Crêpe

She had just made me an amazing organic-coffee latte, and now my daughter Valentína set herself to the the task (art?) of making a crepe at the ice cream store on Skólavörðurstígur, Eldur og Ís (they don't have a web site/Facebook page yet, but it's the only ice cream store that's actually open in midtown, as is.) This is her first official career move, and so far she's absolutely rockin' it! It helps that she speaks excellent English and has that American ease-of-smile and open demeanor (she was born in San Francisco :) that works so well in this line of business.

The owners have also spent time in California giving this small family-run store a friendliness that is often lacking in Iceland. Let's not sugar things here: Icelanders are not known for being so adept at expressive hospitality

So if you're on your way to our island for the first time, please don't take the cool rudeness personally! (In his amazing 19th century travelogue Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874, Bayard Taylor writes, "The common people - if one has the right to use such a word as "common" to describe such a people - are still something of a puzzle to me. Except among our Indian tribes I never saw such stoical, indifferent faces." pg. 218)  If you are lucky enough to get good, friendly service at a store or restaurant, go ahead and let the person know that you appreciate it. There's no tipping culture here, and Icelanders are horribly negligent about showing appreciation for a job well done. Slowly but surely, with increasing international influence, the service culture here is being massaged into something the average traveler can feel comfortable with. So go ahead and take part in whatever way you can!

And so without further ado, I here present the result of Valentína's artistry, the absolutely delicious Nutella, strawberry and vanilla ice cream crepe:

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May Sun

We've all seen the gorgeous photos of the Saturday's Super Moon over Reykjavík, so I thought I'd give our lovely Sun some press as well.

I posted this originally in May 2006, when I wrote: I'll let this one speak for itself... (p.s. this was taken from our balcony at around 11 pm in early May.)

Property

Another weird wonder we found just around the corner from our house, this gutted building at Frakkastígur 16, just below Kaffismiðja Íslands and the corner shop Drekinn and where the music and instruments store Rín* lived for forty years before moving to Brautarholt in 2004, has become a canvas for street artists while its future is being decided. You can play around with this interactive map of Reykjavik to find the streets mentioned in this post...

I found some interesting info on this location: the property just below it takes an L-shaped turn up to Njálsgata, and is where the Ölgerðin Egill Skallagrímson brewery used to be. I remember very well being able to smell the almost too-rich aroma of a new batch of Malt Extrakt being brewed there before they moved out to Grjótháls. In the corner crook created by the fairly new apartment complex built on the site of the old brewery (btw, the 1100 square meter site was bought by the City for a sweet 37 million krónur back in 2000...good god how times have changed! That amount might buy you an average three bedroom apartment a tenth that size today) sits the Drekinn house built in 1905, a blue cement building from 1943, and this now-rundown structure. It seems its owners have requested permission to tear down at least six times since 2006, though it looks like the local building preservation society has had a hand in making sure that didn't happen, and there seems to have been a co-owner of the lot that also refused to agree on demolition. Ultimately, I'm sure it was the bank crash that set any grand real estate intentions on ear, seeing as the last specific mention I could find was an August 2008 photo report of abandoned houses in the midtown area by the Prevention Department of the Capital District Fire and Rescue Service, when there was still enough money floating around to bitch and squabble over who would get what share of the prosperity pie. Sigh.

The picture below is one I took last fall of some nice visitors who stopped to snap a classic shot of the Drekinn shop.

And here below? Just some nuns, and just for fun : )

*Some of the links in this post are in Icelandic...sorry I wasn't able to find anything in English with the same info, but now you've got more material to practice your language learning with! 

Memory

Thank you to those of you who commented on the previous post. I've fully absorbed the overall message that more photos is a good thing, and I'll try to do my best to satisfy your image cravings. I'm keeping this post short, though, and presenting a dramatic color juxtaposition I encountered last Friday night, which turned out to be one of those most enjoyable long, long evenings that make you very glad to live in such an alive and bursting little city.

I'm sharing this ubiquitous image of our famous Hallgrímskirkja (which I've decided is our own personal sacred pyramid) because it is so very blue, and because soon enough we won't even have this azure twilight to swim in; as the sun rises and rises in the sky and the leaves fill out on the trees, the street lamps will stay unlit and we'll, for a few summer months, forget what evening, and especially night, look like. And after the long slow, cold winter we've had, that will be very welcomed for sure.

The photo below was chosen for, of course, its absolute rouge and also as a permanent reminder of this night in particular, partially soundtracked by our own neo-psychedelic indie wonder, Singapore Sling. It was, just honestly, a Friday the 13th to remember forever. If you were there, you'll know what I mean ~°~

Stroll

Some shots from a recent Saturday walk around the neighborhood...

I don't usually share more than one or two, maybe three, pictures per post, which has helped me to really have to choose images that resonate with me, or that prompt some writing. So this post is out of character. I'm actually working on creating ebooks for download with walking tours of our world here, with short descriptions of the scenes I run across. This is a very basic sampling of that concept:

This charming girl was sitting on Klapparstígur with a sign that reads, "I am a French woman," in not-so-grammatically-correct Icelandic. The two men are local down-and-outers. I have no idea what her purpose was, but she was having fun.

~.~

I'd seen this tourist down on Austurstræti with her friend/companion. Here she's taking a rest on the way up Bankastræti, with the Government House in the background.

~.~

Up the hill, at the intersection of Skólavörðurstígur and Laugavegur, a wacky girl band was collecting money for the Red Cross, which made everyone smile.

~.~

Even though I love getting shots of color and life here in the city, I'm also fascinated by dereliction and decay, especially when examples can be found right close classic tourism areas. I knew the family that lived in this house on Baldursgata, just off Skólavörðurstígur, in the early 90's and it's sad to see how dismal it has become. The graffiti reads, "Correct me," while the shockingly large asp that's growing from the crack between the foundation and sidewalk is both a testament to neglect and to Nature's tenacious will to thrive.

~.~

Just a bit farther down Baldursgata is another house in a very sorry state. It burned in November, 2008, just after the bank collapse, which gave it the suspicious smack of arson, especially given its recent history. A sad sight, for sure.

~.~

The interesting thing about this location is that it clearly shows how decay doesn't have to mean ugly. I've passed by this backyard shed on Kárastígur (where our favorite hostel, Our House, is located) a hundred times and have always loved the remote Eastern European feel of this scene.

~.~

After all this walking I needed some nourishment, so I stopped by the Noodle Station and got to listen to the romance victories and woes of these American (Canadian?) girls at the next table. We love Noodle Station!

~.~

After eats, I spotted an acquaintance of mine who looked so retro-metropolitan cute that I had to ask her to pose for me.

~.~

And finally, to wrap up this post with another splash of red corrugated iron, is this shot of a classic wood-frame house peeking over the fence of a very weathered home on Frakkastígur, which I'm sure many of you have passed on your travels through town : )

~.~

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Wonder

If you haven't yet or haven't in a while (especially if you live here!) be sure to go up to the top of the Hallgrímskirkja tower. It's a stunning view in any weather, even on windy, stormy Sundays like the last one. We live so close to the tower, literally only a couple hundred yards away, and cross in front of it almost every day which means we forget to take advantage of it! So when on Sunday, which was Óðinn's 6th birthday, he suggested going up into the tower on our way home from Amma and Afi's house on the other side of the church, I couldn't refuse. It had been too long since the last time and was such a fun and simple adventure on his big day.

That kind of "local's complacency" is one of the reasons I began this blog: I noticed that I saw things here on our hill (Skólavörðurholt - basically the triangle in front of and to the sides of the church, down to where Skólavörðurstígur and Laugavegur merge; this map is very cool) that the natives did not, or that they'd become so accustomed to that there was little wonder left in them. I did the same thing in Santa Cruz: I didn't go to the beach, only a mile away, nearly often enough. And when living in San Francisco as an adult I realized that I was starting to take for granted the stunning landscape and architecture that other people dreamed of being able to see with their own eyes. 

As an example, my mother saw the photo below with this wonderful paved design and couldn't figure out where I'd taken it. I'm sure most of my readers who've been up into the tower have taken a similar picture, and would recognize it right away, but for someone who walks over it many times a week, it becomes a practical blur.

Even though I've always felt a deep childhood connection to this part of Reykjavik (where my parents were raised) it is still totally new to me because I grew up in California. I discovered early on that even though we all adore a good landscape photo, we still love those photojournalistic/street images that remind us of our own personal experiences in a new place. To be able to say, Ooh, I've been there! I've seen that, especially with the little hidden gems sprinkled throughout a town or city, is a fun and intimate feeling. Maybe this concept of renewed wonder in the familiar is what is needed for people to really start collaborating on creating sustainable communities. When we stop to appreciate what we already have, finding ways to maintain our neighborhoods in a healthy way easily emerge. 

Promise

I seem to write this every March, but every March we seem to need to know it again: Spring is springing and Summer will come again. Promise : ) 

Also, if you're located on the Eastern Seaboard, why don't you treat yourself and a loved one or two to an evening Off Broadway at the new play Out of Iceland, "a comedy with heart." Here's a small blurb, sent to me by the production team to share with you all: 

Caroline Miller (Jillian Crane), an established writer from New York, is at a loss for words when she falls off an Icelandic volcano and awakes on the couch of a complete stranger. Hal Tanker (Michael Bakkensen) is the misplaced cowboy in charge of the grounds who nurses her back to health. Then there's Thor (Lea De Laria), Iceland's flamboyant troll who crawled out of the television one night to warn her about something – or did she imagine that? When their truck mysteriously disappears in the middle of “The Middle,” Hal and Caroline must face their biggest fears in a long night in one of the most mystical places on earth. Out of Iceland is a modern day fairy tale set at the end of the earth.

Definitely worth checking out!

Translation

I like to say that English is Icelandic that went on a 1200-year journey around the world, and has now come home again. More and more often, to the chagrin of the elderly and the intellectual, English words slip out of the mouths and pens of not only internationally savvy youth, but of those who are deemed fit to lead this country in business, politics and the arts.  (Here's an informative set of lecture slides on the use of English at the tertiary, or university, level of education in Iceland by one of my favorite professors at the University of Iceland, Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir)

Even more frustrating to many is when journalists and reporters, held to very high standards here especially because they are disseminating info on events in the Big City to families on isolated farms way out on the edges of our island, slack off on their use of language. If we keep on at this rate, many fear, we'll end up like the Danish with their especially-incomprehensible Copenhagenese (very funny video!) a true horror for a country who's independence was gained in large part because Icelanders were able to claim a distinct cultural identity from their Danish overlords (the Danes had to capitulate: I've been told they had used the same argument against outside rulers in earlier times, but Danish history is a complicated series of land grabs and relinquishments, so I'm having a hard time backing that fact up.)

But if we consider that Old Norse - Icelandic for all intents and purposes - was an adventurous, seafaring language that eventually grew restless confined as it was to the cold North Atlantic, and longed for some sunshine, and maybe a little romance, it all starts to make sense. Heading south, borne on the lips of the most ævintýralegt folk, it mingled with and married the tongues of the Mediterranean and lands beyond to eventually become the world lingua franca in all its varied dress.

I respect the absolute dedication to our cultural and linguistic heritage and believe it to be crucial to our people to preserve it forever. I also, however, agree with Mr. Jay Walker that English is not a thing to fear, but the world's second language to be embraced along with any country's mother tongue. He calls it the universal language of problem solving, so that peoples and nations can engage in conversations about the state of the world we live in and our global hopes for the future. In addition, I like that languages are flexible and ever-evolving (for example, as recently as 1973 Icelandic academics removed the letter Z from the language) and very personal as well. How we tjá okkur (express ourselves) may be guided by the society we live in, but ultimately cannot be absolutely regulated, nor should it be. Inflection, pronunciation, word choice, rhythm, and even grammar use are like the features on a playground, which we can use to our best and most enjoyable and creative expression.

 So when my daughter blurts out something like, "sjáðu score-ið mitt" ("look at my score") instead of "sjáðu stígin mín" or when I say something like, "we need to see what the staðan is" (in stead of situation) it just comes naturally, and doesn't somehow feel rangt, or wrong. And when my son (who has taught himself to read and do simple multiplication already) refuses to say "sjötta" for "sixth" but says "sexta" instead because it makes more sense (in Icelandic, six is sex and seven is sjö ) he's actually right.

In formal and academic settings we use our best grammar and most excellent vocabulary, but we are playing with the creative aspects of language within our home and in our personal lives. Óðinn will realize soon enough that he can either always be "punished" for his variation on "sixth," or just do as everybody else is doing to appease the formal educational system. It will be his choice.

The first photo is from the Settlement Exhibition in downtown Reykjavik.

Curious

These boys at the pizza bar busted me snapping pics of them and played along, which was actually pretty cool. The girl never had a clue ( if you know who she, or the guys, are you can let them know they're internationally famous now ; )

 In other news, I got an email from a certain EE Ryan the other day asking if I'd like to read his novella and help to spread the word about it.

 It's called The Odd Saga of the American and a Curious Icelandic Flock and is "the fictional tale of a witty American college student and his ill-fated semester in Reykjavik." He sent me a copy and I had a fun jaunt following the lead character, Alex, into a specialized variation of local corruption with a surprise twist at the end. The Icelandic characters are simply and comfortably brought to life, and Ryan taps them for potential with their silences as much as with their words or deeds. If you love all things Icelandic, you should follow the link above and go ahead and read this book : )


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Design

It's nearly time for Design March, or Hönnunar Mars, 2012, so I'm sharing a creation of mine inspired by life with my amazing Óðinn.

Living with such a rich imagination, such a boy imagination, and playing out with him his universes-spanning ongoing battle between the forces of good and evil via Lego and Playmobile is nothing short of entertaining, and sometimes educational too: a five year-old (mine will be six in fifteen days ;) often has a much clearer understanding of basic morality and the core nature of the human (and zombie, and skeleton, and alien pirate, and space ship Captain) psyche. Next time you get a chance to, build a world or two with a kid. It's highly recommended ~.~

Click here to see the rest of the photo shoot.

Nammi

Candy, or nammi in Icelandic, is an unfortunate national pastime : /

I took this photo from the sidewalk looking in to the neighborhood's newest business. This location on Laugavegur used to house a super-comfy organic café/yoga studio called Hjlómalind, but the new resident is a candy bar (please don't miss the irony in that word choice.) According to my teenage daughter, it will stay open til 2am, because that's what we all really need. More sugar in our lives... 

*sigh*

Rainbow

This photo is of the Gravarvogur inlet (good article there from the Reykjavik Grapevine) looking out over to the water tanks at Grafarholt on a misty Sunday last weekend.

I'm considering the concept of what we resist persisting and liking how it works with change. Resistance to change is futile and in addition will cause it to persist. Giving this even a moment's meditative thought makes me feel like I'm in one of those giant plastic spheres rolling down a long green hill - it makes my stomach tingle with something like giddiness, or the uncomfortable but thrilling weightlessness that comes to us in those moments right before we fall asleep.

Beautiful and fantastic things are happening in the world and on this island - innovation, creation, bravery, compassion, healing - that help to offset the crumbling of old ways, both the socially sacred and profane. I like that when I get overwhelmed by all these darker secrets of our world that are being tattled and exposed these days, there's always some bright hope, some news or new product or method, that makes me smile.

It really is a wonderful world, and I guess I'm just going to keep on rolling with the change : )

Btw, if you haven't yet, go to the Iceland Eyes Facebook page, Like it if you'd like (I post more regularly there, with interesting and sometimes pretty obscure links), and then take a look in the left sidebar at the other fan pages I've liked (just a small slice of the total talent pool here, of course!) That way you can discover for yourselves some of the magic in the making here in Iceland. 

Skate

I love it when a photo leads me into new internet terrain! I grew up with skaters out in California, and actually know a bunch here, so it's fun to stop and watch them do trix down at Ingólfstorg, the plaza at the very end of Laugavegur (btw, love the interactive map I just linked to!) This time I got a few shots, not the best in the world, but something to post anyway (and the dude in the pink shoes in the photo below is Stephen who's in my college English class : )

The fun started, for me at least, when I googled Ingólfstorg. I got a cool article about the plaza's history (sorry, it's in Icelandic, but with lots of b/w photos...and I don't have the time to translate it), its international renown as a skate spot (see here - it's got a funbox!- and here - "NO problem with the police...there is a 8 step stairs, where you can grind the steps, and the steps are a little gap!!") and the fact that 68 submissions have been received by the City for its redesign (unfortunately also only in Icelandic, but you can download - or read in Google Docs - the PDF of the Redesign Competition guidelines.)

Though pretty much everyone agrees that the plaza is a total design failure as far as enticing humans to enjoy it (and other wildlife as well!) I'm sure skaters will be super unhappy to see it turned into something new, because we all know without having to ask that out of those 68 submissions, not one incorporates room for any kind of bling or flair by boarders. I'll go ahead and link this video of some locals doing the torg for posterity's sake, and also so you can hear how well young Icelanders swear in English...they've hardly even got an accent! : )

 The winners of the first round of the design competition will be announced next week, on Leap Day, and I, for one, am really interested in seeing the results.

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

Calm

Retro Iceland Eyes, first posted in February 2007

After the smá útrás, or little bit of venting I did in the last post (and by the way, thank you to all of you who took part in the discussion. I shared your comments around - they were very astute, thought-provoking and much appreciated!) I thought I'd chill things out a bit with a nice, calming view.

This photo is consistently chosen by readers as one of their favorites, and here's the text that accompanied its original posting:

This view is found on the little island of Grótta, just outside of the town of Seltjarnarnes (Seal Pond Point) which is a tight-knit and slightly snobby community at the very tip of the peninsula that Reykjavik sits on. It's a nature reserve and bird sanctuary that is connected to the mainland by a thin spit of land that exposes at low tide. There's a golf course out there, a nature center, old war bunkers and a very wonderful stretch of beach that reminds me of a typical Northern California strand, with cold-water waves crashing against the sands and rocky outcrops. It's a lovely place for a walk, especially as winter fades away and the days lengthen once more.

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

Viewpoint

It's sometimes uncomfortable to voice anything other than a Pollyanna viewpoint on current affairs, and so I usually avoid writing about current affairs! Occasionally, though, I just have to write what I feel, and this is one of those days, though I don't have the heart to go into details. Something about these still, trapped, waiting men in this dirty, decaying window is prompting me, so this is what I have to say:

The glamour/adventure construct that our PR men and women have spun in the past decade has paid off in tons more tourism and happily so, because that's where the money lay, right? I don't disagree at all, and find the average visitor to be a polite and friendly type, willing to help the natives see their homeland for all the glory it has to offer via their curiosity and cash. No cynicism intended: the traveler brings with them a new view and if they open their wallets, it's to share some of what they've got in return for local goods and experiences. Win win for sure! I hope we maintain an ethical, eco-friendly bent in the further development of our tourist industry, because that's why people come here, and not to get what they can get in any other Euro city, and probably for less.

Before we start pandering to Others and their dollars, though, we need to take care of our Own. Though a shiny new hotel might lure a thousand more weekenders into the city, it does little for the morale of the local who can barely maintain the roof over her and her children's heads. It may bring in summertime cash and create a few jobs, but it doesn't solve the problem of once-reasonable and seemingly practical student loan debts, taken by people who honestly wanted to better themselves and their society, that have now doubled since the crash with no discussion on the table of doing anything about it. A new hotel might make us feel superficially proud and even rich as a nation but does nothing for that overwhelming deep-seated feeling that we've completely lost our way and are wandering, ethically compromised, into strange unknowns, missing in our cultural hearts something we can't quite seem to name...

We can welcome our visitors with all the stuff and buildings and ads and magazines and luxuries we think they will need and enjoy, but when traveling nothing ever really surpasses a warm and contented smile from a local, does it? Let's not twist the faces of our single, hard-working mothers and ammas and grandfathers and men into hard-scrabble grimaces because they are just barely scraping by. There's a offended,indignant  tone, a bitter swallowed anger that is stuck in the throats of so many Icelanders these days for the ever-mounting evidence of swindle, corruption, greed, violence, and social breakdown happening here, on our beloved wonder of an island. There is no glory in suffering, and there is no glory in wealth if it's at the expense of a distant relative, or the woman who scans groceries. At the expense of one's own people, born here or not.

Something has to give.

Moss

Retro-post from February 2010, originally titled Life: Tiny moss in macro ~.~ One of my favorite photos, from the early days of my fascination with macro.

I love how tenacious life is, especially the life we barely see here in colder climes. It's humbling to consider that something as small as this moss, just barely bigger than the snow it's holding, has the power, over time, past seasons and through sheer will of growth, to destroy all that we've constructed.

While humans scramble and fret, love and hate and build and tear down, regret and hope and try to keep faith, this plant lives. It may die in time, but will eventually emerge again in a new set of cells, driven by the same compelling desire to lift and rise and expand downwards as well as towards the sky. It clings and survives, and forces willing, thrives, a simple and beautiful symbol of eternal life.

Guide

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Pétur Sturluson.

Pétur, who describes himself as "a freelance guide, driver guide, mountain guide, photograph guide, bird guide, geology guide...anthropology student, artist, photographer and [I work] in fashion" is a typically multi-talented Icelander with a wonderful aesthetic sense, as this image shows.

When I asked him to tell the story behind the photo he wrote, So the story behind the Horses photo...goes like this. I was fishing with a friend in Landmannalaugar territory. Enjoying the landscape even more. When arriving close to Hekla I jumped out of the car to shoot a photo of that Volcano. And by complete luck a bunch of horses came galloping towards me and this time I was ready with my camera...Everybody just loves this photo...And so do I...

In photography, timing is everything.

For more of Pétur's amazing images of Iceland and the world beyond, please visit his flickr site. And if you find yourself here on the Lava Rock needing a guide, contact me and I'll be sure to pass your info on.

Practice

Bear with us! We're freaking out again because of the weather. And no, not we as in me, personally, but as in the entire island nation. It's really cold! It's really windy! Roads are closed! Domestic flights have been cancelled and cars can't get into/out of parking spots! Snow has invaded the tops of our winter boots and we've lost our woolen mittens! An entire meter of the fluffy stuff has fallen and it's apocalyptic times here in this country named for ice. How will we ever survive? 

Well, since most of us have lived through this kind of thing before it shouldn't be too difficult. And according to my favorite weather site (click on a pic and scroll the timeline to watch the pretty colors change) it will warm up and all the impertinent snow will be turned to sludge by Friday midnight. Phew!

Another sweet thing to do, though, to keep warm here in winter is to experience Hot Yoga with Lana Vogestad who is a talented artist and amazing Barkan Method yoga instructor leading sessions at the World Class chain of gyms here in Reykjavik. They unfortunately don't have a site in English, but here's your chance to practice your Icelandic (that last link is an inside joke: Google Translate is not the definitive Icelandic language resource by any means) by checking out their verðskrá. If intensive, balancing, healing, rewarding, sweaty Practice is your thing, Lana's classes are an absolute must in any season.

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Sentiment

Why, of course you can!

Knit-graffiti left at the top of Skólavörðurstígur by an intrepid, and sentimental, tourist.

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Graze

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Aaron Young

Aaron writes: This picture was taken within 24 hours of arriving in Iceland, the first of three planned days. I was on my way to see the famous geysers and majestic waterfalls, stopped to have a look at the ponies, enamored by their natural dressage. Two of them came to greet me, flirted a bit and continued grazing. So inspired by these creatures, their air and their view, I have now been in Iceland for a month.

I cancelled my trips to Holland and Paris, scribbled two little movies and sent requests back to Los Angeles for funding with love. Frankly, colleagues were highly concerned. They only knew a smattering of Iceland, but enough to talk me out of the first film due to impetuosity and lighting conditions. And then, the very next night, a full moon lit up the streets of Reykjavik to absolute perfection. My colleagues then deferred to my discretion, which is staying in Iceland until the essence of Her beautiful people are expressed for the cinema.

(Aaron is currently waiting on film funds, while trying to bottle and export magical Iceland air).

Thank you, Aaron, for this graceful image!

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Regarding Wikileaks and its strong connection to Iceland, The Reykjavik Grapevine currently leads the local pack with current details on the situation. And here is a good read from September on local MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir's relationship to Wikileaks and Julian Assange himself. (For the more daring, here's a link to Birgitta's appearance on Red Ice Radio.)