Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.04.2007, Blaðsíða 18

Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.04.2007, Blaðsíða 18
RVK_GV_04_007_OPINION_19 In 1997 Annette Sorensen, a Danish actress, was visiting her Brooklyn- based husband in New York City along with their 14-month-old daughter. One sunny afternoon they decided to frequent a popular restaurant in the East Village. As it is socially accepted both in her country and Scandinavia, Sorenson left her baby safely tucked into their stroller located right outside of the restaurant. Moments later she and her husband were arrested and imprisoned by the New York City Police Department for child neglect and endangerment. Their baby was taken away and placed in foster care for several days. This “fish out of water” scenario is unnerving to think about as a soon-to-be mother living in a foreign country. When I found out I was pregnant my heart could not really contain the pure enjoyment of carrying a child. However, once the initial excitement and celebration faded, the realities of being pregnant away from my home settled in. My mind created a bank of questions constantly streaming in one after another. Is the medical care going to be adequate? Are the hospital staff going to understand me in the delivery room? Should I just go back home and have the baby? My nagging questions were clearly motivated by a fear of the unknown, however, as time passes my pregnancy qualms are beginning slowly to disappear as the birth of my child draws closer. My concerns started when I was told by my neighbourhood medical clinic that I wouldn’t be seen until I was at least two months pregnant. Shocked and appalled, I proceeded to debate with the midwife about the responsibility of the medical community to educate and inform newly pregnant women about taking care of themselves and any other critical aspects of pregnancy. Does the Icelandic medical community assume that every newly pregnant woman knows exactly what to do during the course of her first trimester of pregnancy? Thank you for the vote of confidence, however, if a woman wants her pregnancy to be validated by a professional as soon as the little blue cross appears on the stick then I think the medical community should be open to that. Being directly communicated with and understood during the course of my pregnancy has also been a bit of a roller coaster ride. Every time my husband and I would visit the hospital for a routine visit or sonogram, I found that the staff directed all of their insight and professional opinions to my husband simply because of the shared language factor. Yes, I understand it may be difficult to translate medical terms to English and explain the procedures; however, I am still the one that’s actually going to be carrying and delivering the child. If my husband were the pregnant one, we’d be rich and currently starring in our own reality television show. It infuriated me to listen to an 8- minute stream of Icelandic dialogue about our baby and then get the 45 second briefing afterwards. Although I do seem a tad bitter about some elements of the professional care of my pregnancy thus far, I do appreciate many aspects of how the Icelandic system views the importance of motherhood. For example, the maternity leave policy alone is making many of my American friends wish they had made the move along with me. Being able to stay home with your child for a significant amount of time during such a critical period is crucial. In America, shipping your three-month-old off to a new face in a new environment is quite customary. Many parents have no choice but to immediately go back to work in order to financially take care of their newborn child. Having nine months available between my husband and I gives the impression that child rearing is a priority in the eyes of the government. In addition, the feeling of safety and trust among the culture is also a plus in raising a child in this nation. Even though my New York mentality will simply not allow me to leave my child outside in a stroller in any country, I still admire the level of trust that exists among individuals. At the end of the day, wherever any woman decides to have her baby, she needs to be mentally and emotionally mature enough to handle all that comes with the process of having a child. Any woman can have a child; however, that doesn’t automatically make her an equipped mother. Children are a gift from God and need to be treated as such from the time of conception. I’m hoping that my “fish out of water” experience will make me a better mother and endow me with the wisdom that will assist me with many future gifts from above. Crying Out Loud By Gabriele R. Gudbjartsson Ekki vEra súr Eru tennurnar í sýrubaði oft á dag? Sýran í sykruðum og sykurlausum gos- drykkjum getur eytt glerungi tannanna – og hann kemur aldrei aftur. Það er ekki bara súrt heldur líka sárt. Drekktu vatn – líka kolsýrt vatn! 18_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 04_007_REVIEWS/MUSIC/CDS Reviews by Bogi Bjarnason, Sindri Eldon and Sveinn Birkir Björnsson The self-titled debut album from indie rock quintet Sudden Weather Change is a middle of the road CD, never boring, but not particularly engaging either. Founded on the remains of System Failure 3550 ERROR ERROR, Sudden Weather Change occasionally display great potential on this album in sudden spurts of creative intelligence, but for the most part, it just rolls through effortlessly, easily forgotten in a sea of similar sounding bands. What sets them apart from the rest of the indie rock mass are the lyrics that are more ma- turely constructed than most of the songs. Of the six tracks, Godspeed and Great Lift sound as though they might make some radio station’s rotation, but the instrumental ballad Jed the Humanoid is as pointless as a boat in the desert on this collection. It will be interesting to see if SWC can build on the potential shown here to produce something truly worth- while. SBB www.myspace.com/suddenweatherchange It’s about one thirty in the morning, the dance floor is packed with all manner of unseemly folk, a sweaty crowd of drunken animals swelling and surging like a single organism. The DJ, a twenty-something chick magnet with three-day stubble and a stupid hat smirks to himself as he thinks of the perfect track to put on next. The beat kicks in, quiet at first, but increases in volume, as do the flimsy, almost dorky synths. Then the singing starts. A huge, inebriated cheer of woos and yeahs erupts from the crowd, and the DJ tries to keep his cool, although secretly he’s bursting with pride. This is a scene from the coming summer; I’m so fucking certain of it. I don’t know whether the two-song disc I was given is a promo of an upcoming album, or everything the Motion Boys ever intend to release, and I don’t really care; the sum- mer of 2007 already belongs to them. SE www.myspace.com/motionboys Riding high on an indie rock wave, comes the Reykjavík five- some Skátar with their first studio album, and it has its ir- regular glorious moments. With a barrage of guitars, bass doodles and whacky keyboards that at times seem to be heading in different directions and lyrics that mostly repeat a single sentence; it is not the most accessible CD the first time around, but the quirkiness grows on you. The first seven min- utes of Taco n’ Surf a Prayer is the best song of the album, although I could well have done without the full minute of pointless noises that follow. Behind their experimental ap- proach, Skátar have delivered a somewhat interesting but inconsistent album; they seldom fail to impress, but they sometimes fail to entertain. To be fair, many songs on the CD sound as if they need to be enjoyed in a live setting to be fully appreciated. SBB www.myspace.com/skatar Although flawed in places, this collection of ambient noise is nevertheless a fine product, and in many places a testa- ment to the brilliance and/or complete and utter insanity of its creators, although there are other times when the obvious minimalism of some of them conflicts with the insipidly bom- bastic pretentiousness of the others. The pulsating eeriness of tracks like Grotesque Insideness and Tremendously Sick Horror Art Display, and the full-on sonic onslaught that is the opening minute of A Sudden Moment of Private Demonic Psychodrama are excellent, as are all the tracks that remain formless and atmospheric. The album’s more structured tracks, such as So Successfully Evil and Inspired By Long Hours Of Continuous Repetitive Deep Irritations And Uncontrollable Agony, fail miserably, and remind one more of someone who wanted to make electronic music, but couldn’t be bothered to write a decent song and tried to pass their keyboard fid- dling off as ‘experimental’. SE www.myspace.com/evil666madness Evil Madness Demon Jukebox Skátar Ghost of the Bollocks to Come Motion Boys Hold Me Closer To Your Heart Sudden Weather Change Sudden Weather Change Kill is an apt reference to what CC are all about and far re- moved from their older, laboured, album titles. But that is about the gist of CC´s progression. Once you get into the album you soon discover that it is just another assembly line offering utterly generic and uninspired mid-tempo Death- Metal with dispassionate vocals, crap lyrics and songs so des- perately homogenous you´d be hard-pressed to tell one from the other. Add to that an annoying solo or two on nearly every track and inner back-sleeve art work so bad it boggles the mind and what you´ve got is an “easy listening” Death- Metal classic ready for consumption by 16-year-old kids yet to discover Nile and devoted fans of 19-years-standing who still consider chanting “The time to kill is now” along to George Fisher´s monotonous and mediocre growling the very pinnacle of the Death-Metal experience. BB http: / /www.myspace.com/thedeathmetalbandcannibal- corpse Bad, bad, bad: this is the collective worst of Icelandic music neatly bundled up in all its shallow, pretentious and self-indul- gent glory, with some extra-pretentious liner notes thrown in to boot. Representative Man kick off this shitfest with some block rockin’ beats, but that’s about as interesting as things get, really. The other contributions (if you can really call scat- tering a bunch of random noise on top of vacant and idiotic chord progressions ‘contributing’) range from the mildly inter- esting (Múm, DJ Musician, Auxpan, Músikvatur) to the com- pletely pointless (Borko, Slowblow, Sigríður Níelsdóttir) to the painfully insipid (Benni Hemm Hemm, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Apparat Organ Quartet) to the earth-shatteringly, suicidally awful (Amina, illi vill, Paul Lydon, Kira Kira). Even the mighty Stilluppsteypa do not escape unscathed, although their shal- low and uninspired offering manages salvage what little can be salvaged. Avoid at all costs. SE The Kitchen Motors Collective The Kitchen Motors Family Album Cannibal Corpse Kill C M Y CM MY CY CMY K midi-concerts.pdf 4/11/07 10:55:30 AM Við Tjörnina seafood restaurant was established in 1986 and celebrates its 20 years annaversary now. Opening hours are from 18.00 every day. Phone (+354) 551-8666. Templarasundi 3, 101 Reykjavík. www.vidtjornina.is - vidtjornina@simnet.is News // Culture // Dining // Travelling // Shopping WWW.GRAPEVINE.IS

x

Reykjavík Grapevine

Beinir tenglar

Ef þú vilt tengja á þennan titil, vinsamlegast notaðu þessa tengla:

Tengja á þennan titil: Reykjavík Grapevine
https://timarit.is/publication/943

Tengja á þetta tölublað:

Tengja á þessa síðu:

Tengja á þessa grein:

Vinsamlegast ekki tengja beint á myndir eða PDF skjöl á Tímarit.is þar sem slíkar slóðir geta breyst án fyrirvara. Notið slóðirnar hér fyrir ofan til að tengja á vefinn.