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
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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
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