The Burton Holmes Archive has information about Burton Holmes, the travel writer who became the first person to make filmic travelogues. More importantly, they also have a lot of
film clips by Holmes and his associate,
André de la Varre, who was also a great travelogue maker himself. Watching these clips is not quite time travel, but it is as close as we can get. Take a look at
Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1926,
Lake Michigan in 20s,
Cairo in 1932 and
the 1955 Rio de Janeiro carnival. The later films have sound and narration, but I prefer the silent ones.
[Burton Holmes previously, André de la Varre previously, and the Travel Film Archive, which runs Burton Holmes site, previously]
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 26, 2011 -
5 comments
As They Say is a 20+ minute musical composition by Icelander
Ólöf Arnalds, where she plays and sings all the parts herself in nine-fold splitscreen. She created the piece from interviews with 17 New Yorkers, each of a different nationality, and she sings in all 17 languages. Other Ólöf Arnalds videos:
11 minute documentary,
4 songs live on KEXP,
covering That Lucky Old Sun,
original song that morphs into Springsteen's I'm on Fire live,
new song,
an interview broken up into 17 chunks and a
10 minute documentary. The interview, the first of the documentaries and
some songs are in English.
[Ólöf Arnalds previously on MeFi]
posted by Kattullus
on Feb 9, 2010 -
4 comments
100 Best Icelandic Pop & Rock Albums all streamable in full for free. Icelandic state broadcaster RÚV and Icelandic subscription music website
tónlist.is have published what they, their team of experts and the Icelandic public consider to be the 100 best Icelandic rock and pop albums of all time. Björk, Sigur Rós, Múm and The Sugarcubes don't need much introduction but below the cut there are short description of the other artists.
[via RÚV] [more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on May 6, 2009 -
47 comments
Protests have rocked Reykjavík since Tuesday:
Envious of Obama, Icelanders hurl yogurt and stage riots for new leaders,
Global financial crisis overwhelms tiny Iceland,
Flickr set of pictures of Tuesday's protest in front of parliament (complete with
pepper spray on camera lens),
AFP photos from Tuesday's protest, video from protests
1,
2,
3 &
4,
Icelandic protesters pelt PM's car (includes short video).
New age of rebellion and riot stalks Europe,
The Icelandic "Facebook Revolution", Iceland is Burning
part 1 &
part 2 and
Reuters factbox on Iceland and its economic crisis.
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 22, 2009 -
45 comments
Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807-45) was an Icelandic Romantic poet and natural scientist. Dick Ringler, a professor at The University of Wisconsin, has a site that contains
50 poems and prose texts by Jónas in parallel English/Icelandic versions. Also on the site,
a guide to traditional Icelandic verse,
a biographical sketch of the poet and a
map of Iceland with places Jónas wrote about marked. Here's his short
Above the Ford:
The cliffs on life's swift current/are cleft by shallow valleys./Masses have queued to cross there ---/crowds of billy-goat milkers./We'll go upstream, God willing,/to walk the hawk-high ridges/and pitch ourselves --- impetuous ---/plumb in the roaring torrent! [Today is Iceland's Independence Day]
posted by Kattullus
on Jun 17, 2007 -
13 comments
