red and white, summer summer

Sigur Ros - Inní mér syngur vitleysingur

Today, in my conveniently red car, I blast this thing driving into Glen Williams.

It’s Canada Day, and the sun is spilling all over like a busted sprinkler on the lawn, and everyone’s out watching ducks race down rivers and blurs of red and white. It’s summer and fuck it’s all so gorgeous out there in the world. You’d almost guess, if you were from a foreign country, that they’re all hurling fireworks up into the sky tonight as a sacrifice — to conjure the sun back into existence and this is how they do it, this is how they keep it all so wonderful. You’d think this place doesn’t understand the concept of ice but still uses it enthusiastically in drinks, like a die-hard dollar-store shopper who hates the Chinese economy. You’d think the boy in the sandbox doesn’t know what the hell a snowplough is.

So what’s a better way to welcome the day than with a song from Iceland, a song by a band who’d convinced us all that their country was a dreary and morose place of little-light and lovelorn feelings. Turns out Sigur Ros were lying to us all along. Over there, at some not-so-distant latitude, they must have hammock-hungry days like this one. There must be fireworks filling the sky. There must be jumping and strawberries and explosive kisses under large trees. The entire population must shed themselves of their wool sweaters and sweat in the sun. It must all happen there — these are the scenes from which the band snatched this song.