Travelling without moving

Yesterday indeed turned out to be a huge personal culture experience. I had discovered that Kjarvalsstaðir recently opened a new exhibition with Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval's work. Their website spoke about the curator joining a guided tour on yesterday, so I thought that's a good point to begin my exploration.

It turned out to be in Icelandic. I stuck around nonetheless, trying hard to pick up any familiar words. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pick up more than a few numerals and a few random words here and there. At this point I'm able to figure out some things from written Icelandic, but understanding speech seems very, very difficult. I think I've actually improved my Swedish more than I've learned Icelandic so far.

The lads at museum counter were very friendly, and answered my questions practically before I got to ask them, upon finding out that I didn't speak all that much Icelandic. Reykjavík Art Museum seems to have a rather nice system with the tickets. They have at least three different buildings in different parts of the city, but the receipt you get is valid for all of them for three days. At 500 krónur would not be bad for just one entrance, but you can actually get to the other parts with it as well. On Thursdays the entrance would be free, too. Tomorrow after the classes I'll probably take the opportunity to visit Hafnarhúsið, which holds at least their collection of Erró.

At the evening there was the Lifi Álafoss concert. I have no idea whether it was just a marketing strategy or a bunch of misunderstandings, but unlike many seemed to think, it was not really a Sigur Rós concert. Of the five acts they were the second to play. As the name suggests, it was a protest concert against a highway that's about to be built in the pristine area of Álafoss. The venue was sort of interesting. Getting there involved several staircases and asymmetrical, under-construction hallways, which gave the impression of the most shady secret practice room, but turned out to be a rather spacey, holding probably at least a couple of hundred people. It was a seated concert as well, this is apparently a Sigur Rós tradition.

The music, then... Amiina opened, and I couldn't do anything but smile and melt. Every gentle bow sound made the girls seem like magical creatures, which they probably are. Whenever in the middle of their slow swaying they bursted into little chants, I was even more confident of that. It was nothing but an audiovisual overload of shy and fragile but cheerful cuteness. And in the middle of a song I realized that I understood their verses.

Sigur Rós played next, and they were armed with what I'd call a truly great selection of songs. I love this kind of music they and Amiina play, it just captures every single cell in your body with its sheer beauty. At one point I remember feeling like I absolutely have to hold someone's hand, and I probably did.

These two marvellous bands sort of set the tone for rest of the evening, so unfortunately the rest of the stuff didn't really inspire me all that much. Pétur Ben's indie rock thingy was pretty fresh and interesting, but I think I was still floating way too high in SR's and especially Amiina's soundscapes. Next up were some Icelandic stand-up comics. First there were two charming and bald old men, whose skits I really would've wanted to understand, they seemed very interesting. The other comic act was a young guy in a red vest whose punchlines only seemed to be about raising the volume of his speech, and he got a lot less responses from the audience as well. After that there was a short and apparently involved performance from what seemed like a supersillified and still not very amusing version of Ultra Bra. Not too fond of that. Although at one point at the stage was something that looked like Vesa-Matti Loiri's midget brother, but in the end he turned out to be not a midget after all, which made it slightly less hilarious. Benni Hemm Hemm played last, and I sort of wanted to like it, but didn't all that much.

Nonetheless it was a very memorable evening. I would've had Amiina and SR play last, but still. The thorough happiness I found during their shows remained in me for the whole night. It was the kind of happiness that overwhelms you. I can't really think of anything whenever I feel that, but I don't want to either. It's definately one of the mindstates which make life worth living.

I just slowly floated and drifted homewards, perceiving everything as immensely beautiful and over and over again softly chanted "ég er ugla, su-sumar ugla..."