Icelandic Charm School

June 9, 2008 | 3 books mentioned 4

Do you know the band Seabear?

It is possible that you do and you do not know it if you’ve seen the strange and enthralling Michel Gondry movie The Science of Sleep (kind of a cross between The Life Aquatic or Rushmore and Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth), which featured Seabear’s song “I Sing, I Swim.” But the song that had me at hello was “Arms,” of which there is a delightful homemade video on YouTube. I dare you not be taken in – by the song itself (“you left your dark horse in the stable”), by Ole saying “banjo” and Inga’s rolling of her “r,” and by the anonymous little Martha Graham in the background. (It is a desolate soul that doesn’t have a nook for Seabear.)

is a staff writer for The Millions living in Virginia. She is a winner of the Virginia Quarterly's Young Reviewers Contest and has a doctorate from Stanford. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Times, In Character, VQR, Arts & Letters Daily, and The Daily Dish.