You don’t have to be creative here. You just have to get up in the morning. The story will find you.
A Little Spontaneous Saga from Kopasker
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: Iceland
Painting the Town Red with Katrin Jakobsdottir
In some countries, “Get Angry” would not mean to become the prime minister when no one else could find a compromise to unite opposites.
But it does in Iceland. Here’s how it began four years ago.
It’s also a country in which a church fire extinguisher…
… a church door …
… and church bells …
… are all housed in red.
But then, not all countries are enlightened. You have to put your heart into it.
View from the Stykkisholmur Library of Water,
Where Women and Girls are Given Space to Play Chess
Iceland Gets the Blues
Iceland, the Great Yellow Land in the Grey Sea
It’s always a good day for a little tour through the sun.
Beam.
These Are My People
First the beam, then the body, then the man. First the birch, and then the bone.
Like these birches in Hvalfjörður, we are not metaphors. We are all the original Huldufolk, the people of the earth. The lovely stories of elves are memories startling us awake out of sleep.
Icelandic Chess
An Icelander looking at you, who you cannot see, creates your desire to be seen in a way matching your desire for the Icelander — to strip away the cold gaze for intimacy, and to be in the secret group looking out.
People, this is chess.
The Faces of Iceland
The Price of Tourism in Iceland
Most Icelanders live in Greater Reykjavik, and most live in beautiful subdivisions and new apartment neighbourhoods between the mountains and the sea. Everything is practical, tidy, and simple, in keeping with a people having to pay for maintaining a country in the face of large currencies and their power. Things get a little harder out in small towns and in the countryside, as they do in downtown Reykjavik. That’s the old part of town, the one with the greatest need for being rebuilt to better standards, and the only one that lower-earning Icelanders can afford to live in. It’s also the place where the (estimated 2.5 million this year) tourists settle. The significance? Tourists (like me, blush) with the power of foreign currencies behind them are displacing a vital part of Iceland. In touring the indigenous parts of Reykjavik, I have failed to run into other tourists, not in the suburbs and not here, right downtown. The separation is, sadly, complete. How could this be good for the soul?
Isn’t this a better tour than another visit to geysir in the orange muck?
A Winter Troll Coming Down from the Mountains
Here’s one of the Trolls of Harnarfjall, on its annual pilgrimage to feed on the sea.
Slathering at the mouth in a field of old bones, as trolls will. There’s a whole herd of then where the foot of this fell turns into the flat of the sea. You can find them on cold days this time of year. In the summer they’ve gone to ground in the hills.
Mighty Good Fishing in Iceland
Two codfish go to sea.
Definitely time for a visit to Jökullsárlón!
A Farm in Iceland 
