Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.06.2010, Qupperneq 4
Say your piece, voice your opinion,
send your letters to:
letters@grapevine.is
4
Letters
Sour grapes
and stuff
MOST AWESOME LETTER:
Dear Grapevine,
I write this letter to tell you the story of a
contemporary hero, a hero of our times: me.
Me, the guy who day-to-day tries his luck
and results undefeated in the everyday head
to head with the public transport service of
Reykjavík.
In my daily Saga, I see my all life f lash-
ing before my eyes at every sudden brake of
some drivers, who probably mistake the pub-
lic transport for the super jeep tours around
glaciers and volcanoes. I love going to work...
an adrenaline rush every morning!
However, in these months, I also had the
opportunity to rediscover the pleasure of
reading, thanks to all those evenings when
I wanted to go out and get drunk as every
youngster worthy of the name, but I stayed in
my Garðabær, instead. Why? Because of the
lack of a decent evening tranport service and
the impossibility to spend 3.000 kr for a cab
every time.
What else can I say of the crazy nights
during the weekends, when everyone, young
and old, men and women bar none, pours out
in downtown to drink hectoliters of alcohol?!
By now I've become a vomit-puddle jump-
ing professional! Every time I split my sides
laughing when I think about those safe driv-
ing policies that spread all around Europe
and lead every normal civilized municipality
to endow itself with a night transport service
for the weekend, thus allowing its youngsters
to devastate their livers in holy peace without
crashing the car against a streetlamp.
In the past few hours a new challenge
has appeared on the horizon: the change of
the schedule for the summer period! I love
to whatch my iPod's battery exhaust while I
wait at the bus stop for half an hour, thinking
that in any London, Paris or Berlin whatso-
ever, with a ticket of the same price I could
jump on buses, trams and metro every three
minutes and cross a metropolis with a popu-
lation twenty-three times higher than the
whole of Iceland in half the time! And when
the bus finally arrives, I adore to make my
way through a f luctuating mass of individu-
als desperately trying to keep their balance
between an abrupt stop and the other. There
must be an invisible and directly proportion-
al connection between the quantity of people
on the vehicle and the intensity with which
the drivers hit the brakes: the more crowded
the bus, the faster the drivers dart through
the streets and come to a grinding halt at ev-
ery traffic light and bus stop. It must be what
they call "performance anxiety"...
However, what I love the most in this pe-
riod are children. Really, I love them! I love
to get on the bus facing these herds of un-
tied small human beings out of control, and
I adore to spend my thirty-minute journey
with two or three of them perched on my
shoulders and some other four clung to my
back...
Anyhow, nothing scares me anymore. If
I survived the winter Sunday mornings, sit-
ting at the bus stop, with the temperature
below zero and the first bus at 11.50, I can
survive everything!
Indeed, I should pat my own shoulder!
Andrea Pregel
Dear Andrea,
Thank you for your letter. It was a most amusing
read. And we agree, pretty much. Public trans-
port in Reykjavík sucks balls and has done so for
a long time. Maybe it’s unfair to compare Reyk-
javík’s public transport system to that of London
or Paris, but it’s still mind-boggling to ponder
how it manages to be as awful as it is.
Maybe some car-dealership owner man-
aged to snake his way onto the board of Strætó
BS, to try and tear it down from the inside?
Maybe he was one of those ‘Lizard People’
we keep hearing so much about?
Who knows!
Anyway. We decided to make you our FREE
BEER LETTER. This will encourage you to ei-
ther 1) take up day drinking or 2) pour some
money into our faltering Taxi economy. Either
way, Lord Satan wins. He always does.
http://the-dark-side-of-the-thruth.ning.
com/forum/topics/magma-energy-and-the-
betrayal
http://vrijheidblijheidenko.ning.com/fo-
rum/topics/magma-energy-and-the-betrayal
The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
"He who passively accepts evil is as much
involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate
it. He who accepts evil without protesting
against it is really cooperating with it."
Farida Gillot
Dear Farida,
We followed your links. Yes. The Eyjafjallajökull
eruption was a huuuuge government conspir-
acy. Meant to. Uhm. Stir up fear of volcanoes.
Look. We don’t want to call you a dumbass, dum-
bass. Whoops, we just did. Sorry. Anyway, yeah.
Huge government conspiracy. We hear The Liz-
ard People are involved, too. This is probably the
reason Iceland plays host to a volcanic eruption
every five years, give or take, and has done so for
untold centuries.
For you see, governments aren’t a ‘new inven-
tion.’ Neither are ‘conspiracies.’ Or Lizard Peo-
ple. Those have all been around for ages.
Anyway. What’s up with the Lizard People?
Were they pissed off by their portrayal in the ‘V’
remake? Because we sure were.
(Light)
MOST AWESOME LETTER
A buncha POLAR BEER for your thoughts
We're not gonna lie to you: we really love us some beers. Some folks would
call it a problem, but beer never gave us any problems. In fact, over the years,
it's solved most of 'em. A frosty glass of cold, frothy, bubblicious, golden-
tinted beer has consistently failed to let us down. In the immortal words of the
once-reputable Homer J. Simpson: "Mmm... Beer..."
Now, since we're real pleasant and giving folks here at the Grapevine, we
thought we'd share some wonderful POLAR BEER with you, our readers.
Not only that, you're also getting the gift of social life with it. So here's the
deal: our most awesome letter of each issue (henceforth, or until the good
people of POLAR BEER decide they don't want to play along anymore),
we will be providing our MOST AWESOME LETTER scribe with twelve frothy
POLAR BEERS, to be imbibed at a Reykjavík bar of their choice (so long as
that bar is either Bakkus or Venue). If y'all's letter is the one, drop us a line to
collect. Give us your worst: letters@grapevine.is
The unknown have incredible importance.
The invisible columns of society,
Bearing the crushing weight of televised re-
ality’s ignorant impact.
Struggling constantly to....
Be on television?
See the glowing fake version of yourself,
larger than life but dead.
Abstractly existing,
in a mass hypnotized idea of what the goal
should be,
Without knowing what it is.
Just to…
Be in front of everyone, noticed.
Daniel Schreiber
Dear Daniel,
Thank you for your letter, and your poem. Or
your poem anyway, there wasn’t really a let-
ter. In any case. Have you heard of The Lizard
People? We hear they’re all the rage. Maybe
you should write some poems about them.
Here is an inspirational sample:
“Oh lizard man, lizarding on,
Snaking your way into the public conscious-
ness [via government conspiracies, TV shows
and vegetarianism]
With your green skin and your evil inten-
tions (and all your Herbalife products. Sticky
liquorice pops).
THE TWO OF US LAUGHING, LIZARD
MAN! WE LAUGH! WE LAUGH AT THE
SILLY FOOLS!
Hypnogogia is no solution. Nor is the in-
ternet. Lizard man, o, Lizard Man. On your
quest for GLOBAL DOMINATION. Eating.
Doritos. Snacks. Chewy toffees.
Salsa is less ‘hot’ and more expensive than it
used to be.
Dear man. Lizard. What have you done to
Paul Newman?”
Yo grapevine
Checked out your newsletter whilst in your
excellent country, and thought it très cool.
You lot were pretty evenhanded in printing
that letter from someone about how Norway
and Iceland should be a union. I mean, that
dude really cannot be serious. Iceland is,
hands-down, the coolest place I've ever had
the good fortune to visit. Fact. Why have it
taken over by a place so boring that, in order
to get people to visit, it needs the help of a
Swedish dynamite inventor's peace prize?
Notwithstanding that, anyone who suggests
that Iceland and Norway should work togeth-
er in some sort of union should perhaps read
up on the one that is already in place - a little
thing called the European Economic Area.
Simon Deeble
London, UK
Dear Simon,
Thank you for your letter! We didn’t get to
meet you while you were here, but we are sure
you are also très cool.
We’re not sure we share your sentiment of
Norway being boring, though. Sure, Norwe-
gian music is pretty boring, and Norwegian
film. And Norwegian literature. Not to men-
tion Norwegian art. And who could forget the
boring Eurovision entries they always send
in?
Anyway. Djók. Actually, Norway isn’t boring
at all. It is a huuuuuuge country, with many,
many people in it. We went to Norway once,
and we only managed to see a teensy part
of it. And what we saw was hella amusing.
Some of the people are probably boring, but
you know, some of the English people we’ve
met have been pretty boring, too. Being bor-
ing is a universal quality, we figure. Almost
everyone is capable of being boring!
But even if Norway were ‘a boring coun-
try’ – would that be so bad? Boring nations
generally don’t rape and pillage other ones.
Boring people don’t attack you on your way
home from the pub, or make a move on your
spouse, or pee on your rug when they get
hammered. That’s what ‘exciting people’ get
up to.
Yeah, fuck exciting. We should all embrace
the quality of being boring, so we can stop
fucking things up for one another, and ev-
eryone else. Case in point: Lizard People are
certainly not boring. Yet they are awful!
Here’s to boredom!