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Strolling around with Sorelle
Our favorite YouTube star, Sorelle Amore from Australia, showed our Facebook followers around the summer streetlife of downtown Reykjavík last weekend. We at Grapevine will have live Facebook broadcasts a few times a month over the summertime, and Sorelle will host the…
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Sexy Gandalf And Something About Abortion
What would happen if a bunch of nerdy intellectuals assembled some kind of strip show? Well, we would probably have a sexy version of the grey wizard, Gandalf himself, wouldn’t we? And perhaps some raunchy flack for the booming tourism industry in…
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The Same Goal
Here’s the thing: terrorism is a form of politics. It’s a disgusting and extreme form of politics, but it’s nothing more nor less than politics. In the case of radical Islamic terrorism, the goal is to divide societies, to evoke fear and…
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Where was it shot? “Black” by Dierks Bentley
So, even American country musicians have discovered our little sub-Arctic island, although relatively few Icelanders have discovered American country music. We have no idea who Dierks Bentley is, but he shot a dramatic music video in Sólheimasandar and Reynisfjara, and we were…
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Some Kind of a Metaphor
When I was a child, my parents taught me two things about Iceland: one, that we were once strong Vikings, and two, that we had no fear. They also told me that there is something called the Atlantic Ocean, and it should…
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Reykjavík Of Yore: Squatting, And The Total Failure of Zoning
Ah, the wonderful year of 1919. The year after Great War ended. The Europeans were still dealing with its devastating consequences, not knowing that it was just a short break before the full-blown psychotic breakdown of Adolf Hitler. Communism was still brewing…
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Reykjavík Of Yore: Sundhöllin
Although houses don’t change as the years pass by, society does. We at Grapevine found this absolutely amazing photo of Jón Ingi Guðmundsson, swimming teacher at Sundhöllin. With him are swimmers from the Icelandic sports club KR. Only three of the women…
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Reykjavík of Yore: Laugardalshöllin
Laugardalshöllin was Iceland’s largest gymnasium for decades. The house was designed by Gísli Halldórsson and Skarphéðinn Jóhannesson, and its construction finished in the year 1965. It has significant meaning for Icelanders—not only as a sports arena, but also as the battleground for…
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Editorial: Raw Talent
It’s not often that Iceland produces raw talents in classical music like Víkingur Heiðar Ólafsson, the young concert piano artist who’s on the cover of this new issue of the Reykjavík Grapevine. Most foreigners know the names of Björk and Sigur rós,…
