 65° up upstairs, it was around 50° in my room. I can remember going to sleep wearing my Icelandic sweater and socks over my pyjamas with my Icelandic duvet on top. It was that cold.

Looking back, writing it down, it seems absurd and kind of hilarious. But it sure didn’t feel that way at the time. I was literally petrified of that man. Maybe it had something to do with the swords he hung on the walls or the hunting rifles he had under the bed – or maybe it just had something to do with the toxic way he was able to shame and manipulate. I don’t know. I just know that he continued to exert his power and for years afterwards I felt like I had a harsh tyrant constantly watching me. I was particularly vulnerable to doors and windows that were uncovered, had a sense that someone was always looking in. I couldn’t shake it.

As I’ve written about before, the time came when he and my mother decided to move even further away. I have a theory that they needed to isolate themselves even more to be able to continue on in their insanity. To me, the thought of moving with them to an isolated farm in the country was unbearable. I didn’t go. I think it was the lesser of two evils for me – obviously I was still a child and in no way ready to start looking after myself. But man – what an immense relief it was to be away from them, even though I would still feel the effects for years to come.

I didn’t find the courage to oppose him until years later, when I was well into my twenties. I was living in Germany at the time but had returned to Canada for a visit and was at the farm. I was pregnant and it was the first time I’d seen him and my mother in five years. For three days before that I’d been at a cottage where there was no hot water and no shower; I was tired and cranky and desperate for a bath. My mother was on the phone, so I half-mimed, half-asked if I could take one, and she waved me into the bathroom. The moment I turned on the water, that same awful feeling came over me – I knew he was out there, counting the drops. Sure enough, within five minutes he was outside the door, talking to my half-sister in a loud voice about how it was incomprehensible to him why anyone needed so much water for a bath, and going on about how their well would run dry, and blah

I became furious. All the rage from long ago welled up in me and I thought my head would explode. I shouted through the door that I’d pay him for his fucking water if it was such a huge deal – and if so, I was damn well going to fill the tub [having been too afraid to fill it more than halfway, of course]. So I filled the tub and soaked [stewed!] in the bath for about half an hour, then dried off, dressed, went into his room where he was propped up in bed reading a book about the Royal Family, and threw five bucks on the bed. He shouted at me and I shouted back – I was shaking, trembling … it took all I had to stand up to him. The next day he woke up and – incredibly – pretended that nothing had happened. But I’d had enough. I cut my visit short, and left.

It’s amazing how some people can trap you in some kind of weird terror, like they cast a spell that completely drains your strength. Give you the feeling that you are worthless and insipid – and you buy into it. I’ve often asked myself why I gave this man so much power over me, even after he was gone, and why I didn’t stand up for myself when I was younger. But it was probably because I couldn’t. I was a child, dependent on him, with no support from my mother or anyone else, and made to feel grateful that he’d taken me in.

You know, I’m sometimes amazed that I’m not a drug addict, alcoholic, or chronically depressed. I really am.

Oh and it’s raining. Temps around 4°C. Back to the weather tomorrow.

So, we went to the French movie tonight that we meant to go to on Wednesday [see previous post] which turns out is called Tell No One in English and which was excellent. Excellent! It had it all – suspense, depth of feeling, humour, style, cleverness, superb acting and directing and production … one of the best films I’ve seen in a very long time. If you get a chance – see it! You won’t be sorry.

Afterwards EPI and I went to the store and bought some good food [lamb filets], then went home, opened a bottle of red wine and divided the tasks in the usual manner, i.e. EPI cooked while I provided the entertainment. And then we sat down to dinner and EPI told me stories.

I love it when EPI tells me stories because he makes this history of this country and its people come alive. He has such great stories of his forefathers – whereas my stories of my people are all rather depressing and gloomy, EPI’s people have this glow of heroic deeds and aura of success and adventure about them.

Tonight he was telling me about his grandfather, who grew up on Iceland’s East Fjords. His grandfather went to sea at the age of 12, rowing in an open boat out into the open sea to catch fish. Those ocean currents can be mean and strong and it takes tough men to navigate them. They’d go out there, absolutely exposed to the elements, with no compass or anything of that sort. There was always the risk that the dreaded East Fjords fog would creep in and obliterate everything and then they wouldn’t find their way back and would be lost. So they always made double sure they got into the mouth of the fjord before the fog rolled in. But even there they couldn’t necessarily see where they were going, and it was super risky because if the wind picked up and they lost control they’d be dashed up against the rocky shores and that would be it for them. So they learned to read the sea – they got to know the tides and currents intimately, and they navigated that way.

Like so many Icelandic men, EPI’s grandfather was complately absorbed by the sea. He loved the sea. Gradually he built up a successful fishing vessel operation in the town where he lived, and his business thrived. At the end of the news hour on the radio each day he’d listen to the catch figures – details of what the ships all around the country had landed. He’d sit engrossed, and say things like, “Did you hear? The Engey hauled in 300 tons of cod – 300 tons!” Fishing was the industry. Fishing was generous, and made this country rich. In Cod We Trust, and all that.

Anyway, EPI’s grandfather bought larger and larger ships, and the time came when laws were implemented and you had to have a licence to operate a vessel over a certain size. And EPI’s grandfather had never gone to school and couldn’t understand why his son, EPI’s father, wanted to an education – why didn’t he just take to the sea? That was where the fun was, where the excitement was. The licence thing was a bit of a nuisance so EPI’s grandfather did what lots of fishing vessel operators did at the time – hired captains with licences to sail aboard their ships, but with the provision that they, the owners, were actually the ones in control. After all, they had the experience, they knew where the fish was, they knew the tides. And in the end it was win-win for them both, each learned from the other.

I love those stories, stories of the rugged people who not only survived but thrived in this country on the edge of the inhabitable world. Say what you will about the Icelanders, they are a tough race of people, with formidable strength and initiative. They’re the original Nike people - if there’s a job to be done, the Icelanders just do it. It’s a pretty excellent quality in the people here – and it makes for an incredibly energetic society. After all, it completely boggles the mind what this nation of 306,000 people has been able to accomplish. Truly.

AND I BET LOTS IS DUE TO THE WEATHER
Because the weather here makes you tough. I’ll never forget when I moved to Canada as a child, and we weren’t let out during recess because it was raining. Raining. If I’d stayed inside in Iceland when it was raining I’d have never gone out. Hell, over here we don’t even use umbrellas. Not that it would have make much difference, the wind tears them to shreds. Anyway, these days it just keeps snowing and hailing, temps right now are 2°C and sunrise later today is at 7:19 am, sunset at 19:51 pm.

Last night, EPI and I decided to take in a movie. There’s a French film festival currently on [organized by the superactive Alliance Francais – props to them] and because EPI and I share an enthusiasm for French films we were both really looking forward to it. The film was called Ne Le Dis à Personne and was reported to be good.

So we head for Háskólabíó, buy our tickets, and get some popcorn. Were slightly disappointed to find that the film had been relegated to the smallest theatre, down in the basement next to the toilets, with those horribly uncomfortable seats that have absolutely no springs left in the cushions. I kind of expected we’d be alone in the theatre, but no it was packed with high school kids. Not that we minded – they all seemed to be in good spirits and during the previews only two cellphones rang and nobody had their feet up on the seats near us and there was no screaming or throwing of popcorn or anything.

So anyway, the previews start, hum-de-hum-de-hum, and we’re already halfway through our popcorn, and finally – finally – the movie gets underway. And within two minutes it becomes obvious that this is the wrong movie. So I look at EPI and EPI looks at me and we just kind of shake our heads, you know, because this is only the third frigging time this happens to us in the last few weeks. [Casino Royale started out as Home for the Holidays and it took them half a frigging hour to correct their mistake, and when we went to see Little Children we were instructed to leave the theatre after the previews because – oops! – they’d screwed up and Little Children was actually showing in another auditorium but unfortunately it was already well into the movie and they couldn’t rewind and, well, hard luck, eh? Tja.]

Incidentally, have I mentioned that it is virtually impossible to go to the movies here in Iceland without some sort of stupid annoyance like this? If it’s not the wrong movie, it’s that the subtitles are missing, or they belong to another movie, or they’re not in sync [try watching a movie where the subtitles are always thirty seconds ahead of the action], or they forget to turn the lights out, or there are black blobs all over the screen, or they clip the movie right when it ends without letting you watch any of the credits, or if all of this is OK you can be sure that either a) somebody squeezes into the seat beside you and proceeds to eat a huge order hamburger and fries with the accompanying deep-fry smell and rustling of bags etc. or b) there’s no paper in the ladies’.

So anyway, we both just shrugged and figured we wouldn’t have to do any of the complaining this time around because this was clearly a class outing for the high school kids who were probably supposed to do an assignment and they’d be quick to ring the alarm. Which is precisely what happened. So while the teachers, students, et. al. hung around upstairs trying to sort out the issue with the teenaged cinema staff, EPI and I finished our popcorn and proceeded to watch the movie they had put on, which actually started to look rather promising. And which in fact turned out to be excellent, Paris je t’aime, a series of five-minute vignettes, blog posts on film if you will, by a bunch of famous and not-so famous directors who give their take on love in Paris. I can highly recommend it. And we got comps to the other film as well. Score!

THE WEATHER HAS BEEN ANNOYING AS HELL
Last night we had one of these kinds of incidents, only much much worse. [You can watch it here if you want.] The embankment down by the shore was actually severed so the waves crashed on land, sending huge rocks and sea gunk flying and flooding the nearby road. Serious stuff. We’ve had one low-pressure area after another come through, meaning it’s been frightful stormy, then a few hours of semi-calm, and then stormy again. Thankfully temps have risen a little bit so we don’t have that killer windchill now, but it sure is blowing out there now with buckets of rain coming down. And running is no fun in this weather. Currently 7°C [45F] and sunrise was at 7:23 am sunset at 19:48.

One more thing: Before I quit tonight I must pass on this link to you: Knut’s blog [via Timbo]. Proceed with caution, though, you may just find yourself overwhelmed by the cuteness. PS make sure you watch the video.

Here in Iceland, when someone dies, certain rituals take place [as I’ve explained before]. One of those is the open casket ceremony, usually held a couple of days before the funeral. This is a small and intimate event, reserved for the immediate family and close friends of the deceased. The mourners gather in a small chapel, the minister says a few words, then invites people to come up, one by one, to say goodbye.

I am very partial to the open casket ceremony. It can be very harsh to see your loved one lying there in the casket [they look so very different when only the shell is left], and yet it allows you to release the most intense grief in a setting that feels enclosed and safe. It takes the edge off. You are then able to take part in the larger funeral ceremony, which is open to anyone, with more composure.

Several years ago, my grandparents, who I was very close to as a child, died within five weeks of each other. My grandfather died first. At the time I was living abroad, a single mother with an 18-month old child, very little money, and no support system. For that reason, I decided not to travel to Iceland for the funeral. Five weeks later, however, when my grandmother died, I knew I had to go. Scraping together the few resources that I had, I made the journey. Hers was the first open casket ceremony I had been to.

Ever since then, whenever I dream about my grandparents [occasionally now, more frequently at first], my grandfather is always alive, while my grandmother is dead. She may be in the dream, but she is either very vague, or I know that she’s really dead. In my dreams I sometimes speak to my grandfather, but never to my grandmother, even though in reality, when they were alive, I was much closer to her. I know that this is because I was there for her open casket ceremony and funeral, and not his. Consequently my subconscious has fully grasped that she is gone, while it is still not sure about him.

Last night, I had a dream about my mother. I was at the house where my grandparents lived and I walked over to the next apartment. There was my mother, alive, more alive than I had seen her in years. She was wearing an apron and cooking, and she was happy. She welcomed me in and continued with her tasks, energetically, like I often remember her. I was confused. The dream was so real, so vibrant, that I really believed that she was still alive. Yet I knew she was dead. I went into the living room and found my aunt and my half-sister sitting on the sofa. Quietly, because I didn’t want my mother to hear, I asked them if she was still alive. But they shook their heads, said ‘No, she’s dead.’ Then my half-sister turned to my aunt and said, ‘She’s got a lot of grief still to go through,’ – meaning me, speaking as though I were not present in the room.

I left, and went back into my grandparents’ flat. There, sitting at a table in the living room, were my grandfather and a woman – he was vibrantly alive, she was vague, like a ghost. I sat down at the table and wept. My grandfather was initially surprised – but then he understood.

When my mother died, her remains were cremated two days after her death. Three days after that, a memorial took place. Nobody thought to contact me to see if I wanted to attend, or to ask if they should hold off for a couple of days so I could get there. As though I wasn’t my mother’s daughter. As though I wasn’t present in the room.

I would have liked to have said goodbye, would have liked to have seen her one last time. It would have made it easier. I would have liked it had my half-sister called me to tell me that our mother had been taken ill. Had she called me from the hospital that last afternoon, I might have been able to say goodbye, even by phone. But she didn’t.

Today, all things considered, I’m relieved I didn’t travel to Canada for the memorial. Had I done so, I would have learned of my dismissal surrounded by people who were steeped in dysfunction. Whereas this way, I was surrounded by people who loved me. And that’s a million times better.

WEATHER
Very miserable today. Extremely windy – cold at first, then turning to sleet and rain, with severe gusts. Roads out in the country were closed off, rescue squads had their work cut out for them. No serious accidents, though, thankfully. By dinnertime it had all blown over and right now it’s calm and 3°C. Sunrise was at 7.30 and sunset at 19.42.

It’s been pretty windy and miserable these last few days. This photo was taken a few days ago out at the golf course where I like to imbibe my daily dose of fresh air … you can’t really tell, but it was so windy that in some gusts I had a hard time keeping my feet planted on the ground. Was hoping to get a shot of the imposing waves that came crashing in, but with the combination of wind and sun in this particular direction, it took all I had just to get the camera out, point, and shoot blindly. Which is why I did not get imposing waves, but rather imposing sky.

Meanwhile, yesterday was terrible - one of those few days a year where you’re better off hibernating under the duvet with a hot water bottle and a book. The wind was intense, blowing cold arctic air from the north, and killer windchill. Today we had similar temps, but with a little less wind, and once again I found myself strolling the perimiter of the golf course with iPod and camera. Mt. Esja looked amazing in the distance, all dressed in winter garb. In fact, this is about as white as it’s been all winter.

Meanwhile, YT is in the midst of a vertíð - an Icelandic word literally meaning ‘fishing season’ but actually meaning ‘a period where fish is in abundance and you slave away because if you don’t get the fish gutted and processed and salted NOW it will go bad and you’ll lose a lot of money’. In later years the term has been extended to include other sectors, like for example the freelance writing, translating and copyediting sector, of which our YT is a member. In other words, this is the time of year when all the corporations have to get their annual reports out [in English], when the tourist industry needs to get its promo material out, when the publishing industry needs to get its tourist books out, when museums need to renew their exhibitions, when the universities need to get their prospectuses out, and so on and so forth. Temperatures right now are -3°C [27F] and feel like -3°C. Sunrise today was at 7.33 and sunset at 19.39.

[PS Apologies to the Bloglines people for the endless tweaks - Blogger just would not give me that space between the title and the photo!]

I have to say that I was both shocked and alarmed to open the paper today and read that a young woman had been raped in a downstairs toilet at Hótel Saga just after midnight on Friday night [i.e. early Saturday morning]. That just happened to be where AAH was at exactly the same time, enjoying the árshátíð put on by her employer [a popular fast-food chain].

The suspect got away, but staff at the hotel managed to give a good description to police.

Alarmingly, this is not at all an isolated incident. Reports of sexual assaults have skyrocketed over the past couple of years. Women have repeatedly been assaulted and raped in Reykjavík while walking alone late at night. And these reports of rapes in the toilets of bars and discotheques are frightfully, frightfully common. Even during school dances. And in most cases the assailants are unknown to the victims.

It didn’t used to be this way. Reykjavík used to be incredibly safe. I can’t be bothered to frequent the nightlife any more, but when I did, I never thought twice about walking home alone in the middle of the night. It didn’t even occur to me to be afraid. In just a few years, this culture of fear has descended upon us - I absolutely forbid AAH to walk alone at night, even before midnight, and now she also has strict instructions never to go to the toilet by herself if she’s out somewhere.

What happened? I suppose part of it is the pornographization of Western culture. Not to come across as a moral dictator or prude [I’m neither] but I think the extent to which pornography and pornographic images have infiltrated our collective unconscious, all in the name of sexual liberty, is highly alarming. I’m sure I don’t need to cite the usual examples: music videos, Internet porn, etc. The point is that for the younger generation sex has ceased to be something awesome and sacred, and has become a commodity. They’re totally desensitized to the images on MTV for instance. And each time the threshold is lowered I fear we will see more sexual violence.

A couple of weeks ago, a furor erupted here in Iceland over this magazine cover. Actually, it’s not even a magazine, but rather a catalogue released by Penis Mall to advertise confirmation gifts. As some of you may remember, confirmations are a huge deal here in Iceland, a commercial bulldozing on the scale of Christmas, which is currently in full swing. Anyway, the magazine cover features a young confirmation girl [14 years old] with makeup on, in what some would say is a rather suggestive physical position for a 14-year old on the cover of a magazine, featuring high heels and an open mouth. A certain [female] university professor found fault with the cover on her blog, citing a pornographic undertone that was completely inappropriate in this context. What resulted was absolute public hysteria - not against the cover, but against the professor. She was practically tarred and feathered, accused of having a perverted sensibility, and subjected to something akin to a witch hunt, to the point where she saw reason to remove the offensive blog post and to virtually go undercover, refusing to speak to the papers. For merely giving her views on the subject, her reputation was completely slaughtered in the media and online.

I find this both totally bizarre, and incredibly interesting. First, in looking at the magazine cover, I totally get what the professor is saying. There is something very odd and very suggestive about that image. I don’t believe the stylist or photographer had anything perverted in mind when conceiving the shoot, I simply think this is what happens when the images of pornography that are all around us all the time infiltrate the psyche to such an extent that they become commonplace and ‘normal’. What I find particularly interesting, though, was the reaction from the public and the media. The public outrage against the poor woman - who was merely stating her opinion - indicates to me that she hit a pretty sensitive nerve. Otherwise people would have just laughed, shook their heads, and moved on.

Personally I believe that the frightening numbers of sexual assaults are directly linked to the above trend. Not consciously, but subconsciously - which is even more dangerous. I think the witch hunt that occurred here in the wake of the professor’s criticism is highly alarming - because as long as there is passive acceptance and silence, there is enabling and perpetuating of the trend. Freedom of speech needs to be permitted and hysteria has to be recognized as a symptom of something deeper. While it won’t cure the problem, it is at least a nod towards a healthier society.

WEATHER
I haven’t been out yet but I know it’s freezing out there. It’s sunny and beautiful but frigid with strong winds from the north. Yahoo weather says it’s -4°C and feels like -12°C and about to I’m go out for a run in it. Yes, I am probably certifiably insane. Or addicted to endorphins. Or both. Sunrise 07.37, sunset 19.36.

You know, not to bang on about this or anything, but my porno dog-seeking friend from Turkey just does not give up. Every day, several times a day, he logs on looking for ‘porno dog’, and each time he lands here.

Apparently he’s got a lot of kindred spirits out there. In the last hour alone, in addition to the persistent Turk, there has been one from Romania and one from Bulgaria. Earlier there was one from Italy [’porno doog’], from Paris [’porno dogg’], and one from Belarus [who at least managed to spell correctly].

God. There sure are a lot of sickos out there. Still, I suppose things could be worse. I could be Heather Armstrong.

AND HERE I AM TRYING TO RUN A WEATHER REPORT
It’s still snowing on and off. Wet, slushy snow. Awful earlier when I went for my run, got pelleted in the face with hail and rain so that the expression of utter misery froze right on my face like a mask. Right now 2°C [36F] and I should be in bed but am waiting for little miss AAH to get home from an árshátíð [yet another - this time courtesy of her employer]. It’s her first vaguely ‘adult’ event. Although not ‘adult’ in the p.d. sense you understand. [Sheesh! Can you even believe I wrote that? They’re getting inside my head I tell you, GAH!] Sunrise today at 7:44 and sunset at 19.30.