Sigur Rós - Viðrar vel til loftárása

Good weather for airstrikes.  
The music doesn't have anything to do with the title, but the story behind it is that some TV weatherman noted the Icelandic happy blue sky weather one day was "good weather for airstrikes," referencing the on-going war in Bosnia. One of those quotes that'll never be forgotten. It impresst Sigur Rós enough to make it a song title.

 

Viðrar vel til loftárása (view in YouTube) 

Viðrar vel til loftárása is a disturbing track on their album Ágætis Byrjun and I can't get enough of it. It's incredibly sad, the lap steel guitar crying. Play an electric guitar with a cello bow with some elbow and really create screaming angry and strange discord. After absolute silence and no words and being resigned that today, nothing's really going to change, we ride high on illusions of having it all, which shatter and crash down like skyscrapers, and life feels like two steps forward and ten back, and failing dreams make life just shit, and feeling that the only thing God created worth anything is a tomorrow, that's hope that's harmoniously reassuring and discordantly not at all. That's really why the piano bass drums bowed guitar string quartet lap steel guitar can start to play peace beautifully harmonic and it sneaks up on you and it's now frenetic and dissolved into something insane anxious beautifully discordant. I don't understand it, but it's beautiful anyway. That tomorrow business, I've no faith in it, so Viðrar vel til loftárása is good weather for hopelessness. But, Benjamín, it ends so beautifully… Yeah, but I've forever woken up on left foot… (to shamelessly misquote a friend). How Sigur Rós has made discord sound so amazing and joyous, well, I don't understand that either. 

I spent a lot of enjoyable hours over many many weekends this past winter, putting together this music video, clips from my trip to Iceland and clips of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption, to back the full 10 minutes of the track.  When Sigur Rós plays Viðrar vel til loftárása live, there is always a long pause, a silence, a prayer, after we had a dream, we had it all.... so, I've inserted the pause from their Heima concert, in Reykjavík 2006. 

I allow myself to translate the last line as the best thing God has created is a tomorrow.  Literally, it's a new day. But in English, a tomorrow has the poetic of a sometime in the future one can look forward to, to a time when things might be different, that in English, a new day doesn't quite do.  It's practically the only line that can be translated literally. So I didn't.

In an Iceland-shaped box

I spent the past weekend in Madison Wisconsin, I love the city on the lakes, and the summer before last I had a great time taking sailing lessons every time I was up there for pathology training. Gram stains and starboard tack.

This trip however was to hear an Ásgeir concert.

On my Landmannalaugar trip, on the jeep stereo was Ásgeir's new album Dýrð í dauðaþögn (Glory in dead silence), and it's quite popular in Iceland.

He's since released another album In the Silence, of the songs all sung in English and this Madison concert was a mix of both. He's a lot more comfortable singing in Icelandic and it's beautiful to hear it in Icelandic anyway.

I wore my lopapeysa cardigan stroke hoodie! and at least one person knew it for what it was, and she walkt right up to me to say it was beautiful. Of course a beautiful blonde around my age is certainly welcome to say as much, or just talk about the weather even. We talkt about my recent trip, the geology and my weekend on Heimaey, where her husband was from and knew all about the Eldfell disaster, but I really wasn't that interested about hearing it first-hand and was glad she could never get his attention and have him join our conversation...

There were actually quite

a few people at the concert that spoke Icelandic natively. That surprised me.

Ásgeir admits he's always been into Nirvana (Cobain had already left us when Ásgeir was born) and his cover of Heart-Shaped Box was slow and incredibly sad and perfect:

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak

I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks
I've been drawn into your magnet tar-pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Hey! Wait!
I've got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey! Wait!
I've got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Hey! Wait!
I've got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice

Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet

Cut myself on angel's hair and baby's breath

Broken hymen of your highness I'm left black

Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back

 Hey! Wait!

I've got a new complaint

Forever in debt to your priceless advice

Hey! Wait!

I've got a new complaint

Forever in debt to your priceless advice

Hey! Wait!

I've got a new complaint

Forever in debt to your priceless advice

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
I've been lockt inside your heart-shaped box for weeks
I've been drawn into your magnet tar-pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Hey! Wait!

I've got a new complaint

Forever in debt to your priceless advice

Hey! Wait!

I've got a new complaint

Forever in debt to your priceless advice

Hey! Wait!

I've got a new complaint

Forever in debt to your priceless advice

Heart-Shaped Box

Still unpackt

Really wasn't joking with Eddie about not being unpackt from my trip, two months after, my two suitcases remain on the floor at the front door, a catastrophe, but yes, I'm still unpackt.  All my geology souvenirs are still shoved down woolen socks that I'm going to need pretty soon too.  So get on with it.

Somewhere in those suitcases is an Icelandic woolen hat that he'd suggested (any multitude of times) I find for him, but when Eddie reminds me enough that it's becoming like nagging, I'm not fusst about scrounging around in them at all.

When I find it, I was wondering then if the reason I procrastinated was, perhaps this hat would look good on me? or he's simply undeserving. 

Then I find that I really don't look good in it.  Ouch. Take that off, Benjamin.

Yeah, Eddie sends me these übercool pictures after I've finally did go through the suitcase and present him with the present.  "I look pretty fly" is the caption for these selfies, but they're his words, not mine.  It's undoubtedly some teen-speak about being übercool.  Superfly.


05/20/2015  Still unpackt. Might as well prepare for another vacation there.

Hvar? á Íslandi? in Iowa City?

Hvar? á Íslandi? in Iowa City?

Where am I? In Iceland? in Iowa City?

Sky is gray, a uniform gray.  CHECK.

Trying-to-rain rain.  CHECK.

Slightly, but only just, chilly.  CHECK.

Desperately needing coffee as everyone is.  CHECK.

This is my last post on my trip to Iceland, meaning, I'm back in Iowa City (not however, I'm home) and this'll be my last Embers and Meltwater post.  Last in that since I'm back, there'll be no adventures to write about in the future sense.

Only an acknowledgement page ought be added.

However, there're a lot of adventures and photographs and videos I need to catch up on and post, and they'll be inserted somewhere in that timeline in Iceland.  If you're following along, you'll get those posts or notification emails.  If not, check back.  I've been told the photographs I've taken were amazing.  (Thanks, Rolf, for the use of your Nikon; it made quite a difference!!)

I visited Ingólfshöfði, an isolated cape on the south coast of Iceland.  Here Viking Ingólfur Arnarson first discovered Iceland, ~871 CE.  Most Icelanders are Celtic stock (Irish), as I am, and a strong case can be made that I'm related :-).  My proper Icelandic patronymic is Benjamín Ingólfsson, of which I'm quite proud ;-)  Why I'm confused, am I back home?, or just back in Iowa City?....

 

Takk...

Very Special Thanks...

Rolf Turk
Steven Berge
Carey Schillig
Martina and Jón Tómasson, airbnb.is, Norður-Hvammur, Vík

Helen María Bjornsdóttir, localguides.is, Hofsnes
Björg Árnadóttir, Bjarni Guðmundsson, & Bríet Rún Ágústsdóttir, siadv.is, Hvolsvöllur

and many thanks also to

Marcia Bellendier
Eddie Etsey
Magnús Svein, bluecarrental.is, Keflavík
Jóhann Halldórsson, airbnb.is, Reykjavík

Seltjarnarness Sundlaug, Suðurstönd

Vesturbæjarlaug, Hofsvallagata
Sundlaug, Vík
Sundlaug Hafnar, Höfn
Halldór Bjarnason, Lilián Pineda, & Flavio from Catania, fljostunga.is, Reykholt
Ingi Þór Jónsson, Heilsustofnun NLFÍ, Hveragerði
Marta, mountainguides.is, Skógar
Trausti Ísleifsson and Guðmann Ísleifsson, hólasport.is, Kirkjubæjarklaustur
Skaftafell Visitor's Centre
Matthildur Unnur Þorsteinsdóttir, localguides.is, Hofsnes
Pakkhús Restaurant, Höfn
Sigurður Ólafsson, Stafafell Guesthouse, Lónsöræfi
Jónas "Jonni" G Sigurðsson, mountainguides.is, Skaftafell
Georg Hólm, Sigur Rós
Ólafía Kristjánsdóttir, Reykjavík Ink, Frakkastígur, Reykjavík
Handprjónasamband Íslands, Reykjavík
Súfistinn bokkakaffi, Laugarvegur, Reykjavík
Tíu dropar, Laugarvegur, Reykjavík

Tíu Dropar

Tíu Dropar

My last day in Reykjavík, my last day in Iceland, was going to be low-key, I had no choice in that matter.  I have to admit, I was exhausted.  I didn't want to think about I'm leaving in the morning.  I didn't want to leave and I was too exhausted to think I'm leaving in the morning.

I'd arrived by air back to the capital in the later morning, from Vestmannaeyjar, refresht and not hung over from excess, clear-headed from an early walk on the docks that were all clean and washt down, or so I thought, since there was missing the rank of a fishing port, a familiar smell, and a smell I wouldn't have turned me off; the sea has a smell, and (I cannot believe this opportunity has been laid in my lap, I get to quote that, apropos of nothing) every port has its own name for the sea.  Vestmannaeyjar's name for the sea is what?  Someone write and let us all know.

I'd say the the town was quiet asleep still this morning except that's how it was in mid-afternoon yesterday; like a Sunday.  Today is Sunday.  I counted the pairs of shoes in the hall before I left the guesthouse and they added up to no scores, explaining the good night's sleep.  Let's not temper the reputation of Þjóðhátíð though. I hoped, for the teenagers' sakes, that the festival was not a bust for them.  Dan hit it on the nail, Oh the hormones.  I could've given up a some of a bit of good night's sleep if it meant oh god, at least someone's happy tonight.  I did have ear plugs.

At the docks I caught sight of the Norwegian church donated to the town after The Catastrophe.  I was about to walk over and confirm it was one of those rough-hewn timber churches, and for a small congregation, and the timber again and again over the years painted in tar to prevent rot.  As I'd seen in Norway as a boy.  I was about to wander over and check it out, and then decided, it was just too far to get there.  About two blocks.

---

Gray on gray

I'm in Reykjavík in the late morning, and it was busier, but tourist busier.  I took a seat at the window of a restaurant across from Hallgrímskirkja.  The cathedral is the landmark of the city.  If its not apparent, the Icelandic architect Guðjón Samúelsson used a very Icelandic organic aspect of the land to design it.  The facade of the church mimics the basalt columns found near everywhere.  Well done.  I'm reminded that there is a Sunday afternoon organ concert series, which I was keen to go to, now ambivalent about. 

Down Skólavörðustígur I passt an art gallery with strange Aggie Zed - like figures hanging in the window.  (I was glad they were closed.) 

On Laugarvegur I found my favorite café again, Súfistinn kaffihús and bookstore, to hang out in, I go because it's like an old friend.  I have no plans.  And don't intend to.  The address is Laugarvegur 18, Reykjavík 101. The "101" is an important point. It's the "in" zip code to live in, here in Reykjavík.  The café is a bookstore (bóka+kaffi), but I've only bought coffee or CDs.  (I saw a movie called Reykjavík 101, at Bíó Paradís. I, eh, well, never got into it but stayed because it had so many stars.  I thought the way his musings about committing suicide was revolting and offensive, not funny.  I did hope they'd give the nameless baby's name "Pepsi".)  The barista remembers my having a lattè breve before, which he gladly put together again, and meanwhile I lookt it up in Wiki and was shockt to find it an entirely American invention, not Italian at all.  This isn't a complaint. (It's a lattè but made with Half-and-Half, not milk.)

I wrote a bit on some blog page that wasn't this one and on a last postcard I discovered addresst and with a stamp, but no personalized tailored story written on it.  On my list of addresses, everyone else had an "X", which, eh, doesn't mean anything does it?

I went to the concert when I noticed I had five minutes to get there and it was a 5 minute walk.  For some oblivious reason, I thought it would be a free concert. About the concert, and this is entirely a reflection of me, not the cathedral, its organ or its guest organist from France, ok, maybe because he was French had something to do with it, but as soon as the music began, I lost interest and couldn't follow the sound or the nuances of 5275 pipes playing and only found myself paying attention only at those last four chords played fortissimo possible e formata.  I don't think I hear it anymore.  Music, that is.  Ok, I'm lying a bit.  The Bach fugue was challenging and I enjoyed figuring it out.  I couldn't not hear the four last chords.  But everything else was a blur, even in the middle of a piece.  I've since come to the conclusion that had Skálmöld ("Lawlessness") played that organ, that heavy metal Viking band at Þjóðhátíð, the concert would've been evil.

I pickt up my luggage from storage, and grunted Barónsstigur Fimm ("5") to the taxi driver.  No please necessary, it's what I require, do it.  I used takk and já and nei a lot, but never please.  It took some time getting used to not saying please.  Note, I've given no translation.  There isn't one.   There's no please in Icelandic.  No please pass the salt, just pass the salt or you reach over the table and get it yourself.  No comment.  (I've reviewed every post on this blog and removed the word wherever I found it.)  Except to now wonder, whenever I used takk, did the Icelander know immediately I was a tourist?  I heard Icelanders use the word, but maybe only to or in the presence of tourists.  For them, maybe it's also an unnecessary word and invented just for us.  They say takk all the time, but don't mean it anymore than when a Brit says I'm sorry, but...  Of course, they must have a phrase for thanks for nothing.  

---

Tíu Dropar Café

Since I did have nice city clothes and shoes, I dresst up for my last evening out and on Laugarvegur I discovered Tíu Dropar, its windows level with the sidewalk, and you step down into the kaffihús slash bar. I thought it a wine bar at first, had it been I'd've found another bar, but I saw the beer bottles.  It's not particularly crowded but will be.  Only one word to describe the bartender, Icelandic, long ash-blonde and wearing a blond fedora:  cool.  I askt about the Borgar brugghúss's bjórum lined up and numbered on a shelf, and ordered a Snorri Íslenska öl, Nr. 10, an Icelandic ale.  I sit at a bar along side the street side, and enjoying looking up at the passing crowds enjoying looking down into the bar.  (It's a thing I've just noticed: I'm in my favorite café this afternoon writing this blog entry, just a few weeks after my visit; my café has a lots of natural light and serves both coffee and beer, and I've just brought back to my table an Iowa Pale Ale....)

At some point, the piped music was shut off, and there was live piano.  Cool. He played covers of familiar tunes and could do so with ease and the flourish of jazz.

After about an hour maybe, I askt the tender if the pianist took requests.  Yes, he did gladly.  So I sat down next to him, and askt if he wouldn't play Your Song by Elton John.  He was excited to, it was a favorite of his, and he'd play it next.  It's a favorite of mine, obviously, and as I sit here writing this, I ask myself why.  It's depressing is the only thing that comes to mind.

Well, he does play Your Song, takk, and I was secretly pleased that of his hour's playing, only one song elicited an applause of clapping.  Your Song.  And it was me that pickt the song!  I've never ever had an audience clap for a song that I was the person who requested the song to be played.  ME!  They were all clapping happily and appreciatively for his playing a song that I askt him to play.  That's just never happened to me before.

I didn't know how I was going to spend my one 1000 krónur note.  (The beers I had were always more than 1000 krónur.  Sigh.)  The entire trip was paid by a new card with the chip, and I only had cash before to pay for the tattoo ("20,000 krónur, in cash") and cash for the beer at Þjóðhátíð ("they'll serve the beer faster").

The piano player sat down with me, and I askt if I couldn't buy him a beer, but a perk of playing there was free beer.  He had a zillion times more talent than I.  Even though I'd studied near 12 years, I never could just sit down and play anything I'd ever heard.  I know I have no ear.  I don't remember anything else about the conversation, but was glad he gave me a few minutes, before he left to mingle with others there.

So what to do with a 1000 krónur note?  On the bar were two tip cups, one for "Better weather" and the other for "Cheaper beer".  I put it into the only cup that the note should go.

I didn't linger past 1 am, I'd had three beers but didn't feel pissed, and was in no hurry, as luggage was packt and I was ready to go, but not really ready to leave.    

Your Song

It's a little bit funny this feeling inside

I'm not one of those who can easily hide

I don't have much money but boy if I did

I'd buy a big house where we both could live

If I was a sculptor, but then again, no

Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show

I know it's not much but it's the best I can do

My gift is my song and this one's for you

And you can tell everybody this is your song

It may be quite simple but now that it's done

I hope you don't mind

I hope you don't mind
 that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you're in the world

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss

Well a few of the verses well they've got me quite cross

But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song

It's for people like you that keep it turned on

So excuse me forgetting but these things I do

You see I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue

Anyway the thing is what I really mean

Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen

And you can tell everybody this is your song

It may be quite simple but now that it's done

I hope you don't mind

I hope you don't mind
 that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you're in the world

I hope you don't mind

I hope you don't mind
 that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you're in the world

Íslenskar Lopapeysur

Íslenskar Lopapeysur

I never gave a serious look at any of the "lopapeysur", these traditional circular-collared Icelandic sweaters found in outlet stores, one on every block of downtown Reykjavík's Laugavegur and Skólavörðustígur streets aka "Wool Street".

I'm unhappy wearing this.

I was so into looking for a perfect "lopapeysa" sweater along "Wool Street", the name Reykjavíkings have humorously christened their Laugavegur and Skólavörðustígur neighborhood, where most stores sell the most wonderful Icelandic sweaters and woollen stuff. I think I spent so much time looking I forgot to eat! (But not enough to forget to drink coffee! Priorities!)

I'm überhandsome. You could try.

I will admit I lookt for a hat, but only by request, not one for myself, and I'll let you know that it was a tedious and time-consuming chore.

I was firstly on the hunt for the perfect hat, not for myself but for someone who really loves hats, and found one right away, but I secretly (shhh!) continued to visit every store that sold woollen sweaters, hats, vests, scarves, blankets, shawls and I wanted them all, even though I was only supposed to be on a hat-hunt. 

Firstly, I shied away because they seemed to me only souvenirs for tourists. Expensive souvenirs for tourists, and I'd never wear one, as none seemed particularly attractive, and all had the one of four or five collar designs. Really? You're exaggerating, Ben. Ok, there were only three or four designs, tops.  Done in gray or white or black or sometimes green. There were pullovers, cardigans, and cardigans with hoodies. A few indistinguishable designs in four colors for three models. The number of the same choices was overwhelming.  Store to store, same to same. Lopa-overload. They really all lookt the same to me, maybe a compromised fusiform gyrus. Didn't anyone but me see this!!??? Every tourist on the street wearing one lookt the same!

THE iconic souvenir! CHECK. I'd already visited a number of countries and came home every time with the perfect souvenir, a Swiss cuckoo clock, a German beer stein, a French dishtowel, a Belgian lace doily, Dutch wooden clogs (also got a Van Gogh poster of Starry Night). CHECK CHECK CHECK CHECK CHECK (CHECK)! These all were laid out proudly in the house but a lopapeysa was going to be different! It was something I could wear and be out in public with, and such a conversation starter it would be! "Yes! I've been to Iceland and was it so cool!" LOL! (Get it? Iceland is cool!) The number of designs! I couldn't keep track and was so lopa-overloaded, I laught so much at myself. And then went and got a coffee to calm down.

My real souvenirs will be obsidian, scoria, pumice, beach flotsam, hot Eldfell gravel, black basalt sands, and very long videos of ocean waves crashing over blue ice and waterfalls shushing loudly. Not bad really. Maybe a bottle of brennivín from duty-free too. A vile aquavit slash schnapps of caraway, aka black death, how morbid is that?  I was served a shot at Pakkhús in Höfn.   Skál.

All those rocks I collected are awesome, because they came from important geologic sites I visited, but they're nothing I can share and expect the same excitement that I have for them. But EVERYBODY loves Icelandic sweaters. I have to find the perfect one. I just love saying the word!  Lopapeysa! 'LOW pah pay sah!  Everybody says to get the other iconic souvenir, a bottle of brennivín, a vile aquavit slash schnapps of caraway, aka black death, how morbid is that? What'm I going to do? Drink it all and put an empty on the shelf? I don't think so.

---

Skip to Þjóðhátíð.  Thousands of Icelanders there (from the papers, 25,000 persons attended in 2014), and I really feel it's nearly tourist-free because at a sing-along part of an evening, I didn't see anyone not singing along. I should mouth along I thought.  Recall that I saw everyone of every age there, families with children and babies in prams, lots of youngsters, lots of older youngsters, lots of couples, lots of grandparents.  And that's lots of singing and only in íslensku.  (It felt weird seeing teenagers belting out the songs that the middle-aged and grandfolk were belting out too.  It's unnatural, that kind of camaraderie amongst ages.)

I'll get to the point, now that I've properly painted a picture of the crowd, the Icelandic crowd: every third person was wearing a lopapeysa.  It's not a costume, it's what you wear on a cold evening.  And apparently, if I've read this correctly, the wool is particular to the island, of two fiber types and together they create a special wool yarn and a sweater that one is quite warm in.  Maybe that does explain why I never saw any Icelander at the festival wearing both a jacket and an sweater, but only the sweater.

Ok, they're überwarm but another explanation is that Icelanders are used to cooler weather 15ºC slash 50ºF is tops. Otherwise it's a heatwave. 0ºC slash 32ºF is bottoms, by the way.  Ok, it's a national bank holiday and they're all celebrating being Icelandic as it began as a national celebration of 1000 years since the Settlement, so they should be wearing lopapeysur.  You can take that view if you tend to be cynical about everything, sure, you're welcome to be.

So. Back in Reykjavík.  I have a revised view of all things woollen.  I'm lucky to come across Handprjónasamband Íslands, that is, The Handknitting Association of Iceland.  Because it's not a boutique store but a catastrophe.   A nightmare if you're looking for something particular, an adventure if you're on a lopa-hunt.

One point to be clear about, these are all hand-knitted. None are really the same size; if it's a size M, try on every size M in the stack, and ask if there are anymore downstairs.  One will be perfect.  I definitely wanted one with a hoodie, so that's a cardigan then.  Size M.  Everyone of one design I really liked did not fit, and neither did the size L of the same.  Then I found one I really liked even more, but it just hung on my body, there was nothing in the bottom hem to keep it snug.  Somewhere in the piles of unsorted and unfolded lopapeysur, was a perfect one with my name on it, it was just a matter of pulling all of a stack out and trying them all on and having someone find another exactly like this size M that I just found downstairs, just in case it fit better.  As there was little care to refold them and restack them, therein the catastrophe.

I'm happy wearing this.

I'm überhandsome, too.

There is one curious thing about lopaspeysur though.  They were first knitted in the 50s.  The 1950s.  They're not an ageless Icelandic traditional.  And the designs, originally from Greenland.

I came home with a lopapeysa and a bottle of brennivín and a lot of rocks and sand and gravel.

Überhandsome.

You don't agree?

Sigh. You still don't agree?