Post-Hipnótico

Hace un par de días puse un artículo de Vanity Fair sobre el colapso económico de Islandia y, específicamente sobre una ley para detectar seres imaginarios (“We couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people”). Ahora parece que mucho del artículo fue escrito de una manera distorcionada (la verdad está bastante entretenido dentro de lo que cabe), y resulta que la mayoría de sus caracterizaciones del pueblo Islandés son puros inventos — incluyendo desgraciadamente la ley de los gnomos invisibles:

Right. I’ve heard the elf thing mentioned in tired travel articles (normally wedged between paragraphs on the beauty of waterfalls and tips for eating ram testicles), but I personally know no one on this island who believes in elves. Not one. As for Alcoa, their rep believes Lewis is likely referring to a law regarding environmental-impact assessments. The assessment includes an archaeological survey to ensure no important artifacts or ruins are destroyed, and the site’s history is also surveyed to see if it was ever named in any Icelandic folklore. And yes, some of that folklore involves elves. But if you’re going to introduce the notion that some kind of Ministry of Elf Inspection exists within the ranks of the Icelandic government, you might as well also note that we take the Hogwart’s Express to the office every day.

Vanity Fair tiene un artículo muy interesante sobre el apocalipsis financiero que está consumiendo actualmente a Islandia. Un país que en algún momento valía en papel 3 veces su GDP. Lo fascinante de Islandia sin embargo, es que es una cultura sumamente interesante por su aislamiento (vease Björk), que lo caracteriza como un país casi tribal. El artículo describe de una forma muy simpática, como Alcoa, una compañía de aluminio, tuvo por ley que certificar que no había elfos en una planta que recién había construído.

“Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called “hidden people”—or, to put it more plainly, elves—in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.” 

Wall Street on the Tundra # artículo completo en VF