Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.07.2011, Page 7

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 9 — 2011 Do you wish he were YOUR mayor? Why/why not? We have a fully functional letters
page for you to tell us all about it.
Dear reader,
Welcome to Iceland. Whether you’re
here for fun and travel or for business, I
hope you’ll enjoy a good time here and
will get to know some locals. I would
also like to make a special request that
you spend a lot of money throughout
the duration of your stay. Do not save
on dining and drinking. Allow yourself
some luxury. You deserve it, and it is
good for the economy. I ask that you do
not visit the retail outlets run by the Sal-
vation Army (Garðastræti 6, 101 Reykja-
vík) or the Red Cross (Laugavegur 12,
101 Reykjavík). Even though they are
fun shops, they are rather inexpensive.
You should rather visit more expensive
shops.
A lot of tourists that visit the coun-
try wonder why it is called Iceland, be-
cause—despite what the name might
indicate—it isn’t at all cold here. The
average temperature in Reykjavík is
1°C. Nowhere in the world has bet-
ter summers than Iceland. It might
snow in the month of June, however.
That is called ‘a spring snowfall’. July
is the hottest month. When it comes
around you better have a t-shirt handy,
because the temperature can reach up
to 20°C. Weather.com often states a
temperature followed with a “feels like”
temperature. When the heat in Reykja-
vík reaches 20°C, they will often say it
“feels like” 15°C. That is probably due
to something known as ‘the wind chill
factor’. No Icelander understands this.
If we had this “feels like” feature in our
weather reporting, we would say that it
“feels like” 40°C whenever the temper-
ature reached 20°C, without exception.
This demonstrates the importance of
‘mentality’ and ‘attitude’.
But how can it be that such a warm
country came to possess such a frigid
name? Yes, the explanation is simple:
MISUNDERSTANDING. Ingólfur Ar-
narson, the first man that found Reyk-
javík, wasn’t on his way here at all. He
was en route to the United States of
America, to buy grapes and other fast
food that grew wild there in those days.
He was very interested in food. And
also homicide. On his way he noticed a
cloud of smoke ascending to the heav-
ens from an unknown country. His cu-
rious nature got the best of him, and he
changed his course and set sail to Reyk-
javík (Reykjavík literally means “smoky
bay”!).
As he disembarked his ship, he saw
that the smoke was in fact steam ris-
ing from Reykjavík’s many swimming
pools. He was therefore quick in tearing
off the suit of armour that he had worn
in case he’d encounter some Native
Americans while picking grapes, and
jumping into some swim trunks. After
swimming a good 500 metres he sat
in the hot tub and relaxed. After a fun
chat with the locals he had forgotten all
about America. Who needs to travel all
the way to America to pick grapes when
there’s a shop on Laugavegur called
Vínberið (Vínberið literally means: “the
grape”)? Ingólfur decided to settle here.
He rented a small apartment along
with his wife, Hallveig Fróðadóttir, who
many claim was the daughter of Frodo
from ‘Lord Of The Rings’. Nothing has
been proven about that, however.
One day Ingólfur and Hallveig were
taking a stroll around town. They were
walking their dog, who was called Plútó
and was a Great Dane. It was a sizzling
hot summer’s day. It was long before
the t-shirt was invented. They were
both dressed in full suits of armour,
with swords and shields and helmets
and everything. They stopped by at Ís-
búð Vesturbæjar in Hagamelur to get
some ice cream and cool down. The
story goes that Ingólfur asked the clerk
whether she knew what the country was
called.
She thought it was called Thule. In-
gólfur felt that was a stupid name.
“No country can be called Thule”, he
said.
Outside the ice cream shop, a crowd
had gathered. They had heard that
foreign visitors were in town. A lot of
those people were elves. Ingólfur then
approached the crowd, raised his ice
cream cone aloft and shouted:
“Henceforth this country will be
called Iceland, because one can get the
world’s best ice cream here!”.
Today we have a statue of Ingólfur.
The statue depicts Ingólfur dying of
heat, leaning on his dog.
Don’t be a stranger, be like Ingólfur!
Best regards,
Jón Gnarr
Mayor of Reykjavík
Iceland | Welcome to!
Mayor’s Address:
WELCOME TO REYKJAVÍK
By Jón Gnarr
An anarchist interested in
history might want to take
an ‘oppression tour’ around
the city, checking out im-
portant power-symbols like the police
headquarters at Hlemmur, the cabinet
building at the bottom of Bankastræti
(originally built as a prison, this tiny
cabin allowing for 70 prisoners!) and
Alþingi on Austurvöllur ( just remember
to take off your overcoat to avoid being
charged for attacking the parliament
and its free will). Another anarchist
might just want to pick up some of the
good quality bricks around the house
of parliament, for instance to discover
whether the Situationists were right
in asserting that beneath the paving
stones lies the beach.
The third one is likely to enter a
jazz concert whereas his or her com-
rades in arms would want to hear the
Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, or bet-
ter yet, play their weekly gig with that
same orchestra. The hedonist would
drink and eat well, a luxury meal fol-
lowed with a good orgy, as the dropout
would wander behind supermarkets to
experience the unbelievable surplus of
the consumer society... and then join
the orgy. Another one would just mas-
turbate, fair enough. In Öskjuhlíð one
should be able to find strong enough
trees to build a primitive shelter and, if
lucky, catch a few rabbits for lunch (if
you have no luck with the rabbits, there
are plenty of tourists around).
More seriously, the big institu-
tional Churches, both the Lutheran
State Church and the Catholic one,
have recently been the centre-point of
criticism due to their priests' histori-
cally common sexual violence against
women and children, and not less for
their super-hypocritical response to
that criticism. It might be good to go
and teach some of them a lesson. But
at the same time, there should be one
or more of those guys in each and every
institution of the ruling order, meaning
that at least a whole summer is needed
to poke all of them at least once in each
eye. If limited by time, it might be a bet-
ter idea to get up in drag or, if drag is
your everyday clothing, take off all your
clothes and bike to the Nauthólsvík
artificial beach. It is a taboo—yes, also
here in the country of never-ending-
naked-dancing-jumping-in-the-wil-
derness-to-be-inspired-by.
One could go on forever like this—
and that is the absolutely only real
answer to the question: what is ‘the
best of Reykjavík’ for ‘The Anarchist’?
Generalising about ‘The Anarchist’
would go perfectly against the essen-
tial meaning of anarchy, namely: Lib-
erty from all possible manifestations
of authority, not only the very visible
ones—the schools, the church, the po-
lice, the government, the nuclear family
etc.—but also from our own or our com-
munity's self-suppression and from
media-designed stereotype categori-
sations.
Special | Best Of Reykjavík News | Reykjavík
The Anarchist’s Edition
SNORRI PáLL JóNSSON ÚLFHILdARSON
Rumour has it that some rich Rus-
sian investors with ties to Ásgeir Þór
Davíðsson from the sleazy strip club
Goldfinger want to turn The Pearl into
a casino. Now, this is really disturbing.
We are talking about a Reykjavík mon-
ument becoming, of all things, a casino.
Unfortunately there is little to stop
this from happening because its owner
is Reykjavík Energy, the city’s util-
ity company that owes more than 200
billion ISK to foreign investors. When
it became evident this March that the
company could not get any of their
loans refinanced, the city had to step
in with an emergency loan of 12 billion
ISK.
Of course that’s hardly enough to
rescue the company and there were
strings attached. Among them, the city
stipulated that Reykjavík Energy sell off
all assets not tied to its core business
of selling electricity, hot water and cold
water to the city. After all, it is a public
utility company and you can argue that
it really shouldn’t be funding the cost of
monuments that don’t turn a profit.
Still, it will be a sad, sad day when
The Pearl is no longer a place where
Icelanders and tourists can go to en-
joy spectacular 360 degree views. It’s
too bad the city spent its reserve fund
bailing Reykjavík Energy out or else it
could probably buy it. Let’s just hope
that whoever does buy it doesn’t give it
a horribly tacky facelift with Las Vegas
style advertisements for the gambling
and uncouth activity that might be go-
ing on inside.
Now if you’re wondering how a utili-
ty company owned by the city managed
to rack up a debt over 200 billion ISK,
we’re going to cover that in our next is-
sue, after we get through all of this hap-
py ‘Best of Reykjavík’ stuff. It won’t be
a ‘Worst of Reykjavík’ issue or anything
like that, but it could get pretty bad.
A Reykjavík Monument For Sale :(
What Will Become of Reykjavík’s Pearl?
ANNA ANdERSEN
JULIA STAPLES