Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.03.2016, Blaðsíða 6

6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 3 — 2016
Tel: +354 511 2600 · info@bustravel.is · bustravel.is
ALL
SEASON
S!
Glacier Lagoon
Jökulsárlón
– Day tour –
This great tour takes us along the impressive south
shore of Iceland to the extraordinary Glacier Lagoon.
Availability . . . . . . Saturdays
Pick up starts . . . . 07:00am
Duration . . . . . . . . 14 hours
Price . . . . . . . . . . . 18.900 ISK
I C E L A N D 4 D U M M I E S
A Poem By Bryndís Björgvinsdóttir
English Today
with Melvyn Bragg
The other day I heard a gentleman
at a movie theatre
say to the clerks:
“A poke and some cockporn, please!”
This is incorrect.
One should say:
“A coke and some popcorn, please!”
I repeat:
“The moviegoer special, please.”
A POEM BY is curated by Grapevine’s
poetry liaison, Jón Örn Loðmfjörð
This issue's track is by gloomy newcom-
ers to the scene, Antimony. The mini-
malist bass and retro synth may have the
semblance of being jolly, but under the
surface there are sombre depths. Singer
Rex Beckett says the lyrics are an ode to
the mundanity of the mid-twenties and
the accompanying sense of displacement
when you are "young, single, broke, and
drunk." The single is off of their debut al-
bum, ‘Wild Life’, which hits the streets
this summer, just before they warm up
for Sigur Rós at the Citadel Festival in
London! Yeah, you read that right!
Head to gpv.is/toti01 to download the
song for free and check out the totally
sweet music video they made for it.
Figures
Don't Lie
98%
The percentage
of Icelanders who
believe that texting
while driving is
dangerous and
wrong.
The number of prison
escapes in Iceland so
far this year
The
number of
bottles of
water you
need to
buy while
staying in
Iceland.
There's no
english word for:
TRACK OF
THE ISSUE
Antimony
“Derelicte”
Svefngalsi is the kind of giddy hyper-
ness you get from a lack of sleep, and
is constructed from “svefn” (sleep, the
noun) and “galsi” (exuberance). The
closest English equivalents are “punch
drunk” and “slap happy”, although
these do not necessarily refer to the
same things svefngalsi does.
Used in a sentence: “Hef verið á
skrifstofunni í alla nótt og er nú með
svefngalsa.” (“I have been at the office
all night and now I have svefngalsi.”)
35%

The percentage of
Icelanders who admit
that they text while
driving
Svefn-
galsi
Inhabitants in the Westfjords often catch
sight of an animal emerging from the sea
and onto the shore. Some believe it to be a
sea otter, but the locals refer to it, as pre-
viously mentioned, as a shore laddie. They
say that its size and shape resembles that
of sheep. The shore laddie is most often
seen on land during the breeding season
of the ewes, allegedly to serve as their ram.
It is said that when ewes frequent shores
where a short laddie has been spotted, un-
usully many deformed lambs, resembling
the shore laddie in appearance, are subse-
quently born. Many accounts support this,
including this one:
One early winter evening in Bjarnar-
höfn by Breidafjordur, six men went out to
see whether missing sheep had returned to
the farm. They observed something mov-
ing by the shed and rushed to grap hold
of the sheep and take it inside. When they
came closer they realised that this was no
sheep. They formed a circle around the
creature which then took off towards the
sea, pursued by the men, including my
narrator. It ran as quickly as a dog and es-
caped into the ocean. It had a short, round
head but otherwise resembled a dog rather
than sheep. It had a hump on its back and
jumped frequently as it ran.
- Sigfús Sigfússon, Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og
sagnir V, bls 96.
Our "Monster of the Month"
is a spin off of 'Dúldýrasafnið',
"The Museum of Hidden Be-
ings," by artist Arngrímur Sigurðsson. Arngrímur delved
into Iceland´s sprawling mythological history, taking crea-
ture encounters from across the centuries and bringing
them to life through painting in an act of creative cryp-
tozoology. The book is available to buy at bookstores, or
Fjörulabbi
Shore Laddie