grayson del faro
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The Edda Or Whatever: It All Began In Turkey
A prologue that will literally leave you gagged Welcome to The Edda or Whatever, where I’m spilling the tea on Norse mythology. We’re breaking down the Prose Edda, a mediaeval Icelandic textbook that also low-key recaps most of what we know about…
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The Edda Or Whatever: Better Safe Than Snorri
Meet the rich old dude who re-wrote the Edda, doomed Iceland to 682 years of oppression Okay, okay, okay. I’ve already explained — in my half-assed-but-hopefully-hilarious way — the Poetic Edda. If you don’t remember or are just too lazy to Google…
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Fractured Fairy Tales: ‘The Sagas And Shit’ Rewrites History
Tackling the Icelandic Sagas can be a daunting task. Many of them are prefaced with complex descriptions of lineage and familial relations, and the writing can in many parts read dry and academic, even in modern translations. This can be discouraging for…
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But Were You Not Amazed?
When I was handed ‘The Summerland: The Deceased Describe Their Passing and Reunion in The Other World’ to review, I thought it was a joke (hahaha, give the new guy this ancient book to review, hahaha). The cover design looks like it…
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Hrafnkels Saga Freysgoða RECAP: The One With The Goddamn Horse
This Saga begins the same way Iceland did, and the same way many Sagas do: some Norwegian guy (this one is named Hallfreður) settles his family in Iceland to farm. Welcome to Iceland, Hallfreður. All this would normally be fine, but it…
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Airwaves & Chill: This Year’s Best Sex Music
Some artists, like James Blake and the Weeknd, are especially appreciated for their abilities to enhance (or maybe even initiate) some good sexy time with your favourite sexy person. These two each have radically distinct sounds from each other, but have a…
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Milkywhale – Watching Tour, Day 3
If you’ve been following my Milkywhale-watching tour (or stalking, whatever), you’d know I’ve been part of the dance parties they’ve started in a café and clothing shop. As I record my sightings of the this new whale species, I learn a little…
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A Milkywhale-Watching Tour of Airwaves
Please Do Not Eat Milkywhale With much of the earth’s oceans left unexplored, we mere humans should feel lucky whenever an unknown species of marine animal is discovered or a known-but-illusive one photographed, filmed, or recorded. This year in Antarctica, scientists believe…
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Wallpoetry: A Whole New Kind Of Berlin Wall
You don’t usually find yourself pressed up against a rack of jaw-droppingly expensive down coats to watch the performance of a Faroese electro-pop band—or sitting on your hands to keep them warm while a drummer improvises rhythms to accompany the lilt of…
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Look Into the Light, Man!
Despite its late-night silence, eerie for a city of its size, most would not consider Reykjavík a particularly spooky place. One might be hard-pressed to argue otherwise, but novelist Steinar Bragi has certainly tried with his collection of Icelandic ghost stories, ‘The…
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Independence Is Not A Disaster:
After decades of discussion on the political and economic details of a theoretically independent Scotland, the Scottish citizens finally face the vote that could bring this country into reality. The vote on the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill, asking “Should Scotland be an…
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Funding Dries Up at the Library of Water
This year marks the first and only year since its opening in 2007 that VATNASAFN/LIBRARY OF WATER has been unable to fund a writer-in-residence. While one writer, American architect and poet Eric Ellingsen, used the free space this year, the position did…