Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.06.2018, Page 72

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LAST WORDS
The Marvelous
And The
Mundane
Words: Sverrir Norland
Photos: Davíð Þorsteinsson
One recent morning, as I was walking my
daughter to daycare, I had, as you do, a fierce
philosophical debate with myself about why
I don’t listen to music anymore. (In two dif-
ferent voices, of course.) While my daughter
was trying to shatter my glasses by throw-
ing them as hard as she could on the trash-
ridden sidewalk—this was taking place in
New York—I reached the conclusion that my
current relationship with music has much
to do with how I generally view the world.
I seem to divide stuff into two categories:
the mundane (almost everything), and the
marvellous (what makes life so wonderful).
So, as a hopeless—or, rather, hopeful—ro-
mantic, I’m always seeking out the magical.
Nice phrases in books, a smart person to
talk to, a new flavour in my food. Something
rare, something marvellous.
When things become ubiquitous, how-
ever, thanks to capitalism, they sort of lose
that magical spark. They become available
to us everywhere, in diluted form, which,
in the case of music, means carrying it all
in your pocket at all times. All the albums
ever recorded are there—except they’re not
really albums anymore. They’re just sounds.
And, since it’s always there—something you
simply switch on like the heat in your apart-
ment—you can always listen to it … later. It’s
not marvellous, not something to seek out.
It’s mundane.
And the poet in me wants serendipity.
Magical scarcity. Struggle. A physical trip to
the record store. A happy find in a friend’s
place: an old record on the shelves. I admit
this; this is who I am.
A lot of people seem to be listening to
music all the time these days: as they com-
mute, work, exercise, party, have sex, fall
asleep … I, however, conduct my life in total
silence. This text—I didn’t listen to any-
thing as I wrote it, except the steady breath-
ing of my sleeping daughter next to me. And
then there’s the glittering melody of sun-
light outside my window; I guess I listened
to that, too.