Airwaves

The last post was a bit intense, dealing with environmental and historical issues we may not always want to look at. Though I've never been into the kind of shock-blogging that gets so much attention, I've never shied from posting not-so-glamourous photos and info here on Iceland Eyes either. My main theme has been "Real Reykjavik" from the start, warts and all.

I've also never given the Airwaves festival much press, though I was lucky enough to actually go to the second one back in '99, and have dabbled in most of them since. It gets so much attention that I've usually left it to other professionals to cover it.

But on Monday the festival starts rolling, so it's only fair to give it a shout-out. It really is amazing to see how big it's gotten in the past fourteen years! This year I'm going to do off-venue only, and was actually telling my friend yesterday that, because of the overwhelming selection of acts and my own valkvíði (hard time making choices..what's the English word again?), I'd probably just end up at my favorite local, Kaffibarinn, which is presenting an outstanding line-up all week.

Which brings me to the picture above. Who can tell me where it was taken, precisely, and why it's so special? Oh, and I've awakened the Iceland Eyes Facebook page and Twitter account, so join me there as well.

Gálgahraun

A few years ago I translated a book from Icelandic into English called 25 Beautiful Walks of the Greater Reykjavik Area. It was an absolute pleasure to work with because of everything I learned about the geologic and societal history of the capital region of Iceland.

One of the most interesting chapters was about Walk 4 through the Gálgahraun lava fields on the Álftanes peninsula. This lava field is the very last lick of a once-flowing river of magma that poured out of the Búrfell volcano around 7300 years ago and northwest out to meet the chilled Atlantic sea. Now there's plenty of lava in Iceland, and quite a lot from this particular eruption in the Reykjavik area. But what to me was most interesting, to start with, was the translation of Gálgahraun: Gallows Lava. I was immediately curious to know more. The author, Reynir Ingibjartarsson wrote the following:

Down by the Lambhúsatjörn lake is the Sakamannastígur, or Convicts' Way, a path that passes Hrauntaugar to Gálgaklettar. Near the lake was once the equivalent of an Icelandic royal palace with its magistrate, captains and county sheriff. On this path the unnamed guilty were led to execution and later buried at Gálgaflöt. Maybe a boat was sent out for them from the slave houses at Bessastaðir that landed at Gálgaklettur? One convict was said to have been convicted of stealing butter from Bessastaðir itself [the Icelandic "White House"] and another for stealing from a church. It's not long since a human bone was found at this site. (Translation mine)

 Today this area is witnessing a different kind of destruction: a road is being cut through the lava field, which was decreed protected in 2009. Environmental protestors are being arrested in a disturbingly aggressive fashion, including elderly women and one of Iceland's most famous sons: Ómar Ragnarsson, a self-styled historian, conservationist and entertainer. There is a seething fury in many hearts right now that, though gunless, our "protectors" in the police force would so easily resort to physicality - and on who's orders?

So much comes into consideration in this situation: who "owns" Iceland? How willing are we to devastate a landscape, cut it in two, that serves to cleanse and filter our water the way lava fields do? What about the spiritual elements...are there hidden people who live here in some parallel world to ours, as Icelanders love to profess they believe in, and are we still then willing to devastate what is theirs as well? And ultimately for me, what about the poor souls murdered by the upper class for acts of pure desperation, the stealing of basic foods to feed themselves and their families? Don't they deserve that their bones, still emerging from this haunted land, be at least left to rest and return, slowly, to their mother earth?

Possibilities

Tomorrow will be exactly a year since I decided to call Iceland Eyes a completed work. I actually cried that day, imagining life without my little passion-project constantly on my mind (Ooh, this scene would make a great pic for my next post! or Ok, there's a great topic to write about!)

I had something else to obsess about, though, a work that I'd known for years I would start and finish last autumn. It's called 88, written during the eighty-eight days between my 44th birthday and December 21st, 2012. The story is about living and dying and living again, of a white girl's experience on an active volcano in the middle of the cold cold briny deep, a forever loop of love and loss and beauty and hope. It was fitting also that Iceland Eyes was exactly eight years old at that same time. Lay an 8 on its side and what do you see: eternity.

Oddly, though, it's come to my attention that though I haven't been massaging it, this blog has gotten some attention internationally in the past few months, and has been linked to from here and there across the wide, wide web. I even found it, and me, mentioned in the comments section of this post from Climate Denial Crock of the Week about the ICES Annual Science Conference recently held here in Reykjavik.

So I decided to test the waters: is it time for an Iceland Eyes Revival? Should we, dear readers, aim for another eight years of great photos and interesting articles? Comments, of course are more than welcome...

Life

A longtime fan of Iceland Eyes mentioned to me that readers out there in the world might think that something had happened to me because I haven't posted anything new since last autumn, so I'm going to clear that up. All is good here in Reykjavik, we're blooming and thriving just like this crazy beautiful flower that emerged a few summers ago in the in the unlikeliest of places.

For now, though, this pet project of mine is on a possibly-permanent hiatus - after eight years of posting it just felt right somehow to let it stand as a completed work. If I decide to start a new project I've promised some faithful readers to mention it here, so be sure to pop in every once in a while for any updates, or just to cruise through the 650-plus photos for a sweet reminder of our pretty little city : )

A Flexi-Selfie in the Ceiling at Harpa Concert Hall

Another self portrait taken at the Harpa concert hall, which I call in this post a "stunning play of space and glass and light, reflecting nicely an aspect of our Icelandic people: seemingly cold, complex and overwhelming from the outside, but truly golden, strong-hearted, warmly intricate and multi-faceted on the inside."

Örfirisey

I've said this before, but it still stands: one of the reasons I love doing Iceland Eyes is because while looking up things to share with you, I discover and learn a whole host of things myself.

The other day we went sunset chasing out by Ægissíður, then took the long way home and drove out to the tip of historic Örfirisey where the oil tanks stand. Like most things in life, they look beautiful when lit up at twilight even though in the stark light of day they're definitely an industrial blight on the shorefront landscape.

Reykjavik's few tanks are nothing compared to the Richmond California oil refineries (which, as a kid, always fascinated me during night drives home from visiting Amma Steina and the family in Sacramento...lit up, they're absolutely gorgeous) but have definietly brought up the same concerns as the huge August 2012 fires in Richmond did: how realistic is it to continue to have such potentially dangerous materials so close to the encroaching city edge?

This 2006 report by Thorvaldur Helgi Auðunsson from the Department of Fire Safety Engineering at Lund University in Sweden takes a closer look at this issue, which looms over Reykjavik's near future, much like the equivalent dilemma that I wrote about in this post on the Hringrás reclamation center (I also mention Yoko's Imagine Peace memorial, which garnered worldwide attention with Lady Gaga's recent acceptance of the LennonOno Grant for Peace, as did our Awesome mayor Jón Gnarr's Jedi garb :)

As cities spread, industrial structures that used to be a safe-(ish) distance from the urban populace seem to suddenly appear on the doorsteps of city businesses and residents. A lot has happened in a grass-roots kind of fashion in this sector of the city, a pretty common development - as rents rise, urban populations push out into historically non-residential areas in search of affordable housing.

The city of Reykjavik has recently held a design competition to max the potential of Örfirisey and Granda, won by Erdem Architects, which includes a very cool indoor beach, the Warm Ice Paradise. I like this idea because back in the old days the folk of Reykjavik would cross the tidal isthmus out to what had always been known to be an elven-populated Örfirisey island for day swimming trips. 

While searching for an English language history of the area I ran into a review of this awesome book I translated, 25 Beautiful Walks: Walking Trails of the Greater Reykjavik Area. Otherwise, here's a great source of info about Örfirisey from the official competition for the redesign of the Old Harbor region.