Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.08.2005, Síða 4

LETTERS
Complaints, criticism, suggestions, praise, money, anything at all: Contact letters@grapevine.is or send
your mail to: The Reykjavík Grapevine, Hafnarstræti 15, 101 Reykjavík.
WULFFMORGENTHALER
see more at www.wulffmorgenthaler.com
RE: Fan Mail, really…
Back in January when I followed
Bart and Ed's tag team of idiocy,
otherwise known as "Daily Life from
Iceland," I would often log on and
think to myself, ok, what are Beavis
and Butthead up to now. Not only
was the writing arrogant, cynical,
and completely ethnocentric, but the
subject matter was downright boring
and mind-numbingly repetitive.
Plus, I wondered, how could these
two guys live in Reykjavik and have
such bad hair? Caring deeply about
this sort of thing (that is, having to
look at it), I was relieved to read that
Bart recently had an appointment
at Rauðhetta & Úlfurinn. Now,
at least when I see his picture in
the Grapevine, I’m spared his agro
grimace and the floppy,
Hugh-Grant-circa-1995 hair. Good
move Bart. Anyway, my point is, in
January I wasn’t Bart’s #1 fan, and
that’s putting it mildly. I actually
stopped reading Iceland Review
all together for fear of cerebral
implosion.
One can imagine my
disappointment when I learned that
Bart would become the editor of the
Grapevine -- for that narrowed down
my English reading options even
further. However, I must admit that
I have been impressed with both the
writing, and with the subject matter
(and diversity) of the articles in the
Grapevine during Bart’s tenure (yes,
that’s a compliment). Perhaps it is
because after living in Reykjavik for 7
months I have developed a cynicism
of my own. Or perhaps it is because
the Grapevine actually is a worthy
news source (which is more than
some can say). Whatever the reason,
I have learned to appreciate the
editor’s position, writing, and point-
blank honesty. Hell, I half-expected
to see him picking up a car battery
with his nuts at the Jim Rose Sirkus.
While other Icelandic publications
suffer from gross embellishment
and misrepresentation (ever get the
feeling that things (nature aside)
in Iceland don’t live up to their
reputation?), the Grapevine keeps it
real. So, Bart, my hat is off to you.
Good job,
seriously, on both the hair, and the
Grapevine.
J. Nebolini
and PS...
Do you really think The Leaves are
good?? I mean seriously, does the
World need another Radiohead
tribute band? Those guys are *awful.*
Thank you, Mr. Nebolini. Iceland
Review serves a different purpose
and a different readership—given the
restrictions placed on Mr. Weinman,
I feel he does an excellent job. As for
my former career as a daily blogger—I
simply never understood or valued the
medium, and I have been ecstatic to be
away from it. If you think it’s hard to
read dumb stuff, you have no idea how
painful it is to write it. Or to have it
quoted back to you.
The main reasons for the recent
success of the Grapevine have been the
support, and the forgiveness, of readers
like yourself, the support we’ve gotten
from the community at large, and the
hard work of the staff here, all of whom
have dealt with both my demands and
my haircuts admirably.
Regarding The Leaves… yeah,
sorry about that. You’re not the only one
to complain about them. Mercifully,
you wrote instead of grabbing me at a
bar and screaming at me. I say to you
what I said to Mr. Drunky Drunk on
Friday at Bar 11: A) There’s room in
this world for pop. B) My standards
on live shows differ greatly from those
on recorded material. C) Please stop
hitting me.
For future letter-writers, please
refrain from discussing the editor’s
hairstyle or testicles.
Subject: Come thou divine mistake!
A poet’s guide to pretentious,
inaccurate drivel.
Hi,
Look, I dislike Árni Johnsen and
what he stands for as much as
anyone else. But would it be too
much to ask that the apparently
incredibly enlightened ‘Nyhil’ poets
actually stick to the facts when they
pick themselves such an incredibly
obvious target to put down?
Árni Johnsen was not released from
jail to sing in the Westman Islands
during his stint in prison, although
an appeal was made. Rather, a
helicopter carried a bitter letter from
him to the festival planners, which
was lowered onto a stage and read
to the crowd. It was a pretty surreal
moment and one that I would have
thought would have appealed to the
intellectual powerhouse responsible
for the article in question.
I understand the concept of
poetic license and all that, but this is
simply sloppy journalism. If indeed
such an obviously hamfisted and
biased tirade about ‘Us’ and ‘them’,
‘them’ being the great unwashed who
have no appreciation for the finer
arts such as, say, the ‘Nyhil’ poets,
can be called journalism at all.
Ari Eldon
Thank you for correcting this. I spoke
with the writer. He explained that the
historical inaccuracy in his piece was,
indeed, poetic license. “Poetic License”
can now be defined as fundamental
historical inaccuracies that give editors
ulcers. I don’t know about you, but I’m
drumming my fingers in anticipation
of our upcoming articles “Iceland is
Actually Walt Whitman, a Kosmos,
Floating on Marshmallows in a
California Supermarket” and “How
Spain Won D-Day.”

Hi, Bart
We thoroughly enjoyed the last
issue. I haven’t finished it all yet,
but I especially liked Prof Hydrogen
and the Puffin dude. As a Canadian,
I can relate to such a superhero.
Naturally, we really liked reading
the editorial. We were preening for
days over it. One of our Icelandic
acquaintances even recognized us,
since we had mentioned to her days
before that we had stopped by your
office. Are you getting lots of fan
mail? Or just shit-hit-the-fan mail?
And isn’t it more weird irrationality
that I emailed you about my
cartoons just before the issue came
out? It’s a vortex.
Is it merely a joke that you were once
an avid (pun intended) bird watcher?
‘Cause I was, too. I’ve been a bunch
of things, I think I told you, and
bird watcher is one of them. I even
banded for a summer, and kept a
lifer list. I even, I can admit to you,
snuck up on several trees that were
squeaking in the wind. I had to
finally promise myself never to do it
again. Which reminds me: do you
know how to tell the front of a tree
from the back of a tree? Of course
you do. Everyone knows. Who
would ever pee in front of a tree?
V
We rarely print fan mail, but as you
included a joke about bodily fluids,
we’re making an exception. Regarding
the Issue 9, The Puffinaire Issue, our
cover artist, Tómas Þorbjörn Ómarsson
may have done too good a job: tourists
were seen ripping the cover off of the
magazine for souvenirs and throwing
the rest into the garbage. We would
like to take a small amount of credit
for what we feel is a side effect of the
issue: one of our featured cartoonists,
Hugleikur Dagsson, has started an
English-language alternative comic
magazine called Very Nice Comics, the
first issue of which is currently on sale.