The Boa Constrictor in New Jersey

When we were making Dreamland I went through lots of the 8mm films that my mother took in the 1970s and also some of the 16mm my grandfather Árni, took way back in the 1950’s. Here we are swimming in New Jersey at our grandfathers house in New Jersey, I believe in the year 1980. The big white home of the Thorbjarnarson family in the suburbs of New Jersey. We are playing with uncle John’s boa constrictor. It had also been swimming with us in the pool. Here we have Kathy Thorbjarnarson, John reading the paper while his snake is playing with the Björnstopper children -that is the children of my twin mothers, Guðrún and Kristín Björnsdottir. John the owner of the boa constrictor died of malaria in India last february. He became a specialist in the field of alligators and crocodiles, anacondas and turtles. You can read about him here in the Economist, here in the New York Times and here on my own site.

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