Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.09.2009, Side 31

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14 — 2009
Feature | THE EDITORS SPEAK
19
Dave Grohl visited Iceland and loved the local liqueur; “Brennivín is
the best in the world,” he said. The Grapevine tried to make a drink-
able cocktail out of said fluid. We failed miserably. Drinks included
the "Brennitini" and the "Pink Pig," which may or may not explode
your appendix. JT/OK
Sleepy Sigur Rós on the cover, which our panel of experts agrees is
one of our best. Says Bart Cameron: “I had to beg for that photo. For
a long time. I was told it was horrible, and not a cover. I think it took
two days to get that in.” Says Hörður Kristbjörnsson: “We had given
up all hope for getting them on the cover, when our own Jói Kjartans
knocked on Kjartan Hólm’s door and begged him to do a cover. We
showed up at Hornið the early the next morning and scored this
sweet cover photo. Just look how sleepy Orri is!” HSM
Two variants of the cover, one for the regular publication, featuring
a freshly kennitala'd girl, and another for IcelandAir, starring Mam-
mút. The reason was to celebrate our forthcoming Iceland Airwaves
daily publications. A lot of the issue was dedicated to the upcoming
Iceland Airwaves music festival. It deserved it. JT/OK
“I actually think that they just forgot Iceland and don’t know it exists.
I believe that is probably the reason.” - Magnús Árni Magnússon,
Co-Rector of the Bifröst School of Business, explaining why no Ice-
landic university has cracked the top 500 List for world universities.
It’s unbelievable what people are willing to say on record. JT/OK
The only time the Grapevine reached the length of 64 pages. Fun
times! JT/OK
#28 - Issue 11 - 2005 #30 - Issue 13 - 2005#29 - Issue 12 - 2005 #32 - Issue 15 - 2005#31 - Issue 14 - 2005
Grapevine 101
The city of Reykjavík had undergone an extreme turmoil
in city politics, having had three different mayors in the
span of around 100 days. We wanted to visualize how
the different political parties had let the city's interests
take a backseat to party interests. We worked from the
tagline "Carving up the City" and the rest came pretty
easy. The red strawberry-flavored ice cream topping
that bled over the white and blue Reykjavík crest made
for even stronger visuals. Photographer Gulli deserves
credit for this one. I think we managed to depict what
a lot of people were feeling at the time with the strong
visual language of the photo. As an icing on the cake, we
got to ... well ... eat the cake afterwards. On my birthday,
no less. It was pretty damn good. SBB
"Welcome to Icelandiztan" was a great cover. I remem-
ber that we had to pretty much re-plan that whole is-
sue in the last days of publication, since the Icelandic
economic collapse happened something like two days
before we went to print. Journalist Bergur Ebbi and
I managed to finish the feature, called "The Skeleton
Economy" at the last possible moment, and I was still
correcting mistakes after it had been shipped off, since
there was no time to proof-read it, and new information
was still seeping out, with the Prime Minister doing a dai-
ly press conference to try to shed light on the situation.
This cover remains the strongest visual depiction of both
the atmosphere at the time, as well as the extremely dire
situation Iceland suddenly found itself in. We got calls
from newspapers in Israel, Australia and Holland that
wanted to use this cover to illustrate their news stories
from Iceland. The fact that we managed to put out such
a strong issue while the country was still coming to
grips with what was happening shows how relevant this
publication is, and the fact that we managed to pull this
concept together in about two days, shows how well a
small, dedicated group of creative people can accom-
plish great things. It was inspiring. SBB
#71 - Issue 2 - 2008
#85 - Issue 16 - 2008
covering the stories of ordinary people
and the laws that drastically inf luenced
their lives. In the end, many of these
much-needed changes were made. My
time at Grapevine helped make that
happen. Now that I'm back at Grapevine,
more or less, as a contributor and online
news person, I still sometimes pop in on
the night before going to the printer's,
just to soak it in a little. Yeah, I miss it.
It becomes addictive. Grapevine's an
awesome place to work.
Birkir
The third editor
During the summer of 2008, we set
out to do a special issue to celebrate
the 5-year anniversary of the Reykjavík
Grapevine. A few of us sat down and
tossed around ideas for how to approach
this, and soon decided that we wanted
five different guest editors to each edit
five different pages to celebrate our
5-year anniversary. We put together a
list of people who we thought might
be interesting to work with, and then
we called them and asked if they'd
be willing to work pro-bono on this
project and help us out. The response
was so overwhelmingly positive that
eventually, we were able to choose from
almost anyone from the pool we had
decided on. That's what the Grapevine
has come to mean in Icelandic culture.
I first joined the Grapevine in the
fall of 2005. By then, the Grapevine was
a fairly established publication, one that
I always made a point of reading. I sent
in an email to editor Bart Cameron and
asked if I could contribute in any way,
and soon I started an internship that
eventually turned into an editorship.
I remember the first few issues
I worked on rather fondly. At first, I
had the luck to work with some very
pleasant people like Paul F. Nikolov
and Bart Cameron, who both helped
me tremendously in the beginning.
Gúndi shot photos and Gunni Þorvalds
handled designs. Soon we were joined
by Skari and Steinunn Jakobsdóttir
and later on, Haukur S. Magnússon
and Gulli, aka GAS. Paul went on to
do politics, Bart followed his Icelandic
girlfriend to the US (usually, it is the
other way around) and I was left to run
the show.
I edited roughly 40 issues of the
Grapevine, during my 29 months as an
editor. It is a thankless, stressful job that
offers terrible hours and disgruntled
phone calls. But it was always worth it.
The dynamics and energy that erupts
from working in a small, creative group
that is determined to make the best of
any given situation creates a rush that
cannot be replicated.
But as much fun as the job was, what
I most appreciate is the friendships
I made at that place. The co-workers
who were so much more than just co-
workers. The Grapevine has always
been more of a team effort, rather
than a professional organisation. And
as a veteran of Pro-Am sports, I think
it might be the best team I ever played
on. So: Hilmar, Jóndi, Óskar, Höddi,
Aðalsteinn, Bart, Paul, Gunni, Gúndi,
Steinunn, Haukur, Skari, Gulli, Jim; to
me, you are the Grapevine. Thanks for
the memories
Valur
The first editor
My career as editor of Grapevine ended
the way it started, being shouted at by
ancient men with grey beards.
I had written the cover story for
the first issue, but by the second I was
assuming full editorial duties. The cover
story for Grapevine 2 was the Pagan
Asatru Association in Iceland. They
were having their annual Midsummer
Eve gathering in Hafnarfjörður, with
Viking fights, bonfires and the whole
thing being consecrated to Odin. They
certainly made an impression, as I have
since gone on to write a novel with a
Nordic Mythological background and
am trying to get to Denmark for further
study.
In the short run, however, the
most vivid impression was a massive
hangover. The Pagans took me under
their wing. I was young, the beer
was free and the results inevitable.
I remember the Viking Elvis doing
Heartbreak Hotel in full Viking regalia.
I also remember the difference between
Icelandic and American pagans. The
Icelandic ones were more interested in
the symbolic aspects of the heritage,
few going so far as to say the old gods
actually exist. The Americans, however,
tended to be true believers. One rather
biker-ish looking man told me he
had met Odin himself on a bridge
somewhere. I don't really recollect
my reaction, but it prompted him to
challenge me to a duel. I declined
and lived on to edit the third issue of
Grapevine.
By the 20th issue, I had become
something approaching a professional
journalist. This included showing
up for work sober, even if it was on a
Saturday night. This Saturday, Bobby
Fischer was coming to town. It was
probably the biggest media event in
Iceland since the Reagan-Gorbachev
summit in 1986, and I was running
around with reps from Associated
Press and Dutch Handelsblad. Before
the economic collapse and subsequent
revolution, we thought this would be
the story of the decade in peaceful little
Iceland.
It was, however, something of a non-
event. Representatives of the world’s
press corps and all the local media
were waiting at Reykjavik airport when
Fischer’s plane appeared in the sky.
Normal programming had been cut as
the event was broadcast live on Channel
2. It felt like the aliens were landing.
However, instead of so much as a
greeting of “take me to your leader”
or “does anyone know a nice hotel,”
Fischer was whisked away into a waiting
Channel 2 car by Channel 2 chief Páll
Magnússon. It was their story and they
weren’t letting anyone else in on the
game. Even the police played along and
cleared the area of other media.
We finally got to meet Fischer a few
days later at a press conference. He
had lost his Messianic beard, but his
opinions were still misreadings of
Biblical proportions. Most of the press
people were packing down before he
had finished his tirades against the
Jews. This was the last time Fischer
would appear publically, before he
became just another Reykjavik kook,
one of those characters that lend the
town colour.
Bobby Fischer passed away peacefully
in Reykjavik three years later.
Páll Magnússon later became head of
RUV State Broadcasting.
Valur Gunnarsson studies Medieval
history and literature and is constantly
working on one historical novel or
another.
Bart
The second editor
I'm a foreigner. Even today, there
isn't another magazine or newspaper
in Iceland that would have allowed a
foreigner so much control – and the
owners of the Grapevine didn't hesitate
in offering me the position. I have close
friends who lived in Iceland for thirty
years, and for them, having a foreigner
with access to that kind of position
meant was enormous in significance.
I edited the paper for a year and a
half from 2005-2006, which we can
look back on now as the time a corrupt
few pilfered the nation. With just about
every editorial, and every fourth cover,
we tried to warn both the Icelandic
media and the country to start speaking
up.
That's going to sound pompous. I'm
not saying we were brilliant. I see f laws
in every issue, and in every article. My
stomach turns over what we could have
done. Times were great for some, and
difficult for us: every writer we got, as
soon as they got some success, would be
recruited by Baugur or Landsbankinn
for some kind of project-- you could
hear the criticism dissipate with every
check coming from those corporations.
I read the Grapevine now and I
see the same energy we had. And the
quality gets better with every issue. I
can't think of another periodical for
which that has been so consistently true
for so long.
Paul
(actually an on-line editor)
My first contribution to Grapevine was
an incoherent rant about immigration
that I sent in after reading Issue #2,
in the summer of 2003. I had a lot to
get off my chest, and what started as
a letter ended up becoming an article
that meandered all over the place and
had no real point. To my surprise, they
published it.
After moving downtown in 2004,
I was offered a proofreading job with
Grapevine. Shortly thereafter, I was
asked if I wanted to be the online editor.
This decision was based on my having
founded and brief ly run an HTML-
based, Tripod-hosted online literary
magazine with a readership of maybe
200 people. Being "online editor" didn't
entail any actual coding work—I would
just post daily news, a weekly opinion
column, and draw up a list of design
ideas for the Grapevine site. Some of
these ideas were even considered.
Daily news was fine, but it was the
weekly column that taught me how
dangerous being a columnist is. It's
a power that changes you. It's like
someone got you very drunk, put you
on a rooftop, gave you a bullhorn, and
told you, "Here you go, say whatever
you like." You're a blogger, really,
but because you have a respected
publication's name above your by-
line, you get this kind of hall monitor
authority kick. In retrospect, this was
probably a position better suited to
someone with a slightly smaller ego.
There was plenty to enjoy about
working for Grapevine. I was given the
freedom to cover whatever I wanted,
which made me pretty fortunate as
far as journalists go. In particular I
enjoyed covering immigration issues,
as well as seeing other media covering
our coverage—such as coming onto the
roundtable discussion television show
Silfur Egils a few times, which was
always a pleasure.
I worked with some great people
as well. Hilmar and Jóndi built this
thing out of pretty much a conversation
over beers in Prague or something.
Aðalsteinn is like the Babe Ruth of
sales, without the alcoholism. I'll
always be grateful to Valur Gunnarsson
for giving me a shot, as well as to Bart
Cameron for helping to shape my
writing, and for letting me fulfil my
lifelong dream of drumming a steel
bucket while someone else plays guitar
and sings. I'm pretty sure he doesn't
even mind that people did and still
do think I'm the editor of Grapevine.
Anyone I forgot, I humbly apologize
and owe you a beer.
What I really, really loved most of all
about working for Grapevine, though,
was the night before we had to go to
the printer's. The graphic design team
in one room, with their electronica
playing loud. The proofreader pouring
over the pages across the table from
the editor. A couple journos helping
out with some last minute finishing
touches, clacking away. Pizza and beers
all round. The charged, race against the
clock, purely electric atmosphere of a
magazine nearing deadline and trying
to finish up the next issue; an energy I
have never experience at any workplace
before or since.
After Grapevine, I made a brief
foray into politics. While in office, I
tried to fill in the holes that I had seen
in immigration law in the course of
Memorable Covers
2003 2004. WTF?? 2004 2005 2008
Evolution of the Grapevine in logos.