Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.05.2004, Síða 5

5the reykjavík grapevine
In the meantime, leaving the reader-
ship in the hands of the perpetually
feuding giants of media, members
of Grapevine have done as follows:
Publisher Hilmar Steinn Grétarsson
started his business studies at the
University of Reykjavík, so he should
by now know how to run a paper in
theory as well practice. Oddur Óskar
Kjartansson has been busy studying
electrical engineering, no doubt se-
cretly designing robots in an attempt
to make the rest of the staff superflu-
ous. Our graphic designer Hörður
Kristbjörnsson, now titled art direc-
tor as compensation for continued
absence of payment for his work,
has been studying at the Academy
of Arts, among other projects. The
merciless marketeer Jón Trausti has
been leading strangely parallel lives
with your editor. We both wound up
working for supermarket and media
conglomerate Baugur, he as a ware-
houseworker for Aðföng and me as
a journalist for DV. No matter what
you do, you always wind up getting
your money from the Man. He then
resigned to become a bartender at
the rock bar 11, his career there be-
ing documented, for some reason, in
the pages of DV. Media coverage of
his bartending career then came to
an abrupt halt as I resigned all ranks
and privileges as art correspondent
for said publication, and went off
to Finland to write a book, subse-
quently winding up in Lapland far
above the Arctic Circle. In between
our day jobs, we were both members
of punk rock band Ríkið, railing
against said Man (or Men, as the
case might be).
One member of the Grapevine gang
has sadly departed. Being hands
down the prettiest staff member in
everyone elses opinion as well as
the only female, Aldís has left
us to complete her photog-
raphy studies in Denmark.
She will be missed and we
wish her the best of luck.
Hopefully we´ll be able to
see some of her postgradu-
ate work in guest slots here
before too long.
However, on an up note,
we have two new fulltimers.
Hörður, namesake of our arts
director and will no doubt be as
unfortunate with his pay situa-
tion, is our new photographer.
Also new on the staff is Robert
Jackson, our resident Grand
Old Man who contributed last
year, and, despite knowing of our
wage policy, seems to like what we´re
doing. His functions are to write,
co-edit and make your editor (at 27
until now the oldest staff member)
feel younger. Also onboard is Paul
Fontaine-Nikolov, an American
expat who fled the deterioration of
human rights in his native US and
is slowly realizing that not all is well
here in the promised land. He´ll be
doing our proofreading as well as
contributing articles. Along with
the above, a number of talented
young writers destined for poverty
will be contributing articles. There
has, however, been a marked change
in our wage policy. Before we paid
nothing. Now we pay next to noth-
ing. Anyone interested can submit
material to editor@grapevine.is
Do we want to stay forever
young?
A friend of mine was discussing the
new He-Man cartoon the other day,
as he had been watching it that very
morning. One of the guys sitting
there then pointed out that when
his old man was our age, he himself
was six years old and would have
been very surprised to come into the
living room to see his dad watch-
ing cartoons. People back then had
grown up by their
mid- twenties.
We’re
watching cartoons and playing
computer games into our thirties and
perhaps beyond.
It is true that most of the best
television programs in the past ten
years have been cartoons. Shows
such as The Simpsons, South Park,
Family Guy and Duckman have
offered biting political satire as well
as laughs, whereas most live action
programs offer nothing but predict-
able mistaken identity gags and
various combinations of beautiful
people attempting to sleep with one
another. It’s the cartoons with their
caricatures that often seem to offer a
more realistic view of the world.
That aside, one wonders whether
the legions of sex-starved Trekkies
and Star Wars fans still collecting
the action figures they never had as
kids are really enjoying it that much.
The other day I was eating a ham-
burger on my way to see a Saturday
afternoon screening in Smáralind
mall, and it dawned on me that this
might not, in fact, be the best way
to spend an afternoon. Hamburgers
and fries, apart from ruining your ap-
pearance, clogging your arteries and
putting you in an early grave, don´t
even taste that good. I remember
when I was eight, a burger and a
movie seemed like the nearest thing
to heaven. Is this perhaps the reason
why young adults today often seem
to cling to their childhood interests?
Not because they actually still enjoy
them, but because, in the absence
of anything better, it reminds them
of something they used to like? We
were conditioned by McDon-
alds to associate hamburgers
with receiving toys, and
hence people still feel a cer-
tain warmth inside when
eating a not-too-good
burger under
a clown´s
sinister smile.
When we escaped parental supervi-
sion in our eating habits, we wound
up having junk food every day, just
like we always said we would. The
results were obvious. Children under
the age of five in Iceland are now as
obese as those in America. To be fair
to McDonalds and other fast food
chains responsible for much of the
problem, they are now finally offer-
ing less fattening alternatives, such
as fruit instead of fries. Hopefully
the obesity epidemic in the West
has reached its peak. In any case, it´s
obvious something needs to be done.
As for our clinging to childhood, in
our defense it must be said that our
parents’ generation grew up with the
illusion that living standards would
keep on rising, as they did constantly
from the end of World War II
until the oil crisis of the 70s. They
even felt confident enough to rebel
against them, at least for a while.
These days, despite an ever-increas-
ing flow of overpriced gadgets, the
young today have to contend with
mass unemployment as a seemingly
permanent factor, pollution caused
by the profit-making of previous
generations, constant wars being
fought over dwindling supplies of oil
and an increasing number of aging
people about to leave the employ-
ment market. Is it any wonder we
don´t want to grow up? Isn´t it bet-
ter to, much like Peter Pan, cling to
childhood as long as we possibly can.
Which begs the question: Was it re-
ally ever that good to begin with?
THE PETER PAN GENERATION
by Valur Gunnarsson
“So, to quote a phrase, “We’re back”. We’d like to say “bigger and
better than ever”, but it´s the same length, the same format, and as
for quality, we leave that up to you, dear reader, to decide. We´ll just
state the obvious, which is to say: We’re back.
EDITORIAL
ON INGÓLFSTORG
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Tel. (+354)444 4000
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