Last five days in Reykjavík until August! That means:
Etc. etc. etc.
This seems as good an excuse as any to revisit this, which sounds/looks a lot like I feel right now:
Photo via the Kaffismiðjan Facebook page.
Quentin Bates, author of the Iceland-set crime novels starring officer Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, wrote a fun article called “Black fuel” for internationalcrimeauthors.com which I enjoyed and thought I’d share with all of you, not least for the useful slang that it has to offer. Here’s a taste:
There’s a black fluid that keeps the Nordic countries functioning. I don’t mean the stuff that’s pumped out of the depths of the North Sea by bearded roustabouts, but that other black liquid that’s the staple cliché of every Nordic crime drama.
Wallander more or less set the pace, functioning on a diet of coffee and not much else. But it’s not a cliché. Life in the Nordic countries really is lubricated by the ubiquitous oils and essences of the coffee bean and Iceland is no exception.
…
It was easy then. Coffee was made with hot water and a filter, or occasionally with a machine that fizzed and steamed until it produced a jug of black stuff that went into a thermos to be dipped into at intervals. Everyone drank coffee and anyone who didn’t was generally deemed to be slightly odd. Tea was an aberration, something that old ladies might sip, although the strongest, thickest coffee I have ever been served, guaranteed to keep you awake for the best part of a week, is made by a lady now close to her hundredth birthday who has undoubtedly never let a drop of tea pass her lips.
But then, in the years after I left Iceland, things started to change. Icelanders became coffee connoisseurs. Now there are coffee bars everywhere serving mochas, lattes, cappuchinos and a whole bunch of other oddities that have passed me by. It’s all a little 101.
Read the rest (and get your vocab lesson) here.
Please stop making us all look like morons.
American tourists had to be rescued from an ice floe that broke off of the edge of the glacier Vatnajökull while they were having a picnic. Photo via RÚV, news via pretty much every news organization and blogger in Iceland right now.
Cartoon of Eyþór Ingi, via Reykjavík Grapevine
Today’s Vísir has a front page video interview with Eyþór Ingi, who seems like a really charming fellow. In the interview—which I got the gist of, but not well enough to really break down for you—he says that he’s very satisfied with his Eurovision experience, and well he should be, really. It was a strong performance and the first time that Iceland sang in Icelandic in 16 years (fun fact: the last time they did was in 1997, the last year that countries were obligated to sing in their native languages, and the competitor was Páll Óskar). They placed 17 in the competition (no thanks to Denmark, I might add, who seems to have missed the ‘neighbors support neighbors’ memo and traded Iceland a lousy one point for the maximum 12 that we gave to them…you can see that I did actually get into this…). Anyway, Eyþór Ingi says that 17 is a good position, that he sang a good song, and most sweetly, that now, after all the time he’s spent on this that, “Ég á frí, ég á frí,” or, “I am free, I am free!”
If you still need some Eurovision closure, or would like some more background on the contest, the context for it here in Iceland, or this year’s competitor, see here:
Eurovision Turns Icelanders Into Monsters(Interview with Eyþór Ingi)
Me: Do you enjoy Eurovision? My landlord: No. But it is a kind of duty.
Ingimar Oddsson. Photo courtesy of the author.
One of the really nice aspects of my time in Iceland thus far has been the opportunity to write freelance articles for The Reykjavík Grapevine. I’ve never considered myself a journalist, and never thought that I would be writing for a paper professionally, even though I’ve really enjoyed contributing book reviews and short culture pieces to various websites now and again. But as well as forcing me to really learn how to write on deadlines and produce new kinds of pieces (such as interviews), writing for the Grapevine has also been a really great opportunity for me to meet all sorts of interesting people who I would have not otherwise had the chance to meet.
One such person is Ingimar Oddsson, the author/musician/artist who created the fictional world of Bildalia, and recently self-published The Bildalian Chronicles about his experiences in this magical village on the edge of the Westfjords.
Here’s an excerpt of the profile I wrote of Ingimar, which you can read in full on the Grapevine website here:
Verisimilitude is key to Ingimar’s project: Bildalia has its own currency (called hlunkar, meaning “fat,” with one hlunkar being roughly equivalent to 10 ISK), its own newspaper (The Bildalian Post), crest, and even its own king (Peter) and royal heir (Lady Gu›run Louisa Ernst). Moreover, Ingimar himself is the story’s central character, a role that he finds easy to integrate into his daily life.
“The character is not that exaggerated from myself, so I don’t have to act a lot. I have been on stage several times and that is a harder thing—you have to put yourself into a different character,” he says. But when Ingimar puts on his “costume,” he’s not just doing so for the sake of his fictional alter ego. He’s just getting dressed for the day.
“When I discovered steam-punk, I thought: ‘so this is what I’m called—so there is a name for me.’ Twenty years ago, I had long hair and a long tail jacket and I walked about in a cloak. This is like coming home.”
Also, if you get interested, you can purchase e-book copies of Ingimar’s book (in English) here.
Although Mark and I definitely watched the first semi-final of this year’s Eurovision contest in Malmö with enthusiasm and fascination, I didn’t post about it because I am just not yet equipped to parse this amazing and amazingly complicated European institution for my American compatriots just yet. But I will be attending a Eurovision Partý tonight (for Iceland’s performance) and on Saturday for the final, so perhaps after this immersive experience I will be better equipped to tell you all about next year’s competition in vivid detail.
In the meantime, I suggest those among you who take enjoyment from unabashed, earnest nationalism, the poppiest of pop music, amazing costuming, circus-like staging, and incredible back-up dancers (and drummers) to check out tonight’s live streaming broadcast of the second semi-final (in which Iceland will perform), here.
In case you want to know more about Iceland’s competitor this year, you can read the Grapevine cover story and comprehensive Eurovision guide. And, for context, I will pass along a sentiment that has been shared with me now multiple times by Icelanders regarding the country’s Eurovision chances and this year’s competition. In the words of one man:
We always think we are going to win. Every year…
But not this year.
(The yearly optimism does seem to be borne out, if this article is any proof.)
Only time will tell…
Exterior of deCODE Genetics, via mbl.is
You probably remember the anti-incest app that was garnering so much attention a few weeks ago–I briefly posted about it here, and then there were a ka-zill-ion more articles and news items of varying substance, humor, and factuality, posted all over the interweb about it. But the thing is, it’s not really an anti-incest app. Or at the very least, that’s not the whole story.
I had been planning to write a short article for The Reykjavík Grapevine about the student competition that deCODE Genetics was co-sponsoring with the University of Iceland to design an app for the Íslendingabók website. And then this incest app thing gained traction and suddenly, my little piece on student engineers and genealogy and quirky app designs grew in scope. I started by interviewing the three student engineers who designed the winning app (they work under the company name Sad Engineers, which I just love), and then also had a number of email exchanges with the students who designed the second place app as well. I spoke to one of the competition organizers at the university and thought that my piece was done, until I discovered that the people at deCODE knew I was writing a piece and wanted to contribute their own thoughts. Which I certainly had not been expecting.
By the time everything was said and done, I was invited to visit deCODE in person, have a quick tour, get a demonstration from one the main Íslendingabók website/program designers, and have a one-on-one meeting with Kári Stefansson…which is not something I would have ever dreamed that I’d be doing when I came to Iceland.
(If you are not familiar with who Kári Stefansson is, let me clarify that this is (super intimidating and) a Big Deal: see here, here, here…)
Let me state for the record that I am not remotely qualified to have a conversation about genetics with a world-famous neurologist and entrepreneur and that this whole experience was, metaphorically, characterized by me doggy paddling in the rapids. But I’m told that freelance journalism is often about learning to think quickly and trying to write successful articles about topics in which you may definitely do not have a previous expertise. I think I managed this time, but wow.
Now, without further ado, the article itself, which is published in the current issue of The Reykjavík Grapevine. Here’s the beginning, to get you started:
What do any two random Icelanders have in common, genetically? If this sounds like the beginning of a bad knock-knock joke (or Jimmy Kimmel sketch), that’s probably because by now you’ve read at least some of the pun-heavy headlines popping up everywhere from Bloomberg Businessweek and NBC to the BBC, The Huffington Post and The Independent. A quick sampling if you haven’t: “App Aims to Keep Cousins from Kissing,” or “Icelanders Avoid Inbreeding Through Online Database.”
So then let’s get this out of the way early: two random Icelanders have about as much in common as second cousins, once removed, according to Dr. Kári Stefansson, CEO and co-founder of deCODE Genetics. That might sound like a lot, but accounting for the vast possibilities for genetic recombination in each generation, it really isn’t. Breaking it down in very, very simple terms—call it ‘genetics for literature students in five minutes’— Kári says, two Icelanders share a lot of DNA, but only in tiny bits and pieces.
If it seems strange that one of the world’s more prominent neurologists would be taking the time to parse basic genetics for a freelance journalist with a high school level understanding of DNA, then well, you can see just how far the joke has really gone.
It never looks as impressive in photos or videos as it does in real life, and yet…
