SURREAL BOUNCE: 6) THORRABLOT
In Search of Creativity & Madness
Summer 2001
Most Montecito mornings are graced with fog, known locally as marine layer.
James McNeill Whistler, the most famous nocturnal painter, called it a silvery day.
On a silvery morning, Thomas Van Stein drops by my office (a table inside Starbucks).
“Caffeine is poison,” says Van Stein, sniffing the aroma of ground beans. “The high we experience from drinking coffee is our body’s desire to run it out of our system as fast as possible.”
“Sounds like you’ve already had too much,” I say. “Now listen to this.” I recount my Jonathan Winters story. “I’m getting Montecito comedians to give something back to the community.”
The artist shakes his head with concern. “Can you imagine, Jonathan Winters is now running around Montecito telling everyone some stranger handed him a phone on the street and connected him to the CIA. No wonder everyone thinks he’s nuts. You‘re going to get him committed again.”
“In this case,” I say, “the voices are real. You don’t know what nuts is till you’ve been to Iceland.”
“You’ve been to Iceland?”
“No, but I’m going.”
“When?”
“Soon, I hope. I’ve been planning it for five years.”
“Five years?”
“Yup. Other things got in the way. You should join me.”
“Why me?”
“Do you know how long it stays dark in Iceland in winter? About 23 hours. That’s a pretty good deal for a nocturnal artist like you. You can paint at night and all day! Then there’s the quality of that darkness. They say the purest oxygen and water are up in Iceland. So think what the night sky must look like, clear as can be. But let’s get back to nuts. Only one word of Icelandic ever made it into the English language. Do you have any idea what that word is?”
Van Stein sits up straight. “Hit me.”
“Berserk,” I whisper.
“Ber-serk,” Van Stein repeats. “Of course. Norse warriors—the Berserkers. You’re right. We need to go there. But it must be during a full moon.”
“And in January,” I say. “When they have Thorrablot.”
“Thorra… what?”
“It’s a three-week feast.”
Van Stein smacks his lips
“They serve seal flippers and rotted shark. But first they bury a shark for three months till it’s good and rotted. Oh, and they also eat boiled sheep’s head, raw whale blubber, ram’s head and pickled testicles.”
“I can hardly imagine what desert might be,” says Van Stein.
“Lamb’s liver pudding.”
This is a hearty people, descended from Vikings. They’ve been doing Thorrablot since 1878 when they got their independence from Denmark—way before Pepto Bismo was invented.
Van Stein is rocking back and forth. “How do you know all this?”
“I’ve been meaning to do Iceland for a while, so I did some research. But I guess I needed to meet a nocturnal artist to actually go there. We’re talking about a volcanic chunk of ice that resembles the moon so closely, NASA sent its lunar astronauts to practice there.”
“I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
“I’ve got more commitments than money.”
“Money shouldn’t mean squat to an artist,” I say.
“Yep, squat’s all I got.”
“Not if you make it to Iceland. Then you’ve got the runtur.”
“The what?”
“Their version of a pub crawl. It doesn’t start till after midnight, when the locals are already blasted on Black Death.”
“Black Death?”
“It’s their native schnapps. You could base a whole exhibition of paintings around Iceland. Call it Purity. Or Berserk-ness. You already know how to paint Santa Barbara blindfolded—how about a real challenge for once?”
Van Stein falls off his chair, picks himself up and brushes latte foam from his lips. “That’s it—I’m going to Patagonia in Ventura to buy gear!”