Iceland review - 2012, Blaðsíða 6

4 ICELAND REVIEW
More than a millennium separates Egill
Skallagrímsson and Sigurður Pálsson.
Both are poets, the works of both have
been translated by Bernard Scudder, and both are
big players in Icelandic culture, then and now.
Has Icelandic culture changed through the centu-
ries?
When he was seven, in the year 917 AD, during
winter games, Egill drove an axe into ten-year-old
Grímur’s head, killing him instantly. When he re-
turned home his father was indifferent but his
mother, Bera, said he had the makings of a true Vi-
king. His response;
My mother said
I would be bought
a boat with fine oars,
set off with Vikings,
stand up on the prow,
command the precious craft,
then enter port,
kill a man and another.
Today, as they did one thousand years ago, our
skalds write poems about our everyday life. Here is a
recent one by Sigurður Pálsson.
There is almost nothing missing
from my house
almost nothing
the chimney´s missing
That grows on you
The walls are missing
and the pictures from the walls
Take that as it is
But it´s cosy, my house
Please
There´s not much missing
from my house
The chimney´s missing
It won´t smoke in the meanwhile
The walls are missing
and the windows
and the door
What is missing in this issue of Iceland Review is the
killings, but we have the Monsters in OMAM. We
have the culture. Lots of it. We tell you about the
new book, Icelandic Poetry. We look at the latest fash-
ion designers, and we talk to two strong women, the
visual artist / perfume designer Andrea Maack, and
the head of the Iceland Design Centre, Halla Hel-
gadóttir. Photographer Áslaug Snorradóttir shows us
some new food designs. We have music, films, and
even more films, and we talk about some serious
stuff with our new Minister of Finance, Social Dem-
ocrat Oddný Harðardóttir. Not to forget the über
designer of words, writer Einar Már Guðmundsson.
His new essay, “The Story of the Long Cake,” is
funny and political. Perhaps he is the last commu-
nist, a good balance to our story on the last capitalist,
Róbert Guðfinnson, an international entrepreneur
who is turning his interest to the place where he
grew up, Iceland ś northernmost town, Siglufjörður.
So this number of Iceland Review includes no killings,
but poetry, design, economics, more design, film,
politics, and some lone rocks on a pebble beach. And
some welcome wind. Welcome and Bon Voyage to
planet Iceland.
Páll Stefánsson
ps@icelandreview.com
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whole or in part without the permission of the publisher. ISSN 0019-1094. Iceland Review (ISSN:0019-1094) is published quarterly
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Printed in Iceland by Oddi
Killing, Culture, the
Capitalist and the
last Communist
EDITOR
Páll Stefánsson
DEPUTY EDITOR &
fEATUREs EDITOR
Ásta Andrésdóttir
DEsIGN
Erlingur Páll Ingvarsson
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERs
Ann Sass
Bjarni Brynjólfsson
Benedikt Jóhannesson
Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir
Höskuldur Daði Magnússon
Jóhannes Benediktsson
Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir
CONTRIBUTING
PhOTOGRAPhERs
Áslaug Snorradóttir
Geir Ólafsson
Páll Kjartansson
WEB EDITOR
Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir
COPY EDITOR
Ann Sass
PRODUCTION
Erlingur Páll Ingvarsson
COLOR PRODUCTION
Páll Kjartansson
ADVERTIsING sALEs
Helga Möller
COVER PhOTO
Páll Kjartansson
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