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hatari-translations · 4 years

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Vikan með Gísla Marteini (22.11.19) - translation

On November 22nd, Matthías was on talk show Vikan með Gísla Marteini (The Week with Gísli Marteinn), plus Andrean as a surprise guest near the end, where they talked about, among other things, the protest Hatari were about to play at, the Eurovision Palestine banner protest, and their experience performing in Russia.

Most of the show before Andrean comes in isn't particularly relevant to Hatari fans, but I still translated anything substantial Matthías says plus relevant context. If you just want the main bit about the Moscow concert, scroll down to the "Moscow and the rainbow wings" heading under the cut.

Protests and politics

As always, Gísli Marteinn is a popular talk show host and also the Icelandic Eurovision commentator. The guests on the show this time are:

- Matthías, whom we know, introduced as "hater [Hatari], artist and playwright" - Bubbi Morthens, one of Iceland's most beloved musicians, who wrote many classic songs; a musical based on his life is premiering soon - Björk Vilhelmsdóttir, former city council member, who was recently arrested in Israel

Host Gísli Marteinn opens the show by saying it's a month until the days start to get longer again. Seasonal depression is pretty common in Iceland, and he asks if the guests do anything special to maintain their mental health in the darkest part of the year. Matthías responds: "No, the winter is my time. It's more in the summer that I have to try to stay grounded. I think it's fine."

After a segment with some jokes about the news, which include the whole corruption scandal about Samherji:

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Matthías, you're in an anticapitalist band.

MATTHÍAS: Very much so.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: How do these issues going on in the country right now strike you?

MATTHÍAS: It's perhaps illustrative of the values that capitalism - or late capitalism, maybe neoliberalism, dunno - instills in the hearts of young, up-and-coming scammers and moguls. No, that was...

GÍSLI MARTEINN: You never quite know when Hatari is joking about the anticapitalism.

MATTHÍAS: That was the take that we in Hatari have gone with, and we'll be keeping it aloft at Austurvöllur tomorrow, at two o'clock.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: You'll be playing there?

MATTHÍAS: Yes. It's "Democracy, not plutocracy", an event arranged by the Constitution Society [organization campaigning for the new Icelandic constitution, which was written by a democratically elected council of members of the public and overwhelmingly approved of in a national referendum in 2012, to be actually implemented instead of being stuck in a drawer like it has been] and other organizations -

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Unions...

MATTHÍAS: Yes, Efling [one of Iceland's largest unions], the Icelandic Disability Alliance came in too, and other organizations. So it's big organizations behind this, and I think it's imperative to show through action that this kind of behaviour... that you care, whether you agree with all of... Look, yeah. No, just show up.

They talk about anticapitalism and the scandal for a bit.

Israel and the flag incident

GÍSLI MARTEINN: On to something slightly different. Matthías, last time you were here, you were on the way to Eurovision.

MATTHÍAS: Yeah, we wore those specially designed tracksuits.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Yeah. I've got here one of the most famous objects of 2019 in Iceland, and that's this... this flag here.

He pulls out the Palestine banner that Matthías held in the green room.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: The nation was shocked by the Samherji news, but I think the shock was greater when this was pulled out.

BJÖRK: The joy was greater!

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Yeah, but still shock! I don't necessarily mean shock in a negative way. I'll just say for myself, I could barely believe you were doing this. Walk us through it a bit, I mean, how... You were incredibly stressed about doing this.

MATTHÍAS: Yes, and there's a lot of uncertainty, as I've talked about before, in that situation. Some 9000 people start booing, viciously. And I also spoke to people who were in Berlin and other places, who were at Eurovision events that might be sponsored by some Israeli company, people pepping up Israel and Eurovision, and there are Icelanders in the crowd just watching the show, and how the crowds, not just in Tel Aviv but all around Europe, just fill up with rage. It's strange how that's what you feel, you can't feel the viewer behind the camera like you can at a concert, where we're in our element. So the love comes later through social media, and messages and reactions from people that we talk to, and there was way more of it, but that rage is the first thing you feel.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Right. But you had to smuggle this in somehow. Where did you keep this?

MATTHÍAS: Just inside of the beltline or in our boots - not out of any disrespect for the flag, it was just a method for...

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Didn't you buy this in a toy store or something?

MATTHÍAS: I actually didn't buy it, it was the reporters at Iceland Music News who took a trip and bought this for us. We're just in the whole Eurovision bubble, keeping the wheels turning.

Gísli Marteinn asks the others about their reactions to the flag stunt. Bubbi rants a bit about the Israeli state's policy of violence, then Gísli Marteinn asks Björk about how she got arrested in Israel. She says they didn't know she was Icelandic at the time, so Gísli Marteinn quips, "So it wasn't Matti's fault." Björk says the Palestinians really notice Icelanders, and noticed the incident, and talks about how she's so impressed with how just this one word ["PALESTINE" on the banners] shattered the rosy image they'd been trying to build up for Eurovision. She rants a bit too, about why we're being made to pay a fine just for displaying a word.

MATTHÍAS: Like there aren't a bunch of Israeli flags there. That was kind of a justification for me personally; there are a bunch of Israeli flags.

They move on to Björk’s arrest. She was there at the Gaza border with three other volunteers for the International Women's Peace Service. She had not been intending to get arrested; at one point they were going to be waving Palestinian flags at the border just to let people know they were not alone, but had been threatened with arrest, so she actually specifically didn't come to that bit. They’re vague about the arrest, so I looked up another article for the details. The actual arrest happened when they were with Palestinian farmers helping them pick olives; a settler came up and acted threatening, they ignored him, and he called the Israeli army, who arrived and told them they were in a militarily restricted area, asked for their passports, and arrested them when they didn’t have them with them.

Björk has brought European blueberry squash that she made, and everyone has some.

Theater and Bubbi Morthens

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Despite your young age, you've won an award for your achievements in theater. You wrote an amazing play about a man who gets stuck in IKEA.

MATTHÍAS: Griðastaður.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Griðastaður. If you were writing the play about Bubbi that's being staged this winter, how would you have approached the project?

MATTHÍAS: I probably would've approached it kind of like Ólafur Egill [Egilsson, writer/director of the Bubbi musical] said he would approach it. That is to say, he talked about the concept of Bubbi. Not necessarily personally about the human being, but just about Bubbi as a phenomenon hovering over the nation. That's how Ólafur talked about it, I think before the process started, or I don't know how far he'd gotten.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Bubbi isn't a man, he's an atmosphere.

MATTHÍAS: Yes. He's a part of all of us.

Bubbi talks about how he's read the script and was shocked because it's pretty merciless (he had explicitly asked to not be consulted as the script was being written). He ends up saying he's anxious, scared, but really happy and excited; Matthías says "I'm just happy and excited."

Environmentalism and the climate

Gísli Marteinn asks Björk about some greenhouses that are scheduled to be built just below where she lives, and she talks about how unnecessary construction isn't good for the environment.

MATTHÍAS: But speaking of the environment, there's one thing you didn't cover in the "News of the Week" segment, and that's the Kastljós citizens' assembly on the climate. [This was a special episode of Kastljós on November 19th, featuring a live discussion on climate change with various scientists, politicians, environmentalist, and one anthropogenic global warming skeptic journalist.] I thought that show was awesome! I'd watch it if it was on every week, just every Tuesday night.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: The same episode?

MATTHÍAS: Just the same... with new people and so on.

Björk suggests he should see author and environmentalist Andri Snær Magnason's show at the City Theater, an accompaniment to his recent book, where he discusses climate change. Matthías says, “The book is on my bedside table right now. I'll have to get started on that.”

Moscow and the rainbow wings

GÍSLI MARTEINN: I'm going to pivot a bit, because Matthías just got home from Moscow, and we saw on the news that you made some ripples over there, because as we know the Pride Parade has regularly been banned there...

MATTHÍAS: And any kind of "propaganda" is just banned.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: But Hatari, as this...

MATTHÍAS: Propaganda machine.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Yeah! [laughs] And beneath it there's this satire on, shall we say, fascist methods and so on.

MATTHÍAS: Totally.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: How were you received in Moscow?

MATTHÍAS: Actually, we've never been as well received by any audience, just...

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Amazing!

MATTHÍAS: Just, "by a long shot", to use an English phrase. The love in the room was so palpable, and there were Pride flags, and there were gay and lesbian couples, and people were still jumping around and singing an hour after we left the stage. I've never seen anything like it.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: That's good to hear!

BUBBI: Isn't it typical for a dictatorship, that underneath that's there?

BJÖRK: People thirst for those human rights.

MATTHÍAS: Yeah.

BUBBI: That joy, and...

GÍSLI MARTEINN: That's probably true. But I saw a video, and I don't think it diminishes anything to say that the high point...

BUBBI: It was amazing!

GÍSLI MARTEINN: ...was when Andrean walked in...

MATTHÍAS: Definitely.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: We've got him on the show as a surprise guest! Andrean, come in!

Andrean walks in, to cheering.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Andrean had this thing he has on his back built for him. Please spread your wings, my friend!

Andrean unfurls the wings, to further cheers. Bubbi launches into a bit of one of his songs, "Strákarnir á Borginni", a 1984 song criticizing the violent homophobia of the time.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: Andrean, congratulations on what you did. I know you came up with this on your own, to have this built and then spread those wings on the stage in Moscow.

ANDREAN: Yeah, I did. I actually - I didn't build this myself, I got Haraldur Leví at the National Theater to create the mechanism and then Alexía Rós, talented seamstress, made the wings.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: I know this was - you had to steel yourself, it's not just literally heavy on your back, but mentally heavy as well.

ANDREAN: Yeah, very. I was honestly terrified to take this there. The guys were there before me, they went to St. Petersburg. I didn't want to go first to St. Petersburg and then to Moscow, where the story would spread, and...

MATTHÍAS: Also, the Moscow gig was a lot bigger, so you picked the right one.

ANDREAN: But so I was traveling alone with this, and I was just... There are horrible stories that you hear from Russia, about violence and sometimes murders of LGBTQIA people, so I was constantly fearing the worst and didn't trust anyone, and had a bunch of conspiracy theories that I'm not going to get into. But then everything went really well, and as soon as you got to the venue, then you immediately felt the presence of like-minded people. As soon as I stepped onto the stage, there was just this sharing of love between everyone.

MATTHÍAS: The Russians were shouting, "Andrean! Andrean!"

GÍSLI MARTEINN: I saw that on the video! Everyone knew your name, you got so much love from the audience...

ANDREAN: Yeah. And really the idea came about when we were out in Tel Aviv. I started waving the Pride flag in the Green Room, and I happened to be positioned so that I was between the host and someone they were talking to, and was there in the middle waving this flag. And for us Icelanders it's just become really mundane, thankfully, and it's just a beautiful rainbow flag, but we often forget it's a highly political flag as well, in many countries that are participating in the contest. And I just got a deluge of messages, especially from Eastern Europe and especially Russia, where people were sharing their love, and stories, horrible stories. Which encouraged me to do something crazy.

GÍSLI MARTEINN: I just say this was awesome! Congratulations and thank you for coming and showing this to us. I know you have a full-time job with the Iceland Dance Company, and like everyone around Hatari you're doing a million different things.

Then he introduces the next segment, Berglind Festival going around exploring how come Icelanders are apparently reading more books in the past couple of years. In the vein of her Hatari segment, it's pretty funny (also, one of the people she interviews is the aforementioned Andri Snær Magnason), but it has nothing to do with Hatari, so I'm not translating that. The show closes off with a performance of the song "Namminef" (Candy Nose), by the band "Bland í poka" (Mixed Candy Bag).

#hatari #matthías tryggvi haraldsson #andrean sigurgeirsson #interview #translation #politics

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