My exams are done and my papers are getting very close. The last few weeks have been a big push to wrap up the semester but it looks like I’m on track to finish before my brother comes to Iceland this week. I’m excited to have him visit!
I finished watching a four-part mini-series about the life of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the former Icelandic president, which is streaming on RÚV with English subtitles. The show, which shares production and acting credits with the excellent Blackport, was really well done — and I’m getting good about recognizing filming locations in Reykjavík. Elected in 1980, Vigdís was the world’s first female head of state and in Iceland she was the first single woman allowed to adopt a child. I enjoyed getting more of her backstory since I see references to her all over town. For example, my oral exam for my class in Iceland’s Foreign Policy was held in a building on campus called Veröld – House of Vigdís.
Last night I saw Júlía Mogensen perform at Mengi and got to see a halldorophone being played for the first time. It’s a unique electroacoustic instrument that looks like a cello but incorporates positive feedback into the process of playing. It’s the brainchild of Halldór Úlfarsson, who takes an iterative approach to design, incorporating feedback from musicians and evolving it over time. I’ve been really enjoying the album Electroacoustic Works For Halldorophone by Martina Bertoni lately, so it was great to see it being played and get a better sense for how it works.
Noted & Done
- Finished reading Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir by Craig Mod.
- Coincidentally, after writing about Ragnar Axelsson last week, his photos are featured in the latest issue of the New Yorker in a story that is at least partially about his experience visiting Ittoqqortoormiit in East Greenland over the last 30 years.
- Also coincidental (given my paper topic), this podcast on the history of subsea cables popped up on NPR. It focuses on the first Atlantic telegraph cable crossing and includes interviews with the guy who runs the absolute treasure of a Web 1.0 site atlantic-cable.com.