Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.09.2013, Síða 34

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Vegetari
an Dish
of the D
ay
What you are reading is an instalment
to a series of articles celebrating each of
Grapevine’s ten years of existence. As the
magazine’s tribute to itself inches closer
to present day, it might seem absurd to
spend precious time and pages reminisc-
ing about something that happened only
three years ago. However, as this spring’s
parliamentary elections revealed, Ice-
landers have maybe never been very good
at remembering their immediate past
or taking particular lessons from it (this
also becomes evident reading through
this issue’s ‘FIVE YEAR COLLAPSE AN-
NIVERSARY’ articles).
Reading through the eighteen Grape-
vines published in 2010, one can learn
a whole lot about some of the issues we
faced at the time, many of which remain
unresolved and continue to haunt us. In
2010, the collapse was still a fresh wound;
financial vultures circled the island hop-
ing to make a deal (or steal), as its tiny
nation attempted to come to terms with
WTF had happened through the SIC re-
port and a constant exchange of ideas. A
clown became mayor, a volcano erupted,
a tourism initiative was launched and a
whole lot of concerts were staged.
It was, mostly, a rather good year.
The magazine got a notable addition
to its writing staff in February of 2010,
when a young student called Anna An-
dersen signed on for a three-month in-
ternship. Anna quickly proved herself
a skilled and attentive writer—so much
in fact that she’s currently Grapevine’s
editor. Her first article was published in
March, and it was certainly an indicator
of the good things to come. Entitled “Ice-
land’s Post-Crash Sale – 30% OFF!” the
article is a thorough investigation of how
the economic collapse had affected the
cost of living on the island that collects
and contextualizes widely available infor-
mation that local journals had refrained
from reporting on. Anna’s first feature
article appeared in issue sixteen, when
she had graduated to the post of full time
journalist.” The Watchdog That Didn’t
Bark” lambastes the Icelandic media for
its ignorance and complacency leading up
to the collapse, and remains an excellent
read.
Issue four of 2010 makes for an inter-
esting read for several reasons. Many of
its articles are sprinkled with references
to “a tourist eruption,” as—at the time
of publication—a small volcanic erup-
tion had started happening by some gla-
cier called Eyjafjallajökull. Volcanologist
James Ashworth contributed an article
that basically explained that we had no
idea what was going on, while A. Rawl-
ing’s review of Peaches concert at NASA
was loaded with volcano references (fun
fact: the volcano started erupting the
night of that concert). It seemed harm-
less and exciting at the time, a small, nice-
ly contained volcanic eruption that would
hopefully serve to lure a few tourists to
the country. Little did we know.
That issue also marked the publica-
tion of one of Grapevine’s most widely
read articles, a gargantuan interview
with musicians Nico Muhly and Jónsi of
Sigur Rós, who had just collaborated on
the latter’s first solo album. Conducted in
Reykjavík’s now sadly defunct secret gay
leather bar with the help of two bottles
of champagne, to a soundtrack of deep-
house and gay porn moaning, Jónsi and
Nico’s conversation is delightful to read,
and contains many golden quotes (“Nico
and Jónsi GO ALL IN!”—Issue 4, 2010).
By issue five, the Eyjafjallajökull
eruption had transformed to a giant clus-
terfuck that severely disrupted air travel
all over the world and had drunk Scots-
men proclaiming loudly on global news
networks that they hated Iceland. Still,
human lives were never really in danger,
and in an attempt to cheer people up and
draw attention to the good things that
were happening with a cover that an-
nounced: “SUNNY SIDE UP!”(MAYBE
USE COVER OF ISSUE 5 HERE).
Our main eruption article, again by
volcanologist James Ashworth, gleefully
asked: “WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, EU-
ROPE?” We had some nice eruption pic-
tures spread through the issue, but the
most important story of the month as far
as we were concerned was the publication
of the SIC report, where the reasons for
the economic collapse were outlined and
examined. The report was a gargantuan
one, and we did our best to report its find-
ings and Icelanders’ feelings about them,
even asking philosopher Vilhjálmur Ár-
nason (who oversaw the report’s chapter
on ethics) whether Icelanders were an
“inherently immoral nation” (the answer:
mayyyybe?). The SIC report was an im-
pressive feat, and it bears remembering.
English speakers interested in the reports
findings are advised to read over our fea-
ture about it for a hint or two.
It was a pretty eventful time, all in
all. Issue six saw two courses of events
start to unfold that would eventually turn
into some of 2010’s most pertinent news-
stories. The first appeared in the form
of a short note from singer Björk Gu!-
mundsdóttir, where she challenged “the
government of Iceland to do everything
in its power to revoke the contracts with
Magma Energy that entitle the Canadian
firm complete ownership of HS Orka.”
This marked the beginning of Björk’s
very public war against the selling off of
Iceland’s nature, which we reported in de-
tail. The rest of 2010 saw Björk—among
other things—engage in a spirited ex-
change of words with Magma CEO Ross
Beaty through Grapevine’s website, orga-
nizing a karaoke marathon at the Nordic
House in support of the cause and talk-
ing about her passion for nature preserva-
tion among other things in an exclusive
feature interview with Grapevine (see
for instance issue 10, “Björk Speaks Up
On Magma Again,” issue 11, “Postcards
From The Edge,” “Grand Old Aunt Björk”
and issue 12, “An Army Of Us”)
The other story is that of how come-
dian Jón Gnarr managed to become
the mayor of Iceland’s only proper city
through a campaign that was initially
written off as a poorly thought out joke. It
could be argued that Grapevine’s feature
interview with Jón in issue six (“What Are
You Voting For, Reykjavík?”) was the me-
dia’s first attempt to go beyond the joke
and take Jón’s campaign seriously—in-
deed, it was considered so revelatory at
the time that someone even went to the
trouble of translating it to Icelandic for
further dissemination among non-Eng-
lish speakers. In the interview, Jón ex-
plains where he’s coming from, expresses
his disdain for most if not all of Iceland’s
institutions (“They are all dead.”) and
calls for cultural revolution. We inter-
viewed Jón again after he had won (issue
7, “He Really Did It”) and a few issues lat-
er we debuted the mayor’s “WELCOME
TO REYKJAVÍK” address to tourists,
which made its way around the world a
few times over as word started spreading
about Iceland’s comedian mayor.
Three years after his joke campaign,
Jón Gnarr remains mayor, and his Best
Party is currently the highest polling
party in Reykjavík. Time will tell if Jón
will run again for mayor in the coming
municipal elections, and whether his bid
will be successful, but in the meantime
it’s safe to say the comedian pulled off
one hell of a joke while appearing more
sensible than most career politicians can
ever hope to be.
Stuff kept happening through the
year, most notably a continuation of the
horrid Icesave dispute and the Constitu-
tional Assembly election, which we re-
ported on at length. It’s all there, on-line,
if you’re interested.
Three Years Ago
Hooray! We turned ten this year. For a humble
street rag like Grapevine, turning ten is a pretty big
deal—we barely expected to make it to ten issues
(and, indeed, all of our contemporaries from the
Reykjavík's street rag market have long since bid
farewell... miss u, Undirtónar!).
To celebrate our decade of existence, we thought
we'd get a little introspective and reprint some choice
articles from the past that are for some reason sig-
nificant, accompanied by commentary and even up-
dates. Call it a "blast from the past" or "a look into the
dark cauldron of time" if you want to—we call it fun.
Thus, for ten issues, expect a page dedicated to a year
of Grapevine's existence, starting one issue ago, with
a look back into magical 2003.
This issue is a look at 2010, Haukur S. Magnús-
son's second year as editor. Read on from some re-
flections from the man!
Remembering 2010
— By Haukur S. Magnússon
34The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 15 — 2013