með sigur frá hólminum

Perhaps that was some fearsome sort of Múlasýsluandlit he had, but really I have never seen the like of his face before.

I like to twit my friends that there are only 7 face types among Icelandic men, the same 7 over and over with discomfitingly minor variation. I'm not really serious when I say this, but it is not completely false, and I am not above pointing out all the nr. 4s among the Saturday crowd strolling by the café window for the pleasure of watching a new understanding of the familiar dawn on the face of my interlocutor. It's a little mean, I'll admit.

There are more respectable ways to enjoy the same effect. You could write poetry instead. Not everyone has the talent, of course. For the rest of us, we can always read some and have the symmetrical pleasure at the hands of another, the pleasure of being made to see familiar things in unfamiliar ways.

I may go do that now. I have a book just here, a signature inside the front cover. Further in, there are poems.