Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.08.2006, Síða 3

Dear Bart,
Thanks to you and your colleagues
for the listings in Grapevine’s
last issue. It sure was a helpful guide
in finding our way around Reykja-
vik although our introduction to
Sirkus didn’t quite fit the descrip-
tion in The Grapevine…
On Saturday August 5th
-after having a great evening at
Innipukinn we decided to spend
our last hours in Iceland at Sirkus.
It was about one o’clock when we
arrived at the club and we were
expecting quite a line but there
were only 4 French people waiting
to enter. The door opened a couple
of times to let people out but was
closed immediately and without any
explanation. We waited patiently
and assumed that it was just too full
to let people in but after some time
the door was opened again and a
girl let us know that there were no
French people allowed in Sirkus.
The reason given: Sirkus did not
tolerate French and French people
are boring!?!
Quite a generalization and pret-
ty offending as well- even if you’re
from Amsterdam! Is this supposed
to be one of the best places in Rey-
kjavik? I really did not expect such a
hostile approach from a club that is
described as an alternative club and
promotes itself with the slogan ‘wel-
come to the jungle’. We spent some
time in front of the door hoping that
it was just a joke but soon found out
that while people from Iceland were
getting in without any problems, the
doors stayed closed for us foreigners.
Some people from Reykjavik com-
plained about this door policy but
nothing helped and the doors stayed
shut. Is Sirkus known for its tourist
ban or were we just plain unlucky?
Take care,
Bart & Vivian
Amsterdam
Bart and Vivian,
You were extremely unlucky. There are
usually a range of people inside Sirkus.
But the line can be a drag – I stand in
it sometimes, and it convinces me that
sobriety is really the best policy. One
more thing, the Welcome to the Jungle
slogan was a bad joke on our part. It
really isn’t their slogan, we just thought
it was a really lame way to describe
a bar. That irony thing that was big
in the 1990s, and that we only just
discovered.
Dear
G´Day,
My name is Karim and I am here
in Iceland on holidays all the way
from Sydney Australia. I thought I
should write to you to congratulate
you on an excellent newspaper. I
think I learnt more about Iceland
and Reykjavik from your newspaper
(Issue 12) than any of the popular
travel books. I stumbled across your
paper on the table at the Subway just
down the road from the HI Hostel
where I am staying.
I thought I’d express something
of concern that I believe Iceland
needs to address. Yesterday on the
way home from Jökulsárlon Glacial
Lagoon an event occurred that
shook the life out of a coach bus
full of tourists. I was staring out
the window at the moss covered
lava grounds listening to Guns N
Roses on my iPod when I heard this
scream followed by hard braking
and a loud thump. The back of the
coach bus reared up momentarily
and we then came to a complete
stop. The bus had hit and run over
a baby lamb that wandered out onto
the road. The driver had the hor-
rible task of removing the carcass
while the mother sheep watched
on, as did everyone on the bus.
The travel guide, all shaken up and
nearly in tears, explained that this
happens on a regular basis and that
human fatalities occur.
I really do think that laws need
to be introduced to ensure that farm
animals are behind fences and not
left wandering popular tourist roads.
I felt sorry for the lamb but was also
grateful that the bus did not go off
the road and crash. I would not care
so much if the bus handled like a
Porsche 911, but at 100km a 10-ton
tourist coach full of people does not
look good when it crashes. I would
hate to think what would happen if
a full grown cow wandered onto the
road in front of the coach bus.
We passed quite a few cows
just grazing freely without fences.
I understand that you can’t contain
wild animals, we have a big problem
with people hitting Kangaroos in
Australia, but farm animals are
another story. I hope that Iceland
and the local farmers and communi-
ties address this issue, if not for the
safety of tourists and Iceland people
then for the well being of farm
animals and livelihood for farmers.
On a different note ... I loved
your articles, your cafe-bar-restau-
rant guide is awesome, and your ar-
ticle on the Rex nightclub convinced
me to give it a try. Are the barmaids
really that sexy??
I hope you publish my letter.
Keep up the great work!
See ya,
Karim
Sydney Australia
Karim,
Glad you enjoyed the issue. Bus drivers
really shouldn’t crash. I think that’s
the issue. And they shouldn’t hit sheep.
Sheep really aren’t that sneaky. And
they pretty much only wander around
in the summer, when it’s light out. So
crashing into a sheep when you’re a
professional driver is inexcusable, in
my opinion.
As someone who enjoys the wildlife
of Iceland, I have to say I would prefer
it if fences weren’t erected throughout
the country. This doesn’t mean I want
more dead sheep. I just think driv-
ers whipping around at unsafe speeds
should be held accountable. Not farm-
ers.
Dear Bart
Having just spent a few days in
your town, it was a pleasure to read
an intelligently-written free paper
which took in not only things of
particular interest to English-speak-
ing tourists but some very interest-
ing articles about life in Iceland for
the locals, especially the immigrant
issue and the interview you did with
the designers of your City Hall.
The fact that I picked up on
your summer concerts and managed
to get to see Bela twice in one day
was a definite added bonus...
Low spot - the weather. What
have you guys done to deserve that
in summer?!
High spots - the people and
the scenery (when I could see it...)
Soundtrack to the summer – Bela’s
Ticket for a train, of course. Sub-
lime!
Best wishes
Peter A. Phillips
Sindri Eldon did the interview with
Studio Granda, who designed City
Hall—I thought it was an excellent
piece. As for the weather, I grew up in
Wisconsin. This is good weather. Glad
you found Bela. Every foreigner should
buy at least three Icelandic CDs on a
visit or consider him/herself a failure
in life.
RE: Greetings from Racine
Greetings and salivations ~
Just wanted to send a friendly hello
after seeing the write up on you in
the paper the other day -- what a
lovely surprise! I’ve been reading
Grapevine for about 2 years or so
now, and had the extreme pleasure
of spending the best week of my life
in Iceland in June ’05. It’s funny
how you mention the similarities
between Reykjavik and Racine; I
felt at home immediately, but didn’t
really know why. And I’m still
homesick-- yes, for a place I visited
for only a week. Who can explain it?
That’s the beauty of Iceland. I hope
to get back in the next year or so.
Desperately.
Cheers! ~Julie.
See, Peter. I told you. I’m from a
cold place. My hometown paper in
Racine, Wisconsin wrote a far too kind
description and interview about the
work the Grapevine is doing. Then
I realised that a lot of people from
Wisconsin read our paper, and never
introduced themselves. We’ve really got
to do something about our state motto:
Don’t speak until spoken to. Please,
if you visit Iceland, and you’re from
Wisconsin, drop a line. (I won’t be
here, mind you, as this is my last issue,
but I’ ll still be serving as an advising
editor, and everybody in the office has
specific instructions to be friendly to
cheeseheads.)
RE: Weren’t you there?
I went to Innipúkinn and saw you,
disguised with a beard, playing two
shows, one as a country band called
the Foghorns, and one with an
Arcade Fire-type band. Then I read
the Innipúkinn review.
How did you manage to actually
play a show and have no perspective
on what happened? You didn’t even
manage to get the right genres for
your own band.
If you were on stage, and you
were in the festival, why didn’t you
write an insider’s article on the
thing? Isn’t the Grapevine your job?
A lot of questions here. Was I at In-
nipúkinn? Yes. Is the Grapevine my
job? Yes. Most of my time at the music
festival involved local bands yelling
at me for giving out negative reviews.
Only now do I see how amusing that
might have been as an article. Finally,
I didn’t grow a beard to hide. I grew
a beard to have something new on my
face to talk about.
SOUR GRAPES
Complaints, criticism, suggestions, praise, money, anything at all: Contact letters@grapevine.is or send
your mail to: The Reykjavík Grapevine, Vesturgata 5, 101 Reykjavík.
EDITORIALS
Bart Cameron,
Editor
Okay, well, for the last time, welcome to Iceland.
If this is your first time picking up our paper, or
your first time in Reykjavík, let me assure you
that you have just discovered a guide that will
enhance your visit, and your life. You’ll get noth-
ing but honest opinions in this paper, guiding you
through a town and a country that isn’t all that
easy to navigate without us.
In this issue, we present a feature about the
loss of one of the key institutions of Reykjavík:
Grand Rokk. As musician and journalist Haukur
Magnússon explains, a smallish bar/chess club
has played a key role in shaping the remarkably
competent local scene. And we are losing it in
the next few weeks, to older patrons interested in
f lat-screen TVs.
As it is August, the best time for travel, we
also present as much information as we could
muster on places to go around Iceland. For hik-
ers, we’re proud to present the further endeavours
of our own Lonesome Traveller, a man with more
testosterone than Floyd Landis and Marian Jones
combined.
Beyond that, we bring you an excerpt from
the Baron, an excellent work of historical fiction.
And then you can read about the cultural goings
on about town and country, interpreted by people
who care about culture.
Now to address long time readers of the
Grapevine, the tourists who got addicted, the
open-minded locals, the immigrants, and the
people abroad who are just curious: the Grape-
vine is now, officially, an institution, an odd state
to reach for an alternative newspaper.
We are no longer a paper that is based on one
or two people’s effort, ego, or personality, we are
something bigger. There are a lot of people to
thank for this, among them the people who start-
ed the paper, Hilmar Grétarsson and Jón Trausti
Sigurðarson, along with the first editor, Valur
Gunnarsson. In my time as editor, a few people
have made important contributions, especially
our photographer, Guðmundur Freyr Vigfússon,
our designer, Gunnar Þorvaldsson, and writ-
ers like Paul Nikolov, Haukur Már Helgasson,
Þórdís Elva Þorvaldsdóttir Bachmann and Sindri
Eldon.
Ah wait, this is starting to look like a speech,
isn’t it? What kind of speech would it be? Well,
here’s a hint: I ain’t getting any awards.
That’s right, this is a retirement speech.
I’m leaving Iceland to go to America and cover
the build-up to the 2008 presidential elections.
While I will stay on as an advising editor with
this paper, and while I will return in October for
our daily Airwaves issues, the people of Iceland
are guaranteed, at the very least, to be rid of my
opinions and, even better, my God-forsaken
editorial photos, for the next two years.
The Grapevine will be no worse for my de-
parture. In the past year and a half, the paper has
grown up. We now have writers, and photogra-
phers, and designers, and ways of doing things,
and we have an editor with experience, patience,
and an established voice taking over, Sveinn
Birkir Björnsson.
I am proud of the work I did at the Grape-
vine, with the newspaper and with our recent
book, but the real test of our success, which I
believe we will pass with f lying colours, will be
this transition over the next few weeks. I firmly
believe the paper will continue to grow, the
Grapevine name will get stronger, and I will be
forgotten, and that is the best thing an editor can
hope for – to have created a paper that speaks
as something bigger than the individual names
associated with it. I plan on coming back in two
years, pointing at a Grapevine far superior to
any product I ever edited, and impressing a local
bartender by bragging about how I worked on the
paper way back when.
All Grown Up
Soup of the day + 1/2 panini + koffee = 870 kr.
The luck is
with you
Espresso bar open every day 08.00-00.00 - Lækjatorg (main square)
Lunch special!
From 11.00-14.00
Haukur Magnússon,
Journalist
I am a big fan of punk rock and punk rock values.
I like the superficial sense of inclusion it pro-
motes; the sense that you shouldn’t have to be the
world’s greatest instrumentalist just to play some
music, the sense that everyone can participate in
some way regardless of their abilities, its sense of
egalitarianism – that everyone is worth some-
thing and that every effort should be celebrated
in its own right. I like punk rock and it’s mantra
of “everything’s possible if you set your mind to it
– so go out and do something.”
Of course, no punk rock scene works like that
in reality. They are tightly knit and hierarchal
elitist organizations, with leaders and followers
and a plethora of rules you have to abide. But that
is beside the point. I like the idea of punk rock
values and how they present themselves, what
they want to be. It’s probably better to at least
romanticize and strive for a notion of egalitarian-
ism than to ignore it completely.
So I subscribe to the thought that everybody
should go out and do something without letting
impossibly high standards, or a lack of finances or
talent hinder them. And that’s kind of been the
spirit of Reykjavík and even the wider world these
past few years, with the advent of internet blog
journalism and whatnot. And by all accounts,
that should make me happy. But I am not.
There seems to be a fundamental misunder-
standing regarding the abandonment of some of
the more exclusive and oppressive standards the
world has been operating by. Even if it really is
always better to do something than nothing, that
does not mean that just anything will do. You
still have to make an effort. The beauty lies in the
effort anyway, rather than action itself.
My generation has been getting active in
fields like publishing and writing recently and
while I am all for that, I still feel the urge to
distance myself from most of their works, mainly
because they seem to suffer from taking the
whole ‘let’s just go out and do something’ thing
too seriously – or not seriously enough. For
instance: if you want to publish a magazine, the
main point of that should be what you want and
have to say, rather than just the act of publishing
itself. That’s really beside the point.
You probably can make a lot of money selling
ads in a magazine that celebrates that anything
can be said, and that’s maybe more exciting than
the actual making of it. But the punk ethic is
not about assuming that readers (or audiences)
are idiots that will gladly swallow every piece of
poorly written and ill thought out bullshit you
spoon-feed them. At least grant readers and audi-
ences a minimum of respect, the other key tenet
to the punk aesthetic.
The Death of Effort
WWW.GRAPEVINE.IS