Iceland's Anarchist Comedian Mayor Is Moving to Houston

Jon Gnarr, former mayor of Reykjavik and comedian, is moving to Houston, Texas with his family. Gnarr says the family of three have found a nice place to stay and his nine year old son will attend Edgar Allen Poe Elementary School.

"I think this might be the beginning of a very interesting adventure," Gnarr says on Facebook. It's been unknown what Gnarr would to after his term as mayor in Reykjavik came to and end in June. Gnarr attended the Out of Bound Comedy Festival in Austin, Texas in August but now it looks like he's going all the way with his relationship with the southern state.

Gnarr, who just last week received Yoko Ono's peace award donating all 50,000$ to an Icelandic women's shelter, told Vice in an interview in May he had a feeling he was heading to Texas. Asked what he was looking to do now when he'd chosen not to run for a second term as mayor Gnarr said:

"People say that they don't believe in coincidence. I do believe in coincidence. I don't believe in God. So I have this thing with coincidences; I'm fascinated by them. I'm not really sure if I have a free will, and I don't know if my brain has made any decision about what he's going to be making me do next. But I have this strange hunch—which is very weird—that he's taking me to Texas. I've never been there. Texas, in my mind, is a bit like Mordor or something."

Gnarr, a popular comedian and former punk rocker, became mayor of Reykjavik leading the „Best Party“ to a 34,7 percent vote and control of the city council. Safe to say the parties victory was a big shock and a change to the traditional political scene in Iceland. During the campaign he made many crazy promises including a polar bear in the local zoo and free towels in all the swimming pools. The craziest promise was probably promising to break all promises made.

Gnarr explained he had no idea what he was doing but one of the first things he made clear, after the Best Party's victory, was that he wouldn't consider working with anyone in the city who hadn't watched The Wire.

Gnarr will serve as an Artist-in-Residence at Rice University's CENHS (Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Science) according to Deep Vellum Publishing.