You might not think paying more than USD 20 for a bagel with lox and cream cheese and a double cappuccino could make you feel good, but it can work wonders on a cold November morning in Reykjavík.

It was Tuesday and I just couldn’t shake myself out of a funk. It was cold and a blistering wind made me want to break my morning commute up with a pit stop. Also, I had gotten a phone call the night before from my ex and it shook me up a bit, brought back too many memories. So with dawn still in a holding pattern at 9 AM, I pedaled my trusty steed over to Grái Kötturinn – the Gray Cat – a local, moody café that is open from 7 – 3 every day.

The dimly lit café sits just below street level on Hverfisgata, the main thoroughfare for cars and buses a block north of the famed Laugavegur. There are a couple of low-lying torches outside that create a medieval allure to the place. Inside, the light fixtures and the booths have a sleek 1950s Scandinavian look. The benches are rounded on the edges and the rectangular tables have a soft curved edge as well. Although there is little light, the place exudes a warm coziness, due to the glow coming off the lamps hanging less than half a meter above the tables.

But it was the food, the coffee and the dusty stacks of paperback novels and old magazines that attracted me to the place that morning. While munching on my 15-dollar bagel and lox, I thumbed through an issue of Art Forum magazine from 1991. I got lost in a handful of stories – there was a review by Greil Marcus on Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series, vol. 1 – 3 (rare and unreleased) 1961 – 1991. I am a big fan of Marcus, so I let myself get lost in his riff on Dylan, a specialty of his.

After a few minutes of cultural criticism, I dipped into a deeper story on how the press underreported killings at a black college in Mississippi ten days after the 1970 Kent State killings. The writer of the piece illustrated how the two men killed at Jackson State College, during a political protest, were forgotten by history because of the lack of media interest to make two black males’ deaths as relevant as those of four white students. Uplifting story to chew on with your bagel, right?

Then I got lost in a photo essay of two fictitious lovers having a spat on a terrace over looking Central Park. A bizarre brunch spot this Gray Cat, no? Dylan reviews, race-biased reporting and a stylized lovers quarrel. Hard to believe this is what cheered me up.

Still, after a half-hour with these stories, my bagel eaten and my cappuccino cup dry, I bundled up and rode off to work. I had left behind my self-indulgent sour mood, reminded by the mix of stories that there were a lot more important things to worry about than a little cold weather and a melancholic phone call.

AKR adam@icelandreview.com