Tidbits from the Travel Journal: Icelandic Humor

Strolling around Reykjavik (rake-ya-vik), we discovered that Icelanders have a great sense of humor. We passed a lot of restaurants and bars with funny advertisements, and saw a lot of magnets and t-shirts with clever sayings on them. (It is worth noting that these were all in English - I'm not translating Icelandic advertising humor.)

-Happy hour: 8:00 PM-12:00 AM*. Sad hour: 1:00 AM-8:59 AM

-Beer: because no good story ever started with, "so I was eating a salad..."

-A yawn is just a silent cry for cake.

-What part of Eyjafjallajökull** don't you understand?

-A shop named "Idontspeakicelandic"

*But in 24 hour time, which is more prevalent in Europe.

**The name of the volcano that erupted a few years ago and wreaked havoc on world air travel.

The tour guide our second day in Reykjavik was one of our funnier guides on the trip. At one point we were driving past an open grassy area. He gestured vaguely toward it and said, "and out here, we have lunatics." Given that the day before, our tour guide had pointed out the old Victorian-era mental hospital, I was a little shocked to hear him say the word so casually. But then he went on to explain the reason he had called them lunatics - they were golfers.

The Non-Super Superheroes

We all have a favorite super hero with a special talent.  Some superheros have super strength or the ability to fly.  Some have a special physical difference, such as claws or being able to transform into a different shape.  Most superheroes out there have useful - or even frightful - special powers.  You never hear about the super"heroes" that have the ability to do a mundane task incredibly well, or who have a power that, while impressive, is entirely useless.  Unless you're watching Mystery Men or the superhero game on Whose Line is it Anyway.

But if there were a collection of superheros out there, with mundane or useless powers, what would they be?  

I personally have a couple "super" powers:
-When going somewhere new for the first time, I will get lost.  I will make a wrong turn somewhere, even if I have very clear directions.  Even if it's not a complicated route.  It's guaranteed.
-I also have a magical cell phone.  It never fails that if I am stuck in traffic and think that I am going to be late, that my picking up the phone to call or text someone to alert them to my predicament alters something in the alignment of the planets.  Traffic will begin moving again.  That broken down car that was blocking a lane will finally be towed out of the way.  The jack-knifed tractor trailer will right itself and the stopped traffic will part like the Red Sea, allowing me to cruise along my merry way.  I will arrive on time, and whoever I called or texted will say, "I thought you said you were running late."

I realize the latter example is actually helpful, though it's so strangely specific as to only happen very rarely.

So let's close our eyes and imagine a special school for mutants and superheroes.  But not the gifted ones.  Not the elite ones.  The ones with the weird, unhelpful powers.  You have been recruited for your mutant power, and now it's time to share!  Is it the miraculous ability to always ruin a new baking recipe?  The power of coming in the front door and tripping over an item you thought you lost now that you've broken down and bought a replacement?  An amazing anti-charisma with dice that ensures you will always make the worst possible roll?  Revel in your amazingly-mundane abilities!

Life Ain't Easy for a Boy Named "Shel"

I love Shel Silverstein.  Some of my favorite poems are found in A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends.  So when I started putting together lists and research as I was working on our big Banned Books Week event at the library, I was shocked and dismayed to see A Light in the Attic on one of the lists.  But then I thought, "oh, yeah, there's 'Crowded Tub.'"  'Crowded Tub' is a delightful little limerick that goes:
There's too many kids in this tub.
There's too many elbows to scrub.
I just washed a behind
That I'm sure wasn't mine - 
There's too many kids in this tub!

And I remembered that that there was a sketch of a naked butt at one point - either that went with the poem about a guy trying to scratch that itch in the middle of his back, or the poem about a bee that spells out a message on someone's butt by stinging him.  There was also the poem advising children to sprinkle pepper in their hair so that if they got caught by a child-eating witch they would be too spicy to eat.

Parents always have issues with butts and the idea of kids being naked for some reason.  Witches always cause problems, too.

But I started looking into it and none of those were the reason why the books was challenged. As it turns out, the two poems that apparently caused the controversy were a poem advising kids to drop dishes while washing them so as to get out of dish-washing duty, and the poem where a girl threatens that she will die if she doesn't get a pony - and at the end of the poem she does.  (It's kind of the kids' version of Anachie Gordon.)

So apparently sarcasm is what got the book actually pulled off the shelf in at least one school system.  There were complaints about the scary stuff - the witch and all that - but the idea of obstinate children was apparently what got the book labeled as #51 on the most challenged and banned books of the 1990's.  Seriously?

It's worth noting that my mom, who would not let me watch Nikelodeon's Salute Your Shorts (partly because of the word "fart" in the theme song), was perfectly fine with my reading and quoting Shel Silverstein.

I think humor - sarcasm being part of humor - is an important element to teach and encourage.  Humor is a kind of creativity, and creativity seems to be falling by the wayside in many school systems.  We're getting so caught up in electronics, cookie cutter math and science tests, and the possibility that we might offend somebody, somewhere, years from now, that humor and sarcasm are often the subject of controversy these days (and apparently as far back as the 90's, too).

Also, fun little bit of trivia, Silverstein wrote the lyrics of both "A Boy Named Sue" and "Unicorn" (the song about how the Unicorn missed getting onto Noah's Ark).