we demand a borda count

Jingoism and patriotism by-proxy upstaging message and entertainment value aside in voting (see previously) for the grand prix winner of the Eurovision song contest aside—Italy (see also) made a surprise showing for first place with a fine and enthusiastic homage to glam rock—the juxtaposing shots (and tribute) to the audience assembled for the party in Rotterdam were in keeping with original spirit of the spectacular meant to harmonise broadcast linkages across the continent. The pictured artist is the talented Norwegian performer called by his stage name TIX as an acknow-ledgement that he has overcome Tourette’s syndrome—which I misheard at first as duet syndrome.  Though at first seeming premature and irresponsible to allow such gatherings as we continue to beat back the pandemic, it was revealed that the volunteer revellers were taking part in a hopefully safe and scientifically sound experiment to see if and how large scale events could be held securely with no outbreaks and danger to public health.  Among our  favourites was Iceland’s entry Daði & Gagnamagnid—which was unable to play live in the hall after one band member tested positive for COVID—with Ten Years.

digital minoritization

In a valiant effort to save their native language from obsolescence by the dominance of English not just as a global lingua franca but also as the default of technology and media within and without their horizons, a middle-school class in Reykjavík paradoxically represents both the cause of Icelandic’s endangerment but also its potential salvation. As savvy and confident as the students are in global English (there are far more so called non-native speakers than those that live in the UK and former colonies that Indians and Icelanders have as much claim as Australians and Americans) they couldn’t conceive of an Iceland without Icelandic and are training, at the urging of their teacher, to recite, to incant, the Prose Edda, the epic of Snorri Sturluson to their laptops and tablets, in order that one day—eventually—the computer answers back, in Icelandic, and save the language from stafrænn dauði, digital death.

matronym or organised kaos

The regulatory body in Iceland, Kynhlutlausa—the national naming authority (see also), in addition to approving the names Ingaló, Sanný, Gulla, Róma, Bertmarí, Estíva, Gulla, Lucas, Theo and Søren has also enacted previously passed legislation that restricts names to specific genders and allows neutral assignment and can give themselves whatever name they choose. Some resistance circulated due to grammar and standard Icelandic orthography but such differences can be set aside.

7x7

gerontologists hate them: two Florida women disguise themselves as “grannies” hoping to get vaccinated sooner—via the New Shelton/Wet-Dry 

the sleeping sharks of isla mujeres: Jaws-inspired speedo-fest that’s a favourite of Quentin Tarantino

orchestral manoeuvres in the dark: thirty-five years on, the soundtrack to Pretty in Pink is timeless

a searchlight productions: find actors, colours, objects in movies—try kitten, fox or cheese, via Waxy  

a working-class hero is something to be: an obsessive photographic provenance of every figure featured on the Sgt Pepper’s album cover—see also here and here 

it gettu betur each time you watch the clip: gentleman on Icelandic quiz show responds poorly to losing ruling against his answer 

covax, co-pay: prices per vaccine paid globally varies widely, often not representative of purchasing-power

mánasteinn

We always enjoy—albeit too often only vicariously and not as active readers who’ve done the assignment beforehand—listening to episodes of the BBC World Book Club and are usually drawn in, intrigued to add a new title to the pile, by a thoroughgoing discussion that some might call spoilers but strike me more as insights from the author. A recent instalment featuring poet, lyricist and novella-writer Sigurjón “Sjón” Birgir Sigurðsson, sometimes collaborator with The Sugarcubes and Björk and his now very timely 2013 work Mánasteinn: drengurinn sem aldrei var til (Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was) about identity, otherness and escapism through cinema in Reykjavík just as the nation is granted independence and the island is visited by the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Visit the link up top to listen to the programme and learn what’s next on their reading list.

dagur íslenskrar tungu

Celebrated annually since 1996 with accolades presented to the individual or group that has significantly contributed to the language, the Day of the Icelandic Language was picked for this date in honour of the poet, naturalist and independence activist Jónas Hallgrímsson (*1807 – †1845). Clerk to the sherrif of Reykjavík and studying for the bar, Jónas later went to metropolitan Copenhagen to complete his law degree but instead found himself far more enamoured with literature and natural sciences and so switched his focus of study, writing poems and founding a patrotic newsletter, Fjölnir, that argued for autonomy and promoted the native language of the island, based on Old Norse with little outside influence. Dividing his time between Denmark and Iceland, Jónas died of blood poisoning, aged thirty-seven, having slipped on a flight of stairs going up to his apartment. Let’s lighten the mood and build your vocabulary with the way the language forms new terms at the link here, cutely illustrated by Eunsan Huh.

frumskrik

Whilst the great wide open spaces of Iceland are even less peopled with visitors from abroad than usual and recognising the therapeutic, cathartic effect that a good scream (especially since public displays of terror are being discouraged) into the void can have, one of the country’s tourists’ boards have installed loud-speakers and live webcams in various pristine, remote spots around the island that will release one’s frustrations into the wilderness. One can also sample the anguished wails submitted by others at the website plus find links to more resources and coping methods—aside from primal scream therapy—for those in distress and those simply needing to de-stress.

9x9

toccata und fuge in d-moll: table settings scatter and repair to Bach’s virtuoso piece

tapón del darién: the gap in the Pan American Highway that may never be bridged

hording: USA buys up all available stock of a drug treatment for COVID-19, leaving none for the rest of the world—unclear whether it is an effective intervention, via Super Punch

double-decker: panoramic people mover designed for physical distancing

dr-dr-draugur: Icelandic utility company contracts an exorcist (see previously) to clear neighbouring farmstead of ghosts

we’d call them farmers’ markets: the indispensable role of China’s “wet markets” in food logistics and how they’re unfairly stigmatised

afrofuturism: Sun Ra’s syllabus from a 1971 UC Berkley “African American Studies” course

oppression of scale: a gallery of evocative large construction projects

various artists: another look at the New Age anthology Pure Moods, via The Morning News

blóðhundageng

Though there are numerous studies showing that our canine friends and others endowed with a super sense of smell can in fact be trained to sniff out diseases prior to the emergence of other signs or symptoms, we don’t know what to yet make of the extraordinary claim from the businesswoman and former First Lady (forsetafrúin) of Iceland, Dorrit Moussaieff (married to past president, the long-serving Ólafur Ragnar Grímmson), that her dog can detect COVID-19 and hopes to repatriate her pet to help at home. Ms Moussaieff was herself incapacitated with what turned out to be a fortunately mild case of the viral infection earlier in the year and believes that this ordeal helped hone Samson’s skills. Samson (not pictured but surely all good dogs) incidentally is not a stranger to the press, himself being a clone of Moussaieff’s beloved pet Sámur.

6x6

colours of the world: Crayola crayons launch a special pigment pack to capture the diverse skin tones of people around the world—since fortunately the vast majority is not this

farringdon folly: the real life landmarks that informed and inspired (see also) JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth

a typographical sirloin: visual mondegreens (see previously here and here) resulting from the keming—er, kerning of certain letter combinations

service à la française: the history and possible future of buffet-style dining (relatedly)

ultraflex: a futuristic Icelandic boogie band at the intersection of disco and Soviet-era calisthenics

where the rubber meets the road: tyre add-on device collects worn and shredded detritus before it goes into the environment

aðgerðargaffli

Codenamed Operation Fork, this day in 1940 saw the invasion and subsequent five-year occupation of Iceland by the Royal Navy and Royal Marines intent on denying Nazi Germany its capture or use after Denmark fell. Wanting to maintain neutrality, Iceland rebuffed overtures by the UK to join the Allies and was seized with military means unamicably at first though no violence ensued, the initial force encountering no resistance when they landed at Rekyjavík.
Aside from its strategic location in the north Atlantic, before declaring itself a Republic—the referendum taking place whilst still under occupation (the Canadians and then the US, still officially neutral, took over operations) in 1944—the island nation remained in personal union with its former metropolitan, the Kingdom of Denmark, and had had its defences and diplomacy managed by the Danes. The social upheaval and extensive development of purpose-built infrastructure made the years of the mandate hard ones for many Icelanders and there was little evidence that the Nazis had designs on the island, believing it too difficult to hold and the lack of roads and resources made it not a tempting prospect. In response to Operation Fork, planners drew up Unternehmen Ikarus for a later take-over after the Allies finished fortifying Iceland but was never realised.

yngismeyjardagur

According to the old Icelandic calendar’s reckoning, the first Thursday after 18 April marks the first day of the month of Harpa, Sumardagurinn fyrsti, a public holiday—the beginning of the Náttleysi (nightless) time.  Meteorological projections for this season happen to align with folk beliefs that project that summer will be a mild one should there not be a freeze on the night before.

treehugger

From BBC’s Monitoring desk, we appreciated this rejuvenating, restorative suggestion from the senior ranger of Iceland’s largest forest, Hallormsstadur, in the eastern part of the island that one go, safely, out and embrace a tree, really savouring the connection and letting it support one and draw strength from it. Not all of us might have the woods at our doorsteps but I think all of us are lucky enough to have a tree at hand.

6x6

kórsafn: Björk collaborates with an technology company to produce background music that changes with the weather and seasons

de arte gymnastica: Ask the Past prescribes an exercise regimen from a 1560 volume

8½: a centenary celebration of filmmaker Federico Fellini

langmuir waves: a sonic sample of the solar winds

blogoversary: Boing Boing enters its third decade for the second time (see also about its earlier incarnation)

godunov, badenov: the Russian succession crisis and the curious case of the false Dmitris

how to teach your cat to do tricks: uncovering the art studio behind WikiHow‘s signature illustrations, via Super Punch

kelpies

We very much appreciated the introduction to the decorative rarity found in Japan and northern Europe but can be cultivated and cared for at home, sort of like Sea Monkeys but a lot more genuine, I think, called a marimo moss ball. Also known as mossimo (マリモ), a Cladophora or lake ball, it’s a bit of a misnomer as it's a particular growth formation—a colony, of a fresh-water algae called Aegagropila linnæi. The organisms will assume this globular cluster particularly in Iceland, Scotland, Ukraine (see also) and colder lakes in Japan but are increasingly endangered in the wild due to poaching. Protection efforts and due diligence on the part of collectors are helping to ensure that one can purchase a kit from sustainable sources.

brauðklefinn

Sensitive to the huge problem of food waste, an enterprising bakery in Iceland has installed a superannuated telephone booth on its premises in which to deposit the leftovers from the end of the day and offer them for sale to late-comers on a trust system at a deeply discounted price. Local patrons are delighted with the idea of being able to get fresh breads afterhours and help reduce what would otherwise end up in landfills. I hope more small businesses might take a cue from this bakery and invest in the honour and integrity of shoppers and right-sizing production.

fire and i.c.e.

Though ultimately denied her alibi to skip out on a visit with Trump’s viceroy but not because liberal-Green prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir changed her itinerary and rather the US mission did shift their schedule from today to tomorrow rather than perpetuate another diplomatic gaffe, the Reykjavík Grapevine reports, Pence coming to Iceland following additional investment does yet put the country in an awkward position, the understudy being rather antithetical to everything that Iceland has come to embrace and stands for and steals the spotlight and upstages Trump himself regarding some issues. There’s sure to be protests whether the US is successful in making vassals out of Europe’s fringes or not, so stay tuned.

okjökull

Via My Modern Met, we learn that a group of scientists and activists from Rice University in the course of producing a documentary called “Not Ok” chronicling the loss of Iceland’s first glacier (Ok for short) in Borgarfjörður have created a memorial plaque and missive to the future, our judges whether we did what was needed to save the others.
Not only does it eulogise this tragic first slippage for the island that won’t be its last and the consequences of a catastrophic, runaway climate change. The plaque is to be installed 18 August and makes note of the atmospheric CO₂ count in parts per million, which might become a novel way to date events.

time to make the doughnuts

Having famously unyoked itself from one fast-food giant several years back—with the artefacts to prove it—one doughnut (kleinuhringjum) chain has already come and gone and now with a second one to follow, having grossly over-estimated the market demand in Iceland.
I hope that this trend continues and such invasive, unnecessary operations kindly remove their toe-hold in train stations and the high street in cloying hopes of being seen and establishing brand loyalty. Placeholder-boutiques, having dispensed with initial curiosity if the appeal was ever there much less sustaining, are a huge drag on resources and real estate that could be put to much better use.

re-logisting

Apparently realising announced intentions to re-occupy the naval station and air base made in 2017 returned to the Icelandic Defence Forces in September of 2006, US military budget allocations indicate that America will begin work on bringing Keflavík (previously here and here) back under its control. The extension of the civilian airport currently operated as a NATO base and host to American trans-Atlantic traffic, the US wants to rebuild and expand neglected infrastructure and establish a modern toehold in the between continents. The revelation is subject to controversy and contention in the Alþingi.