Lögberg-Heimskringla - 25.11.1994, Blaðsíða 1

eimskrmgla
The lcelandic Weekly
Lögberg Stofnaö 14. janúar 1888
Heimskringla Stofnað 9. september 1886
108. Árgangur
108th Year
Publications Mail Registration No. 1667
Föstudagur 25. nóvember 1994
Friday, 25 November 1994
Inside this week:
A wide variety of books ...........2
Framfari Christmas Special.........3
Grímkell's Stóry, eighth installment.5
Einar's Anecdotes....................6
Children's Corner..................7
Upcoming Events....................7
ICELAND: National Library Fund..-..8
Númer 41
Number 41
loelandic
Designed in lceland -
Produced in Germany:
The German furniture company
Heinrich Brune GmbH & Co. has
bought the right to produce and sell
furniture by Þórdís Zöga, which con-
sist of two chairs "Stelkur and
Tjaldur" and a circular table. The fur-
niture has been on the market in
lceland since last spring and are pro-
duced by Sóló Furniture hf. Brune
GmbH will market the furniture
world-wide outsíde lceland. The fur-
niture is mainly intended for use in
kitchens or in coffee shops. Þórdís
first displayed these pieces at a
show at Stöðlakot last April. They
were then sent along with other
lcelandic furniture to a show in Bella
Center in Denmark last September.
At that show representatives from
Brune GmbH expressed interest in
buying the right to produce and
market the chairs abroad and a deal
was struck. The furniture is expected
to be on the market in Germany
around the middle of next year. In
the picture is the chair "Tjaldur"
along with the table.
A New CD:
Björk Guðmundsdóttir has released
a new CD containing six remixes of
songs from her Debut CD. It went
straight to tenth place on the British
popularity chart. Another new CD by
Björk, which was recorded live at the
"unplugged concert" for the USA
television station MTV, will .be
released in November. Debut has
reached Gold, i.e. sold over 500,000
copies in the USA, with total sales
over one million copies.
V GUNNUR ISFELD
Book award to best
]ólasYeínar drawín^
Lögberg-Heimskringla is
pleased to announce
that it will once again
hold its annual Christmas chil-
dren’s drawing contest for chil-
dren aged 12 and under.
The theme of the contest is
the jólasveinar, the naughty
Yule tide men who are unique
to Iceland and Icelandic folklore.
Previous contests have drawn some
excellent entries, and all submissions
have been enthusiastic. The deadline
for entries is December 9, and the first
prize winner’s picture will be featured
on the front page of the Christmas
issue.
Drawing should be no bigger than 8
by 11 inches and can be in pencil, cray-
on, ink or whatever inspires you. With
your entry please send us a picture of
yourself, your age, the school you go to
and some information about your back-
groud, interests and family. There will
be prizes for the winners — watch for
details in next week’s paper — and
other entries will be featured in L-H
when we return from our Christmas
break.
What follows here is some
information about the
jólasveinar just to get you start-
ed and to give you some ideas.
Grýla is an old hag who
lives with her husband and
many children in a moun-
tain cave. Their favorite food is humans
and especially children. However they
can only take cranky children. Before
Christmas Grýla sends 13 of her sons
down to human habitation, one each
day. These lads are up to no good and
the children have to be very careful and
Cont’d p. 4
lceland and Newfoundland may have
in the same boat. but today
economies are worlds apart
ith so much in common,
fishing-based economies,
harsh environments and
small populations, why is Iceland
On Being A Writer
beautiful women who after the last
word is read are so filled with desire
by your prose that they are unable to
restrain themselves, break into your
hotel room and ravish you. They have
never met the librarian, the librarian’s
best friend or the librarian’s mother.
The librarian works part time, has
been up since dawn helping her hus-
band with the harvesting, her best
friend has three teenagers and drives a
school bus and the librarian’s mother
has managed to make the cookies in
spite of having to cope with a husband
who isn’t well.
The truth is you will spend endless
nights alone in motels and hotels
without cable TV hoping that some-
one will set the local grain elevator on
fire, the motel on fire or themselves on
fire. Anything so you can stop watch-
ing reruns of Leave It To Beaver.
On airplanes you will get used to
having the following conversation:
“What do you do?”
“Write.”
“What’s your name?”
“William Dempsey Valgardson.”
“What name do you publish
under?”
Cont'd p. 2
by W.D. Valgardson
The fírst thing you have to under-
stand about being a writer is
that you’re not going to make
any money.
There’íl be some perks, of course.
Getting to givé readings in strange and
wonderful places where the audience
will be made up of the librarian, the
librarian’s mother, and the librarian’s
best friend. The librarian’s mother will
have brought cookies. The librarian,
the mother and the best friend will all
take turns going to the window and
looking to see if anyone is coming.
They will all be certain that someone
will be arriving shortly and when no
one appears, they will nervously blame
the weather, the economy and some
mysterious unknown incident. They
will hint darkly of lights seen in the sky
and reports of UFO’s. The truth is that
everyone is at the local bonspiel gossip-
ing, getting drunk and getting theif
rocks off.
People who aren’t writers will
believe that when you travel across the
country giving readings that one of the
perks is unlimited sex. They imagine
audiences being filled with frustrated,
booming when Newfoundland has
gone bust? CTV’s W5 with Eric
Malling looks for answers in a fasci-
nating, one-hour special Tuesday,
November 29, 1994,10-11 PM ET.
■ Iceland has virtually no unempioy-
ment and no unemployment insur-
ance, whereas in Canada’s poorest
province, more than half of 24-yeár-
olds were on unemployment insur-
ance at some point last year.
“I came up with the idea of com-
paring Iceland and Newfoundland
while interviewing former Deputy
Prime Minister Eric Nielson last
year,” says host.Eric Malling. “He
wanted to know why Iceland, with
1,500 fishing boats, pulled in as much
as Newfoundland, with 35,000
boats.”
“Iceland treats fishing as a business
as opposed to a social program. With
fewer fish, it has achieved one of the
highest standards of living in the
world as well as one of the best edu-
cation systems. The real tragedy for
Newfoundland is the lack of emphasis
on education,” says Malling.
Iceland’s literacy rate is 99 per
cent. In Newfoundland, 60 per cent of
residents lack sufficient reading skills
to meet everyday standards.
“We are following our tradition of
tackling economic issues, especially
the debt and deficit,” says Peter
Rehak, Executive Producer of W5
with Eric Malling, “This special fol-
lows on the heels of our New
Zealand and Saskatchewan debt
crises specials.”