Today I've been packing because I go to america tomorrow. Here is what I have packed:
I am getting ready to go to my sister's for dinner. My sister is a good cook. it will be a good night. Here is a picture of my sister on a beach in the westfjords last summer, fighting off evil birds with a stick:
The other day I tidied up and organized my room really well because I'm leaving and I'm going to miss my room and don't want it to be sad and messy while I am gone. Then I took pictures of it and told it I would not forget it even if I stopped living in it.
I got 30 facebook comments plus something like 4 phonecalls, 3 myspace comments, 3 text messages, 3 IMs, 1 e-mail and 1 birthday card wishing me a happy birthday.
This is comforting because it means that at least 45 people like me enough, or want me to like them enough, to feel like they should wish me a happy birthday. And maybe that means I can consider myself "nice" or "friendly" or even "popular" or something despite my regular outbursts of antisocial behaviour.
So I guess I'll use this opportunity to thank my friends, and my friends' friends, and my acquaintances for being friendly.
This is what I really wanted for my birthday:
It was also, ofcourse, the only backpack that had sold out in the past 3 days in the only store that carries them in Iceland.
JESUS I AM DYING OF HEAT AND NEED TO REMEMBER HOW TO WRITE DOWN INTERESTING THINGS.
Last night I FINALLY managed to squeeze out a couple of illustration to my Butcher story. I might get paid for these so, you know, I should have done this a month ago. Anyway, I know you probably haven't read the story; I haven't published it here because it was never really meant for the public. I always thought "what are the odds that I'll win this contest. No one will ever see this." But I was wrong and The Butcher will inevitably be published this fall, although only within my school in a small paper from the Vera List Center. And maybe they'll want to put my drawings in it. I'll show you one; this is the little girl with the big dog. They have a short debate in the story about whether she got killed or not. click to view larger.
I heard there was a huricane coming over to visit us here on the southwestern coast of iceland. Judging from the weather outside it is already here. The hurricane's name is Bertha and supposedly it is not dangerous any more. I have a lot of experience living with harmless hurricanes named Bertha. My mother is one. She is a hurricane in the kitchen, for example. The results are delicious.
I think this is very funny, I am simple like that.
Logi and I played a show on friday. Hrafnhildur & Arna had their first and last Eagle vs. Raven show at the Ibiza Bunker gallery. So we played at their opening. lots of people were there. it was kind of fun. kind of nervewracking. mostly nervewracking. But people liked it.
I am empty of stories at the moment. No I'm not. But can't seem to write them down. maybe I need to get out of bed.
There is another polar bear. maybe I should make this a polar bear blog. I will only post when polar bears swim over to iceland.
maybe not. they are keeping this one alive. when they shot the previous bear 12 days ago everyone said "no this was bad. polar bears are endangered. shame on you. we will not kill another one (but we wont have to deal with that because it will be decades until another one swims over)."
WRONG.
as soon as they decided to not kill any more bears the bears heard and now they are all flocking over here to frolic on the northern coast and eat ducks. the north pole is melting. they need a new home. and we have plenty of ducks. the bear is calmly eating ducks on a beach right outside of a farm up north as i write this. tomorrow professional polar-bear-catching-specialists will arrive and catch him and safely take him to greenland where he can calmly eat inuits on icy beaches.
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I still have only one channel and this one channel broadcasts the 2008 European Football championship all day every day. Having no other choice than to watch that, I have become a major football fan. My favorite player is Zlatan Ibrahimowhic on the swedish team because he is the only one I know by name. Ofcourse the best swedish player looks super Jewy.
As for the teams, I am rooting for the Netherlands because their costumes are so amazing. orange shirts, white shorts and BABY BLUE KNEESOCKS.
and ofcourse, both zlatan and the dutch are really fucking good at football.
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I have started to miss new york slightly. New York City is the geographical equivalent of an abusive boyfriend who is really good looking and charming in the beginning but always makes me feel like shit after a couple of months, until i leave him and then some time passes and all of a sudden he looks hot and charming again.
Reykjavík doesn't make me feel like shit, it just makes me feel bored and tired and maybe sad every now and then but mostly bored and tired. and full and happy and rested too. my job just sucks. i pretend that it doesnt but it really does. it just happens to be what i do all day 5 days a week. i will have to pretend for 2 more months. and sell my soul for money.
oh by the way.
New York weather:
Reykjavík weather:
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there is no iceland team competing in the euro 2008 football championship but Icelanders can still play pretty decent football. Yesterday they produced the happiest, gayest football photograph ever anyway. today at work when i wanted to cry and murder i just looked at this photo.
A polar bear swam over to Iceland this morning after hanging out on some ice that was floating around. The polar bear has been shot now. I was hoping they would capture it for our "zoo" but that would probably never happen, unless a baby polar bear decided to swim over. Better to know of a dead polar bear than a hungry live polar bear roaming around in the fog.
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We're still having more earthquakes. And by "we" I mean "those people down south". I can't feel anything. My dad had written an article for the paper that was supposed to be published the day after the big earthquake. The next morning over breakfast he said:
"Typical. The one time in my life I decide to write for the paper they make an earthquake and fill the paper with it to prevent my article form getting printed."
mom: "why aren't you using the right bowls for the oatmeal?"
dad: "there was an earthquake. everything broke. we have no other bowls."
mom: "that's not true. nothing broke. you just didn't do the dishes last night did you..."
dad: "there was an earthquake. I was unable to do the dishes."
Nothing exciting is happening in my life but I will distract you from that thought by writing more about Eurovision.
I was so underwhelmed by the Russian song that won Eurovision that I couldn't even be bothered to tell you about it until now. So yes; the country that formerly ruled over half of all the other countries competing got most of the points, not a huge surprise there. I think there needs to be a Eurovision and then a separate Sovietvision. Sovietvision could fill the stage with as many awkward male figure skaters and babes dressed as demon-strippers as their hearts desired. Obviously sovietvision would be more interesting to watch, but the "old Europe" could also stop being so damn sore and start doing good in their own contest again. Because in a contest centered around bad taste extravaganza, northwestern europe just doesn't stand a chance against the former soviet union.
Anyway, Björg and I had a jolly good time watching, I lost count of how many times I said "what the fuck! Azerbaijan? What is this! they just became a country! They do not even count as a country! No one ever talks about Azerbaijan! What the fuck can possibly be going on there that makes them think up musical performances such as this one?!?! AZERBAIJAN..?"
Azerbaijan got a shitload of points and left me completely speechless. Iceland did not get very many points at all. That's fine because our song was awful, but so were most of the other ones, awful songs being the whole point of this game.
Speaking of songs that didn't win Eurovision, I heard that Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, made their performers pay all of their own expenses as punishment for not getting into the finals. That is some serious harsh shit, and makes me wonder: WHY do they not just send their own amazing Dan Bălan (possibly the only Moldovan person anyone in the rest of the world has heard of) to compete? this song would have kicked eurovision's ass (only made better by the fact that he used to be part of a doom metal band):
My favorite non-winning eurovision song of all time was this Latvian song from 2000.
They did come third so they don't really count as having done badly. However I have here what is possibly the best song to ever come last in the Eurovision song contest. The performers are Telex from Belgium. This took place in 1980, and with it I conclude this entirely unnecessary but entertaining (if only for me) study and discussion of the glorious phenomenon that is the Eurovision Song Contest.
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I work a lot these days at my summer job. At work I play a daily game called "do everything possible to avoid having to sit by the phone and take phone calls from angry sailors." So I've been making skipper certificates, binding books of reports on the financial situation of harbors and putting pieces of paper in envelopes.
I also play a game called "eat something at lunch today that you normally would never eat". So far I have eaten some shrimp, some pork, and giant bright-blue guillemot eggs. or auk eggs, or svarfuglsegg, I think it's all the same in english and you're not going to know which bird i'm referring to so think about penguins. or look at this:
I also play a game called "eat as much as is humanly possible at lunch."
I swam for a while with Björg in our giant local outdoor pool in the magical time that is the late evening sunshine of magical Iceland. Swimming is better when you can wave to your friend under water as you pass each other. I swam until I thought my heart would explode and my lungs would collapse and then we sat in the seawater-pool and now I am soft and clean and lotioned and shiny and exhausted on my bed with my cat.
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That was me trying to make you think that my life is nice.
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And there was an earthquake. The building I work in cracked. I thought I would die for a few seconds. nothing bad happened to me or anyone I know. bad things happened to a lot of people is some towns south or Reykjavík. Some of them don't exactly have real homes anymore. No one died.
"all those picassos and stuff" -on art and animal cruelty
I was going to write a real thing about this but I am too lazy and it is too late so I am just going to paste the (splendid) instant messenger conversation I just with Alex Fitzgerald about the matter. I did edit it for easier reading.
Before you start I want to say: I have my own very firm opinions about what should and shouldn't be done with animals. I'm not going to get into it too much, but if you want to discuss it with me you are welcome. I just want to clarify that I do like dogs. I am just not delusional about them. I also think that hippie americans should leave people who have a tradition of whaling (=iceland (japan, etc.)) ALONE. just wanted to throw that in there. ok here's what i'm talking about:
alxfitzgerald
At the costa rican bienarte, this one artist tied a dog he had found on the street to a wall, and wrote "you are what you read"
in dog biscuits on the other side of the gallery
and then he took pictures of all the people standing there at the opening not doing anything about the dog
and then he let the dog go, but he led the people to believe that it had died
and everyone on the internet has gotten incredibly worked up about it
because people like to pretend they care about things on the internet
Júlía
oh blah
alxfitzgerald
but anyway, I joined the facebook group today, after a 5th invitation
and I stated my opinion in how it was a successful piece, and that too many of the people in this group had gone as far as threatening to kill the artist without doing the proper research to find out that the dog lived, and that while people are investing all their efforts into this one not dead dog, there are thousands of dying dogs no one is thinking about right now. And I also talked about the fact that the petition for this one dog has over 2 million signatures while the petitions against the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of strays in romania didn't even get 20,000
and now I am getting facebook hate mail
Júlía
people can be so hysterical
alxfitzgerald
and seriously, if I read "HE COULD HAVE PAINTED IT OR MADE A SCULPTURE"
one more time
I think I might cry
for all of humanity
Júlía
I want to join the group just so I can tell them they are dumb
and that they probably EAT MISTREATED ANIMALS EVERY DAY
"i feel really bad if the owner had lost the dog and then this guy took it and did that to him. i mean, the dog has to come from somewhere......" -group member
Júlía
they are so stupid.
there are probably more stray dogs than people over there. like in so many other places. they just hang out in the street and suffer and starve.
alxfitzgerald
I KNOW
also, I love the ones who are like “I JUST WANT TO GO OVER TO THE GALLERY AND CUT THE ROPE AND SAVE IT”
this happened in 2007.
it lasted for a day.
" Abbey Interrante (Milton High School) wrote: you know i think that the mona lisa and all those picassos and stuff are pretty good art and nothing died in the process of making those, why does a dog have to die for this! this is sad!!!!!!"
Júlía
i am going to start referring to good art only as "all those picassos and stuff"
alxfitzgerald
I want to go to MoMA
and just say "he's not bob ross" and "these definitely aren't as good as all those picassos and stuff"
