Crunch Time Wanderlust (with camera)

On Sunday I went out to the saga museum, because apparently people like wax figures. And I didn't go to any of the museums when I was in D.C., and have regretted it every since. But then on Thursday most of MIS went out to Njála country, to the place where Njál burned and to Gunnar´s farm, and the hill where Skarp-Hedin slide down when he was ambushed, hacking down his enemies around him. Little can be said that wouldn't take more time that I have to offer, since there are three papers due-one in a week, and the other two within the first week of December. Which will be followed by two very very far from easy tests. So I will let the pictures speak for themselves, as well as they can.

(Edit): It might further be noted that this week I both managed to get a 7.5 on my runology presentation, for failure to dig deeply enough into the scholarship to fulfill the assignment guidelines or prove to Orri that I had done the research, and the Vagantes conference received a record number of submissions and both Bahb and I were turned down, despite Paul reminding us that it should be an easy conference to get into (thanks, as always, Paul). So it is thoroughly a week of failure. Here's hoping the next few weeks meet with better fortune, or at least better work on my part.

First, the saga-museum:

 Sunrise

 Paul is a creepy wax monk

 Survival based on dried fish. I feel like this says something

important about Icelandic women.

 Nope, this is what says something about Icelandic

woman. Scaring off the Scrælings

 Getting under the cloak to decide whether the country

will be Christian or not. And also to compose Völuspá.

A Nordal told me so. It must be true.

 The Völva herself. With her glare and her catskin gloves.

 Snorri pondering over the composition of something 

important. This figure breathed. It´s chest moved. Seriously

scary shit. I want to gut the man who thought that would be

a good idea.

 Death is scarier, sometimes, when it´s fake.

 But cats, the dirty voyeurs, are always scary.

 The chronology progress, until the climax of all

societies: burnin´ witches.

 Thought this guy was real until right before we left. Again,

I hate the people who designed this exhibition.

 Because Icelanders don´t believe in supervising

children.

And now, somewhat more interesting, I hope, Njála country:

 Greenhouses. For some reason I really like this one.

 The clouds are very heavy around here.

´. . .more. . .weight!´

 An initial failure at the 102 (Kilo?) stone.

 But try. . .

 And try. . .

 Again!

 Muhahahaha!

 I am a destroyer of worlds! I am a beautiful animal!

 I am Giles fucking Corey!

 . . .did you get the shot? I´m a little tired now.

 Somewhat more dignified than the rest of

us posers.

 New to the photos: Elias, our resident Galician poet.

Most everyone made it. Except the two gigantic

pussies I live with.

Seriously, Victoria RAN up that shit. James and Paul,

I am disappointed in you.

Moses on the mount.

It´s the sort of spot,

that one must be showy.

Short days of Song and Symposium

Alas, no pictures taken this week.

One of those busy sort of weekends, preempting what will promise to be a hectic week and a stressful next weekend. But for now, I have officially been in a mosh pit, albeit one quaintly categorized as the pussy, European variety by Paul, the resident expert on everything penile and American and metal. Excellent time-I got to shove the Canadian in all his angry bulk around without anyone giving us trouble about breaking things. Likewise got to experience metal, in the form of Skálmöld (ostensibly folk-metal, but I'm not sure the fact that they have a couple of harmonies qualifies them as folk), as it is supposed to be, with violence. The egoising of the guitarists and the utter lack of tonality is much less troublesome with violence involved.

Likewise saw my first opera, on Saturday, (as I mentioned to someone recently, I am revealing how decidedly uncultured I am)-in a broadcast from New York, but by my standards it counts. Sigfried, all five hours of absurd theatricality, delightful basses and baritones, buxom sopranos and flamboyant tenors, barely-hidden antisemitism and happily didactic primitivism. I was sort of amazed at myself for enjoying it as much as I did. Possibly you read enough scholarship and everything else simply loses the capacity to bore you. Having David around, to share in the rediculousness of the lead's thick Texan accent and the possible mathematic proportions of Fafnir, probably helped.

But alas, all revelry's passed, and I must finish these proceedings of the International Symposium of Runes and Runic Inscriptions and move into the collected essays of R.I. Page soon enough to get a presented together by next Monday, read Sigurður Nordal and acquaint myself with the traditional narrative of Icelandic scholarship, and at some point get started on two other papers of possible greater importance but less immanent judgement. Got an 8.9 on Haraldur's mid-term, which seems to be somewhere near the class average, except for a few people who dropped the actual mean down into the 7's somewhere. Cheers to you good folks! But the final promises to be more difficult. So translation and paradigms will abound, in the meanwhile.

My mandolin callouses are growing soft. I'm sort of looking forward to a relatively isolated Christmas, to play and try to read modern languages and perhaps even read a novel of some fantastical variety. I have some Gene Wolfe on the kindle that calls like a siren.

Blackest of Nights

 Our sponsor for the evening, the Franciscan of Bloody-handed god-on-a-stick.

Blood for the Blood God and skulls for the Skull Throne!

 James the Canadian doing his

"Look at me I'm Santa Claus and I'm ALWAYS JOLLY" thing.

It's a rad bromance.

 Kristi, our lovely Estonian waitress, glaring at me

for my hubristic decision to run out and get my

camera.

 I don't think anyone was very fond of the camera here.

 Ahh, the smell of not-piss beer. None for you skully.

 Aw, alright, I'll share. It was the only light thing we were

drinking that night, anyway. If it was stout you'd be

shit out of luck.

 An Icelandic woman in a Care Bear outfit!

An opportunity has arisen to assuage our loneliness!

 James, wake up. You're drooling on the poor lady.

 Me, hidden by the hug I'm getting from the lady

who overheard me complaining I get no hugs in Iceland.

And she didn't get offended when I lifted her up,

AND she made the guys jealous. You're awesome, strange lady!

 This brave Care Bear was very busy that night.

 If the Mad Hatter was Indiana Jones. And Santa Claus.

SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

It was, in fact, the blackest of nights. Winter approaches, it's getting dark early, and the beer was flowing dark as pitch and malty as dwarven sensibilities. Íslenskur Urvals Stout was the choice of the night for many rounds, and then Black Death, which was milder and hoppier, possibly some kind of porter. A break for whatever we were drinking above (possibly we weren´t tasting it that well. It was kind of sweet?). And a final pint of Guinness at Ölsmiðjan finished off the evening. We were home at about 3:30 (still quite early by Icelandic standards) and my sleeping happened somewhere between five in the morning and noon.

Hopefully this will get the socialites off my back for awhile. There is much reading to be done, writing of papers and translating of gnomic texts of (orthographically regularized, alas) of the deeds of the ancient gods worshiped by the HEAD-HUNTING MEAD-DRINKING ROMAN-KILLING POETRY-SPOUTING CLANS OF OUR TEUTONIC FOREFATHERS! . . . And within such a schedule, there's little room for frivolity.

Historiography of runic inscriptions, ethics and mentalité of the 'Saga Age' (of defined relativity and fluid absolutism), Egils saga (soon to transition to Njals saga), the Snorra Edda, and as soon as the air clears a bit back to Trojumanna saga, and likely some background scholarship on the whole nativist vs European-origins-of-literature debate. Because apparently that's the only place anybody feels like bringing up poor Trojumanna. And likely it will mean I'll need to read more bastards like Hermann Pálsson with their rediculous concepts of the monolithic all-encompassing comcept of Christian ethics, "Oh the unknown and unnamed author of such-and-such saga almost certainly had an excellent education, which probably means he went to Europe, which means that EVERYTHING IN THE SAGA IS A DIDACTIC REFERENCE TO THE BOOK OF JOB!" Bastards.

Enough time writing. I need tea and porridge.

Mid-term Blues

 My primary Icelandic activity, aside from consuming tea

and porridge and copying out paradigms. And writing

things like this.

The western sky out my apartment window.

Watching a lot of youtube blues these days. Son House, Guy Forsyth, Guy Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and anyone who seems willing to play slide on a 12-string. In related events, the term draws ever closer to its conclusion. Midterm exam for Old Norse on Wednesday, and final papers for Viking Age Archaeology, The Medieval North (the prosaic title of our history class), and the Old Norse Literary Corpus draw ever into the realm of immediate reality, proving themselves sufficient antidote to any callow conception that carpe diem is an effective way to live.

Roommates offer flack for my generally asocial behavior. I bought a fancy Mad Hatter hat for a Halloween costume, in hopes of silencing them. We'll see how effective it is. Trying to put together some literary questions on the transmission of Trojumanna saga, concerning which I have almost entirely philological scholarship. I don't entirely trust my interpretations of this. But I'm sending an abstract to the Vagantes conference tomorrow, one way or another. So we'll see what they think.

I am receiving sufficient letters from the West-I no longer feel entirely disconnected from home, just the proper amount to make me not take the whole idea of travel for granted. Likewise there will be at least one other person around for Christmas, so I won't be entirely on my own, wishing there were some proper firs around to decapitate and drag into the living room (David's room).

Volcanoes and Long Walks in the Night

Impending doomImpending Doom is very possibly approaching Iceland:

 I can't wait.

In the meantime, I have finished my first proper paper, with much relief-we got essentially an entire week off to work on various projects and this is pretty much the only thing anyone worked on. If I don't have some grasp of the Christianization of Scandinavia now, between this and my thesis, I never will. The last bit of the evening has been a desperate scramble to make sure I know my subjunctive paradigms, get the required distance through our current translation project, and at least start on the next batch of historical readings, Stephen Mitchell's brand spanking new monograph on witchcraft and magic, app 1100-1525. I haven't even reminded myself what the readings for Torfi's class are-some short saga and its adjacent scholarship, I think. And I don't even want to think about my Stand der Forschung on runology.

Went and saw David sing with the university choir on Friday night. Lovely, and there were two medieval folk groups, one of which, Voces Thules, was particularly amazing, so everyone with any taste in music ought to go out and buy their albums. Hurdy-gurdy and five part harmonies! Alas, I missed the last bus of the night afterwards, and got to enjoy a lovely three hour walk back into town, in hail and sleet. You appreciate how barren Iceland can be, walking around alone in it at night, thinking you're probably lost (though I was only actually going to the wrong direction once, towards the beginning, and lost about a half hour. Only in Reykjavik is the dark wooded footpath the right way to go to hook back up with the main road). And the lights of Hallgrímskirkja are beatiful when they are the first sight you recognize after wandering for long hours. And pear skyr tastes amazing when you're starving and tired. And I am assured my new coat and new boots are broken in.

The weeks of the term progress. I have one week to come up with a clear enough idea of what I want to say about Trojumanna saga to write an abstract. I am considering buying an ice pick and setting it beside my computer, so my brain may see it every day and know that I mean business.

Winter is Coming

First snow on Esja this week, I believe on Monday. Took these pictures yesterday-the view hasn't changed much, other than the clouds clearing out and offering a better few of the approaching snowline. I'll be hoping for a white Christmas, or perhaps a white Thanksgiving, if we're lucky.

Work is unending. I've decided that allowing myself to play videogames for the last couple hours of the night is a silly, unprofitable idea-instead, when I want to waste time I waste it writing to people. At least then my prose improves. Or arguing with James (I'm unsure if this actually improves or diminishes my debating ability), who has moved into the house and is sleeping on David's couch with his laptop and his tiny box of personal reflections, until Roan heads out to his new apartment. A pedantic practice, but he's the sort of guy who needs to be contradicted every five minutes or so, or he starts acting above his station.

Having a difficult time with my thesis decision-making. My ideas are progressing, but I'm having more existential issues deciding what it is, exactly, that I'm most interested in/passionate about in this field-and attempting to divide that from of all factors of what areas I have experience in, or are easier/harder, or are made attractive by the dearth of scholarship applied to them. It seems silly to be here if I'm going to apply myself to something dishonestly, particularly since there seems to be such a fast pace to things I don't know how much room I'll have to explore new avenues of interests once I get stuck on something.

So some matter of self-reflection is in order. Wish me luck.