Articles by: Valur Gunnarsson
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
So when he entered the studio again at the end of the year, he had a lot to live up…
WHOSE INDEPENDENCE?
This will be the version we´ll be hearing on the 17th of June, when Iceland celebrates its 60th anniversary as…
THE PETER PAN GENERATION
In the meantime, leaving the readership in the hands of the perpetually feuding giants of media, members of Grapevine have…
LONDON
The Greater London Metropolis spreads out below as far as the eye can see as the plane descends from the…
Birth of a Notion
Things have changed. Mostly for the worse, but occasionally for the better. An instance of the latter could be seen…
ICELAND VS. THE WORLD
EU or not EU. That is the question. Or, at least, it should be. For some reason, it is barely…
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
The words “Jerry” and “Bruckheimer” on the screen seldom bode well. Nor does a film based on a ride in…
THE CORONATION OF POPPEA
Hindus maintain that you should dedicate yourself to your spouse, and then when grey hair starts setting in, you should…
OBSCURED BY CLOUDS
If Iceland is, as it often seems, in the middle of nowhere, then the top of a glacier in Iceland…
Monday Morning Coming Down
Monday morning after Verslunarmannahelgi. Something’s wrong. I sit up and my surroundings seem strangely familiar. At first glance, this does…
SWIMMING POOLS IN REYKJAVÍK
Sundhöllin The city’s oldest functioning swimming pool still has a bit of that charming depression era feel. Almost always guaranteed…
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
SOME ICELANDERS WHO TRIED AND FAILED TO CONQUER THE WORLD The Sagas often take pains in pointing out how well…
The Voice Of The Resistance
Anyone who read John Boyce’s article on the media (issue 2) should have realised that said media are not to…
TEARS OF THE CLOWN
I was having dinner at Casa Grande when a portly Paraguayan came up and started serenading me with his guitar….
Megas: Iceland’s Greatest Living Wordsmith
Grapevine does not know what to expect as the phone is picked up. Will Master answer in verse or prose,…
FEELING BORED? GO JUMP OFF A CLIFF
It was supposed to be just another hangover day at Vitabarinn. I was in the process of ordering up a…
WHALES, HARPOONS AND OTHER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
The ferry sailed past the summit, and we could see seagulls nesting on the cliffs below the underground hangars used…
HITT HÚSIÐ:YOUTH CULTURE IN THE JAIL CELL
At Pósthússtræti 3, there used to be a police station. The basement there was usually known aptly as “The Basement,”…
ICELANDERS IN THE MOVIES
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Gunnar Hansen, Leatherface himself, was born in Reykjavík in 1956 and moved to the US at…
AN EVENING AT GRANDROKK
Grandrokk is one of those places that has what so many pubs promise but few deliver, atmosphere. What is it…
THE RETURN OF THE PAGANS
These days, it seems, no one outside of North America and the Middle East takes religion seriously. So perhaps it…
IDENTITY
However, the film soon snaps out of this, and we seem to enter familiar horror film territory. It’s all here,…
LOBSTER OF LOVE
“World domination or death” was the Bad Taste motto. Björk opted for the former; for the others, the result was…
ONLY SWEDES AND HORSES
In Iceland, the people are big and the horses are small. Sometimes, it feels as if someone is mocking us….
A Politically Conscious Drunken Weekend In Reykjavík
So! you’ve marched in Seattle and you’ve protested in London, you’ve been teargassed in Rome and shot at in Gothenburg….