Editorial: On Talking To The Neighbours

Walking the streets of Reykjavík can be humbling. The street signs contain more syllables than seem possible — I pass Bræðraborgarstígur on my way into work, and it’s not the most complicated street name I pass on my 10-minute walk.

This weekend, the locals kicked imposing up a notch. They all ran marathons. Just normal, everyday folk, with a sum total prep work to include a lateral groin stretch, went running past my house. For 42.2 kilometres. Because there’s no parking downtown, they walked past my house again when they were done. Nobody looked as dour or exhausted as I do dealing with a walk to the bakery on a Sunday to get my kids their snúður, their weekend staple of plate-sized cinnamon roll covered in chocolate frosting.

There’s so much I need to learn about just getting up and tackling life, so much I forgot since I moved away from this island 20 years ago.

In this, my second issue after moving back, we feature travel writing about the local scramble north during the banker’s holiday. We’ve covered six extraordinary young musicians, the band BKPM, and the rapper Alaska1867. An economist with a resume that includes extensive work at the United Nations has attempted to explain the unique situation Iceland’s economy faces under the Trump tariffs. And finally, we detail as much as we can the work of local phenom múm.

It’s about 20 years ago that Örvar, part of the triumvirate driving force of múm, tapped me on the shoulder as I crossed the street to my apartment and told me I need to talk to my neighbour — one of the most confounding, and rewarding, discussions of my life.

What you don’t quite understand when you follow local musicians, or artists in general, is that they sacrifice damn near everything for their art. When I met Örvar, he lived in my neighbour’s geymsla, the term for a storage closet in our modest apartment building’s basement. Örvar, I should point out, is extremely tall for a human, and is a wiry, intense man, whereas I am tall for a jockey. Seeing a very tall man leave the same place we kept luggage, looking like he hadn’t slept properly in weeks, felt not unlike something out of a horror movie. But he took the time to introduce himself, when I stopped flinching, and he took the time to remind me to talk to my neighbour.

I would later learn that running a band like múm was emotionally and financially draining. That touring the world left little time for a connection at home. Örvar used his small amount of downtime to connect me with people who shared musical and artistic ambitions, and this included the poet, musician, and my until-then utterly ignored neighbour, Svavar Pétur. When Örvar couldn’t play harmonica for the band Skakkamanage due to a gig in Paris, he volunteered my name, resulting in my chance to actually work with Svavar Pétur and his band as a collaborator. What I witnessed in the passion and joy and intelligence of that group has stayed with me. (The music itself has also stayed with me, and it was a pleasant surprise to hear the piano triplets I remembered from Berglind Häsler echoed in the current Of Monsters and Men single, also reviewed in this issue.)

This is all to say our cover artists run deeper than you probably suspect. As do many of the artists and everyday people in the city. If you have the chance to make a connection, they can change your life. My belief is that our reporters in this issue have given an introduction to the local culture — they’ve been the metaphorical man who crawled out from the geymsla to tap you on the shoulder. I hope you connect to someone here, or someone on this visit. At the very least, I hope you discover that these connections are possible.