Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.07.2010, Page 15

www.inspiredbyiceland.is
OOD NEWS
We are generally inspired by Iceland and the stuff going on here. We wanted to bring y'all the good news
happening in our fair country and why we love living here.
Civilisation? Give Me This
Apocalyptic Backwater
Any Day
Eat, Breathe,
Live your Art
Names: Bruce, Tammy, & Kyra
Where are you from? United States
Why did you choose to come to
Iceland?
B: My great-grandmother is Icelandic
so we came to visit family. Tammy and
I have come before and had a really
good time. We decided to come back
so that our daughter Kyra could meet
her Icelandic family and see where
her ancestors our from.
Are you enjoying it so far?
K: Yeah, it's really good.
What have you done so far?
T: We went on the puffin island tour
yesterday. It was a lot of fun and we
got to see a lot of puffins. No whales
though. Our family is taking us to
Þórsmörk tomorrow and we're really
excited. We love to see more of the
country, it's breathtaking.
B: Overall, we're really enjoying our
stay and are already planning to
come back.
Names: Jacob & Eric
Where are you from?
J: Florida, USA
E: Minnesota, USA
Why did you want to come to
Iceland?
E: We are studying Icelandic
Is this your first time in Iceland?
J: I’ve been to the airport before.
E: Yes.
What is the most exciting thing
you have done/seen in Iceland
so far?
J: We saw the main guy from Jar City
at Vesturbæjarlaug.
What is your least favorite thing
about Iceland?
E: That everyone wants to speak
English to us.
Tourists
On The Street
We stopped to interview some
lucky tourists on the street to see
why they chose to visit Iceland.
The following people graciously
complied to dish out the details of
their trip.
I just returned from a little
jaunt to London. It was my
birthday and my brother,
in his infinite generosity,
bought me a return ticket to spend time
with him and friends. I admit that as
the plane left Keflavík I was flush with
smugness at the idea of leaving this
medieval backwater and getting back
to some real civilisation and the things
I’d been missing in Iceland. Cheap beer!
Sausages! Decent drugs! Street crime!
Oh, it was truly going to be heaven.
But as my holiday was ending, I be-
came increasingly pissed off with the
city. God, the people and the air smelled
like decaying cabbage. It was too hot
and humid, riding the tube was like be-
ing a tapeworm in Satan’s colon, and
the beer in pubs was just as expensive
as Iceland! In the end my stress levels
were so high I almost punched a granny
in the face because her dog looked at
me funny.
And then it hit me. Despite my al-
most daily bitching about real and
imagined issues with the place, I was
missing Reykjavík and my way of life
here.
Holy shit, Reykjavík is now my
hometown!
But what is it that I love about Reyk-
javík that I just can’t get anywhere else?
Sitting down with a bottle of vodka and
some cheese, I came up the following
delights ...
Breiðholtslaug
OK, Reykjavík’s pools are excellent, but
have you ever tried to have a proper
swim in Vesturbæjarlaug during the
weekend? Forget it. It’s just way too
crowded. My local pool on the other
hand is only five minutes’ walk from
my house, has great hot pots and more
importantly, is not heaving with tourist
hipsters and annoying bloody kids try-
ing to dive-bomb you as you swim past.
Íslenski Barinn
The Austurvöllur establishment doesn’t
have the cheapest beer (Kaffi Grand) or
the best value for money food (Noodle
Station), but when it’s a sunny Saturday
lunchtime, you can sit with a bottle of
Móri beer, a toasted lamb sandwich and
fries and you can just gaze out on the
square and watch life pass before your
eyes while you ears are assaulted by
classic Icelandic pop tunes. Also a great
place to watch a decent protest as well.
The comic book corner of Reykjavík
city library
I have a friend who has recently dis-
covered the wonderful hyper-real world
of comics. To help her in her quest to
discover more, I pointed her to a little
jewel on the 2nd floor in the City library,
a place where you could easily spend
all day perusing classic comics of all
shapes and sizes. Garth Ennis’ run on
The Punisher? Check. Early Ed Bru-
baker? Check. Alejandro Jodorowsky´s
The White Lama? Big check! The place
to totally geek out.
The Kebabs at Habibi
When I eventually get chucked out of
Dillon’s for violating inanimate objects,
then the only place to go is to the little
kebab place on Hafnarstræti for their
Syrian kebab wraps. It’s not too spicy
and the tangy yoghurt sauce will give
CPR to your taste buds.
My mate Unnar
The national stereotype of the hard
working Icelander has come in for a
beating recently. For “taking risks,”
read “Have no idea what you’re doing,
do it with someone else’s money, and
then run away when it all goes tits up.”
But there is one Reykjavík resident who
keeps the tradition alive. My mate Un-
nar is the living embodiment of an Ice-
lander who “gets things done.”
This is a man who helped to furnish
my flat when I first arrived here, helped
organise my wedding, got a good deal
on a new car for my wife Sigga (no for-
eign loans here!) and more importantly
helped arrange for me to arm wrestle
former world’s strongest man Magnús
Ver Magnússon in my underpants for a
bet. There is nothing that this man can-
not do (except like any good Icelandic
male, express his emotions).
If you can find anything as good as
these things anywhere else, then sir I
shall call you a bloody liar!
By Bob Cluness
It doesn't take a scholar to recognise
Reykjavík's devotion to the arts. Even
the briefest wander through the city’s
streets and back allies will prove its ap-
preciation of aesthetics—be it fashion,
art or performance. This month, the
art-lovin’ city will welcome the latest
addition to our colourful spectrum of
gallery-ish places: SPARK.
Reykjavík is indeed a community
dedicated to artistic opportunity and
prolific endeavours. Sigríður Sigurjóns-
dóttir, professor of product design at
the Icelandic Art Academy, is a mem-
ber of this community, and on July 8th
she will be inaugurating this brand new
design space.
But these days one can hardly bat
an eye without it being violated by
some form of artistic expression. So
why should we brace ourselves for this
one?
Well, just imagine wearable blan-
kets, art-inspired scents and paper
food. Cool, huh? The idea is to pair up
designers with people of completely
unrelated professions and see what
crazy outcomes they get. Through
these collusions, designers are offered
a chance to prove their part in everyday
society.
“Designers are often about aesthet-
ics,” Sigríður tells us. “At SPARK we
wanted to focus on sensual design.”
Thus, many of the results are a lot more
interactive than regular design and in-
volve the infusion of our senses into the
artistic world.
“It’s difficult for our students, who’ve
been doing a lot of experimental proj-
ects as well as food design. There's no
path for their work,” says Sigríður. “This
is why I wanted to set up a gallery that
worked as a platform for interesting
design projects, that places the main
focus on designers collaborating with
other professions.”
The first designer take to the show
room is artist Andrea Maack with her
exhibition EAU DE PARFUM. Andrea
spent two years working extensively
alongside a French perfumery. During
this time, her abstract pencil draw-
ings were translated into fragrances
SMART, CRAFT and SHARP. Not only
will these be exhibited at SPARK but
they’ll also be introduced as products
for sale.
Vík Prjónsdóttir, a project set up by
five designers and the knitting factory
Víkurprjón, will also be exhibiting their
vibrant range of wearable blankets.
Sigríður clearly emphasises that
SPARK steers away from famous de-
signers and their one million ISK prod-
ucts, and instead wants to “show how
working with designers can change
and improve things.”
By Alexandra young
Savoury Saffran
Healthy, tasty, exotic, and very reason-
ably priced, Saffran is totally one of our
favourite places to eat in Reykjavík. In
fact, it just won our ‘best goddamn res-
taurant’ of 2010 award!
We called up one of the owners, Jay
Jamchi, to try and find out how they
managed to get so awesome. He told us
he started off cooking as a hobby, and
simply wanted to start a restaurant for
fun. Now, his hobbyhorse is expanding
to the US and Western Europe. Wow,
huh?
Jay tells us they are “constantly
changing the menu to make sure cus-
tomers are satisfied.” Saffran never
uses white flower or sugar, and all their
ingredients are local, except the saf-
fron, which they import from Spain.
They mix all their own spices too. Jay
says the idea for Saffron came from the
“saffron chicken I cooked at home, that
friends and family always loved.”
The restaurant just started offer-
ing catering services, and Jay tells us
they've been doing very well on that
front too. Jay believes he already ac-
complished his goal of “running a res-
taurant that makes excellent food and
offers great service and prices.” We
have to agree.
Saffran
Glæsibær, 104
EMILy BURTON
JULIA STAPLES