Necropants

I mean, seriously, what does one even sway about necropants? They're the star attraction at the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft in Holmavik, although, sadly/happily/thankfully, they're just a copy.  According to Thorunn, our inside source at the museum, the brave soul who volunteered in their re-creation, lost a lot of leg hair in the process.  He didn't lose any skin, however, and when you're talking about necropants it means that you're way ahead of the game.

Unfortunately they didn't have my size, which I definitely need to get serious about this diet.

Hotel Laugarholl

I've slowly been catching up on posts from my amazing trip with my son to Iceland a year and a half ago.  What a trip it was, and, truthfully, it may have been my all-time favorite overseas adventure.  Not only is Iceland extraordinary, but, as I've discussed in the past, it very rare that you get an entire uninterrupted week with your adult child. Gary and I were waiting for the road to clear so that we could travel a little further; essentially, waiting for the designation to change from Closed to Dangerous. As part of the planned adventure our friend at the Museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery, Thorunn, told us about a hotel where we could go for a swim, and since it was on the way we figured that's where we would start the day. Getting there proved to be quite the adventure because as it turns out they were working on the road, or were working on the road during the summer, because the road was terrible, and I'm not quite certain that we weren't actually off the road for a while (and I wasn't driving my Subaru).  We finally arrived at the Hotel Laugarholl, which was, naturally enough, closed for the season, but the hotpot and the spring-fed pool was open year-round.  And that included the changing room.  The Icelanders took the logical approach of simply saying, "Look, be careful and don't drown your fool selves," which we appreciated.  It's neat to think that any time in the winter you could just decide to head over to the closed hotel to grab a swim or a soak.  It was so desolate, and staggeringly beautiful, and we were the only souls for miles.  It was only a small sliver of the best day that the Boy and I have spent together since he was a kid.

The road to the Hotel Laugarholl, and this was by far the best part. Like I said, for a while I think we were actually off the road, or were on the abandoned road, or the road under construction. It was a little unnerving considering that it was early January and we were operating with around six hours of daylight.  Guess we could have soaked in the hotpot all night.

The entrance to the Hotel Laugarholl, closed up tight for the winter, with only the slightest feel of The Shining.

The view of the hotel.  You can see the pool, open year-round, and the desolate rocky hills in the distance.

The sign to the spring that fed the hotpot and the pool, with an appropriately unpronounceable Icelandic name.

The Gvendarlaug thermal spring that fed the hotpot and the pool.

Gary climbing into the hotpot, which was deliciously hot.  The only problem was climbing across the frozen tundra to get to that delicious warmth.

That little bump in the far end of the pool is Gary.  I love this picture.  It really gives us a sense of how we had the universe to ourselves, but seems quite busy and crowded by what we did later in the day, but that's another story.

Wow

I don't know why this picture amuses me so much, but it does.  On our trip to Iceland a year and a half ago my son and I flew on Wow Air, which had recently started flying out of Montreal. It's not like I hadn't flown on discount airlines before, but Wow was, well, especially discount. They were fine, really, although not really as expensive as they advertise (also typical, no one could be if they wanted to stay in business).  The biggest price jump related to their draconian baggage policy.  For every suitcase it was something like $85 a piece, which ran the price up pretty quickly. So, I guess the answer is to bring almost nothing, which was difficult with a CPAP machine and travelling in the middle of winter.  Like a lot of discount airlines you have to pay for everything on the flight; so no lovely meal alone the way.  I had the Yum Yum Noodles because who doesn't want to pay for ramen noodles on an international flight (and also because they remind me of graduate school, which I always romantically refer to as Ramen Noodle Years). Oh, and I also like ramen noodles.

Mmmmm, Yum Yum Noodles . . .

Air

In one of my favorite section from Cynthia Freeland's book Portraits & Persons she discusses the philosophical concept of "air."

   "What was captured in the image of my grandmother, that continuing contact that my mother and I responded to, has been given the helpful and non-technical label of the 'air' by philosopher Roland Barthes. His book about photography, Camera Lucida, is both a broad reflection on the medium and a moving personal essay which he was prompted to write in reflections on loss after his beloved mother's death.  Barthes mused over the ways in which photographs preserve the past, bringing us into the direct presence of people who are long dead.  Sadly, their deaths seems to be foretold in these images.  Barthes seeks the truth of the person he had loved as companion for so long in the pages of a photograph album. Suddenly he discovers her, 'the real her', in an image taken of her as a young girl.  He feels that he had finally found his mother authenticated in that image, which he calls the Winter Garden photograph. It captures what Barthes describes as her 'air'. A person's 'air' is unanalyzable, he says.  Clearly this is not the same as whatever is recorded of the outward appearance that shows someone's legal identity, as in a passport photo.  The air has more to do, Barthes says with 'the expression, the look."
   If pressed to describe my grandmother's 'air' as shown in that special photo of her, I would say that it had to do with the way in which she combined a witty and observant twinkle with a slight ducking of the head.  She seemed to be on the verge of giving way to a broad wink of humor to accompany a penetrating observation, but to be cutting it off out of politeness or decorum. Barthes says more to explain what he has in mind by his label the 'air':

The air is not a schematic, intellectual datum, the way a silhouette is.  Nor is the air a simple analogy - however extended - as in 'likeness.' No, the air is that exorbitant thing which induces from body to soul - animula, little individual soul, good in one person, bad in another.

Naturally, readers are curious to see the Winter Garden photograph, but Barthes does not publish it because he thinks it will only have resonance for him, the person who knew and loved his mother in a special way.  I am not sure he was right about this. Surely there is something in grate portraits from history that holds our attention just because we do seem to see in them a person's very essence, their 'air'."

And this bring me to a photograph that my nephew Garrett took of me seven years ago when I was living in Abu Dhabi and he and his mother came to visit.

I wonder if this photo captures my "air."  Sure, it's a fitting metaphor, and I'm sitting in the desert clearly pontificating on something.  He and I had gotten up freakishly early so that we could go out into the desert so that he could take pictures of the sun rising. I posted it on FB yesterday and it drew lots of comments and likes, which I attribute more to Garrett's talent as a photographer than my merits as a model.  Still, does it capture my "air"?  When I see it I'm struck by how content I seem, and, truthfully, I was very happy at that point of time in my life.

More Album Art

I've recovered a goodly number of Iceland photos, and the rest I'm not meant to have (and that's how you get around needing a grief counselor). Here's a picture that I definitely need to run off for my son.  During our week in Iceland we had stopped by the causeway (the one that we drove over the first time in the dark without any understanding of how amazing it was) on our way south from Holmavik to the Snaefellesnes Peninsula.  I've always referred to this one as the cover of Gary's first album.

Clearly, it would be Alt-Country.  Or maybe the opening credits of one of those incredibly dark Scandinavian crime dramas that I'm addicted to on NetFlix.
 

Manfredi Album Art

Michael Manfredi is a very unique individual, and not simply because he's the only student who ever went with me on three student trips: Zanzibar, India/Sri Lanka, Jordan. He's one of those students who you know you'll end up staying close to after they've left the school (MM graduated a couple months back).  He was swapping emails with Steve Wehmeyer and me this morning and wanted to show us some of his artwork (which I've shared on this blog before).  On our trip to Zanzibar he had purchased an album at the Dhow Countries Music Academy, and was finally getting around to burn it onto his phone. Since there was no album art that made the transference he decided to create his own, which is celebrated below. I'm not really certain about my royalties, but they had better be substantial.

Oh, and Michael has determined that he and I are going to take a camel ride from the Wadi Rum all the way to Petra.  He's already done research on it, and I think it only (only? riding a camel is painful, but that's another blog post) takes around four or five days.  Our guide would cook for us, and we'd sleep under the stars in the desert.  If I can work out powering my CPAP it sounds utterly epic!

Holmavik: A Still Small Voice

It's very rare that I take good pictures, but on our trip to Iceland it seemed almost impossible to not take good pictures.  I think it was simply because the days were so short and the sun was perpetually so low in the sky, which meant that the light was extraordinary. Here's a picture I snapped of Holmavik as Gary and I took off for an absolutely amazing day, maybe my favorite of all time.  Holmavik is the town that houses the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft. It's hard to imagine it ever being bustling, but apparently it is in the summer. There was a quiet there that I don't think has ever left me.

Looking back at it now for some reason one of my favorite passages from the Quran keeps running through my head: "And remember thy Lord in thy soul, humbly and in awe, being not of loud voice, in the morning and the evening . . ."