In a recent interview with Vice, Reykjavík Mayor Jón Gnarr – who is 43 days shy of finishing his term as mayor – has said he feels an indescribable pull towards Texas and might move there in the future.
“People say that they don’t believe in coincidence. I do believe in coincidence,” Mayor Gnarr said. “I don’t believe in God. So I have this thing with coincidences; I’m fascinated by them. I’m not really sure if I have a free will, and I don’t know if my brain has made any decision about what he’s going to be making me do next. But I have this strange hunch—which is very weird—that he’s taking me to Texas. I’ve never been there. Texas, in my mind, is a bit like Mordor or something.”
The mayor bolstered his point by mentioning the many ways that Texas has popped up in his life.
The first being that many years ago when he began his English Facebook page one of his first followers was a Texan lawyer who he coincidentally met some years later on a trip to the Faroe Islands.
Secondly his English language publisher is based in Texas and he has a friend who works as a professor at Rice University.
Speaking of taking Reykjavík from the brink of bankruptcy following the economic crash Jón told Vice that although he had often felt like an outcast in Iceland in his youth he felt a responsibility kick in to help the city.
“The financial situation of Reykjavik when we got elected was equivalent to Detroit’s. Reykjavik could have easily gone into bankruptcy. In this microcommunity, there’s one [major] city, so we can’t afford to have our only city…[Be Detroit].”
Mayor Gnarr has had high approval ratings in Iceland during his term as mayor.
Read the Grapevine’s Election Poll Roundup to see who is fighting for Mayor Gnarr’s spot.
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