Boston To Reyjkavik

Boston To Reyjkavik

On the plane to Iceland I had the good fortune to sit next to a man maybe ten years my junior who was born to an Icelandic mother and had since made his life in the United States. He was American but also somewhat Icelandic. He told me things.

This he said: That once, maybe five years ago, maybe less, he’d met a young woman in the small island country, had brought her home to Austin. Things had not gone well, as one might expect. The constant crush of sweltering days, where the temperature climbed to over a hundred degrees, was more than she could bear. Add to the mix some built-in instability that the youthful couple brought to Texas, and you might very well imagine a scenario with blue police lights on a hot Austin night, shouts and the sound of things being thrown coming from a rented clapboard bungalow with dogs barking in the neighbors’ yards. Outside, a chain-link fence erected many years ago enclosed a tattered yard that didn’t need much tending, on account of the burnt and withered grass that didn’t really grow, but just rose tentatively an inch or so above the ground—only to be beat back by the terrible sun. A small concrete path, leading from the bungalow’s back door, ended at a tilting clothes-line pole. Beyond that was a barbecue grill faded of all color from its days in the heat.

And then there were court appearances; and later, silences spread across the tables in the local fast-food eateries, and the sun-blasted Texas landscape outside, and the pickups and cars and slow-moving people just props to their drama, which was the only thing that mattered. You begin to get the idea. The woman is back in Iceland now, and the two are happier with this arrangement. I liked the man, admired his openness, told him to order his favorite Icelandic vodka, because it was on me. I’d vowed to get as drunk as I could on this hideous flight that I hated more than anything in this world—which is saying something, because there are few things that I don’t hate. After a gin and tonic and a vodka and cranberry juice, I still wasn’t sufficiently numbed—and could actually understand most of what my seat-mate was telling me. I went to the back of the plane, paid for another Icelandic vodka, came back to drink it alone. My new friend was nodding off in front of the brightly-lit touch-screen video display. I watched the strange concert of an Icelandic group called Sigur Ros, as they toured the small towns and sparsely-populated places—some of which I recognized—to pay homage to and thank the people of Iceland for listening to them.

If you could attribute a sound to the silent rocks of Iceland, and vast, untouched landscapes, recently heaved up from the earth’s innards—Sigur Ros would be that sound. There were three or four musicians—it was hard to tell, because they played behind a gauzy veil-like thing that projected shadows from behind—where the band performed. Everything was mystery—their strange music, that followed no musical conventions, but nonetheless expressed perfectly their time and place. The band members themselves—now worldwide performers—were self-effacing, as if to say: “We’re Icelanders—how could this have happened to US?” It is not dance music, is not a carnival ride on the midway; it is something you have to pay attention to, and if you get it—you will know right away. My feeling is that it helps to know Iceland to appreciate their music, but I am not sure it is entirely necessary. Sigur Ros. There are accents that need to be placed here and there, and that are hidden somewhere on my computer keyboard, like the mystery that is their music. These things elude me at the moment. Sigur Rós. Okay, there.
A good place to hear some of their music is on the internet. A nice clip from the “Heima” concert is on YouTube.