Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.08.2009, Page 18

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2009
Scenes From Menningarnótt
See Smell Touch Taste Hear - Recounting a day and night of purported culture in Reykjavík
Feature | Re-living the past, sorta
VALGERÐUR ÞÓRODDSDÓTTIR:
In the morning it was very quiet and
I was very hung over. The apartment
was unusually still and so, it seemed,
was the downtown street outside its
windows. It could have been any other
day, really, a thankfully tranquil,
restful, Saturday morning, and to
my drowsy eyes it almost was. But
outside the shaded window something
was already brewing; close to 1/3 of
the country’s population would be
f looding these streets by the day’s
peak, providing the biggest crowds,
the most noise and eventually the most
vomit the streets of Reykjavik would
see all year.
The muted serenity of these
surroundings betrayed the reality of
what lay ahead, and it was clear that
the day would be a long one; according
to the Culture “Night” program, the
agenda began at 10:00 in the morning
and stretched on for over thirteen
hours. What wasn’t clear, conversely,
was what on said schedule could
possibly entice me out of bed on
this particularly wretched weekend
morning.
What it was, it turns out, was
waff les. Free waff les, and coffee, to
be precise. At four different venues
even, in case I was so inclined and
appropriately ambitious. Right through
the darkly blotted newsprint of the
Culture Night schedule God seemed
to be winking at me, promising that
the indiscretions of the past could be
forgiven and forgotten with a sweet
patterned cake and plenty of jam and
whipped cream. And so it was that I set
out more determinedly than I would
have thought possible of my ailing
state, towards waff les, emphatic and
resolute.
As I made my way through
Þingholtin down towards the pond
the day proved to be way ahead of
me. Various promotional vendors
had set up on a small square a block
down from my street and traffic had
been closed off in all directions. A
few people had gathered on what was
usually a minor four-way crossing and
on a fairly large stage someone sat and
was playing a f lute.
The waff les promised in the day’s
program were mysteriously, though
perhaps not unexpectedly considering
who was promising, missing from
Landsbankinn in Austurstræti,
replaced instead by bowls full of stale
kleinur standing sadly near a wall in a
corner of the building.
But there was no turning bank. No
bank’s deception was going to keep me
from having my waff le and eating it
too. At the local Amnesty International
headquarters on Þingholtsstræti
the waff les were bountiful and the
kleinur fresh and voluptuous. The
main room was clean and well-lit, and
around every table sat people chatting
and signing human rights petitions
and postcards. Feasting on eager
generosity, drinking kókó mjólk and
coffee, I shamed myself for having
ever thought that Landsbankinn would
have been the right place to start.
It was now 3 P.M. and the
crowds had grown significantly, the
thickening mass not yet oppressive
but existing nonetheless as a dark
foreshadow, a reminder of how packed
and impossible the day had been at its
peak last year. On Lækjartorg Square
a group of middle-aged women were
wearing cowboy hats and line dancing
to the song Somethin’ Stupid, joined
by what must have been their teacher,
Óli Geir. The beat of the song was
unhurried and steady and the dancers,
cool and composed, glided in various
arrangements across the low stage
while the surrounding crowd watched
attentively, smiling, delighted.
On Ingólfsstræti it began to mist
through the sunlight as Orri and,
according to the program, “his friends”
displayed the Art of Graffiti on a
wall behind Prikið while a group of
people sat on the pavement and looked
on. Further down the street, on its
opposite end, a Garden Concert was in
full swing. After a perfectly pleasant
couple of songs from a young band
whose name I did not catch, Retro
Stefson played four songs very quickly,
apparently their second set during the
concert and apparently as consolation
for the absence of FM Belfast who were
scheduled to play last but who had
not come. As per usual, the kids were
full of energy and their songs full of
cowbell, a combination that has done a
world of good for them as well as their
big-brother-band Belfast.
It is either a testament to or a
condemnation of Culture Night
that I had to fight my way through
crowds around the Michael Jackson
tribute band in order to get to my
neighbourhood store and procure a
litre of Coke to nurse my hangover.
The band was on the stage below
Hallgrímskirkja Church on
Skólavörðustígur and I could hear
them through an open window when
I got home. I remember thinking that
the singer actually sounded a lot like
Michael Jackson, right before I shut
the window and closed the blinds.
Back at square one. Evening had
finally fallen by the time I left the
house again and there was a sort
of winter holiday feeling in the air,
conjured by a range of people coming
together to stroll in the evening glow.
At a backyard FM Belfast concert
on the corner of Bergþórugata and
Frakkastígur this mood prevailed
and was only enhanced by a youthful
charge. A large crowd jumped and
pulsated and sang along and Retro
At the Grapevine, we love us some culture and arts and music and poetry and literature and waffles and intoxication and vomiting and
drunken stumbling. So naturally, we are quite fond of Menningarnótt. It has all of the above, and more.
Recounting the whole experience isn’t an easy task. There is a LOT going on, as you may have noticed if you were there (and if you
were not, check out our last issue for an overview of the huuuuuuge programme on offer). We can’t do that. But you can still get a
glimpse of what the whole thing was about by reading the following: two different accounts of how two different redheads in their early
twenties experienced Menningarnótt. You should also look at the pictures. Enjoy.