Antarctica

On casual viewing, the movie appears to be just another sci-fi movie with dubious special effects. However, no other movie in history has ever depicted daily Antarctic life and its problems with such accuracy and intuitive brilliance. It took place at a research station with no scientists, which is the case with McMurdo Station in the winter. The doctor was nuts, which underscores the problem of attracting to Antarctic stations qualified physicians who have no practice at home and who are willing to work for peanuts on year-to-year contracts. The doctor was locked in a hut away from the others after his madness, much like the kitchen worker who was locked in McMurdo's luxurious Hut 10 to await retrieval by the FBI after attacking his co-worker with a hammer. There was suspicion of aliens, which parallels the evacuation from McMurdo in November 2000 of a science tech who held a lecture called "The Reality of Dreams" and later advertised to the hoi polloi that one Thursday aliens would descend in spacecraft to meet him outside the galley. In the film, the testing of the crew's blood brings to mind the USAP employee drug tests. And the film prophetically dramatized, and served as propaganda for, the U.S. political push to ban dogs from Antarctica, which the other Treaty Nations reluctantly consented to in 1991. And what of "The Thing", that can infect any fellow and turn him into a threat against his neighbor, that leads to the ultimate fizzling out of "The Station"? The Thing represents Bureaucracy, reproducing via individual hosts who are each stunted by their fear of an organized but faceless entity that influences every aspect of their daily lives. If there is a more lucid film that describes daily Antarctic life, it has already crumbled to dust in obscurity.

Common icons of Antarctic life are repeated throughout the movie with uncanny precision: spilled fuel; ubiquitous barrels; plentiful whisky; anti-intellectualism; resentment toward Norwegians being the first at Pole; general madness; obsession with generators; and black flags planted in the snow are all familiar to the Antarctic station. There are minor annoyances, such as that the crew stores dynamite in a supply closet in the main building, that they don't tie anything down outside to keep it from the wind, and that their machines start up in the cold without being plugged in, but the most noteworthy deviation from actual USAP practices is that in the film everyone has a flamethrower. In the movie, fire is a tool against insidious dangers and is employed as an agent for the community against the threat of a larger hostile organism. In the actual USAP, employees are forbidden flamethrowers.

This book is a must read for the curreent Antarctic state-of-mind

-- Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 22 March 2007 23:52 (5 months ago) Bookmark Link

I read the rest of this book after reading this thread. It is great. I have now subscribed to this RSS feed: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/employment/.

Also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2SeEzxMuE = Whoa.

Also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2SeEzxMuE = Whoa.

Bloody hell, it's like opening the hatch of a spaceship in deep space.

i just saw werner herzog's new movie about antarctica. it's called encounters at the end of the world. some cool stuff in there.

ooh. i want to see that.

a few weeks ago i ran into a friend i hadn't seen for a while. we were talking and he told me he'd gone to antartica earlier in the year, or at the end of last year, i don't remember, but he'd gone to argentina and then taken a huge boat for two and a half days through rough seas. most of the people on board spent the entire time wanting to die but he was fine he said b/c of all the halfpipe/vert stuff he'd done when younger. by the time they got to antartica all anyone could talk about was icebergs though.

just read that, based on recommendations--pretty damn good

the bureaucratic nightmare stuff started to piss me off too much, though

Oopsy.

That link just comes back here. Perhaps that is what you meant by 'oopsy'?

Isn't tourism to the polar regions irresponsible?

Hahah, you're right at that, Alex. Here's the real link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/world/americas/24ship.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

When I read that I thought, "Oh damn. Hey, it would be neat to be crew on one of those ships."

I was on that same boat 3 years ago, in the Canadian Artic! Wierd to see it sunk. It seemed solid enough at the time.

They're pretty cool trips, in these smallish boats. They bring along historians, geologists, etc, to give lectures. Some of the folks on the trip I was on had been on the same boat to Antartica before, and said the Drake Passage was pretty hairy.

As to whether tourism in the polar regions is irresponsible, that's a good question.

via http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/03/recent-scenes-from-antarctica/100019/

this appeals to me on so many levels, make me sad that I've not seen places like this for myself.

they are adapting big dead place!

http://www.deadline.com/2011/09/james-gandolfini-to-produce-possibly-star-in-hbo-antarctica-comedic-drama/

Cool!

(the zombie guy is frank wild)

Great stuff (and a link to the original piece if you'd like to go all in).

nature had a seriously good week this week, with these mountains and ionian water

european even

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aES6WC0CDnI

In which mark s digs deep, with Scott/Amundsen as a launching point for all kinds of things:

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2012/04/inuit-science-and-the-commodification-of-victory-scott-versus-amundsen-a-century-on/

deep into the zone of pitchforkmedia

Heck yes:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/become-antarctic-explorer-with.html

"I'm going online, I may be some time..."

RIP Nick Johnson, writer of the terrific Big Dead Place book and blog: http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson-rip/

Yeesh. Heavy stuff. Rip.

that last link post here is just awful (http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson-rip/), on many levels. i know the person writing it was dealing with intense pain, but it's probably not a good idea to imply that the author of a rejection letter was the cause of someone's suicide. she has to live a life, too. ugh. the south pole, man. fuck.

i meant to revive this a while back when i finished reading his book, but just want to second the recommendation of Big Dead Place. elvis mentioned it above, caek recommended i read it, and mookie even sent me an e-book version! it was an ILX-sponsored reading journey, and now i'm happy to hop on the Big Dead Place train as well.

the book is about living and working in antarctica, mainly the McMurdo station. but it's not about the environment or the hazardous conditions, and certainly not about scientific research. instead, it's about surreal bureaucracy, one of my favorite topics. johnson worked in the waste management department at the station. johnson must have been a nightmare for the NSF (the operator of the station, with the authority residing in Denver) - a worker who recognized the absurdity of his working environment, had the talent to express it eloquently (and hilariously), and the willingness to name names and embarrass management. i imagine he would have found the working environment absurd in just about any workplace administered by the government - ime, the entire federal government is like a bad episode of The Office - but the extremes of antarctica really brought out something special in him. i'd like to think that i would have been his friend in mcmurdo, if i was there, toeing the line with authority. but who knows, i may have been the guy who gets promoted to lower management as an emergency fill-in and then ends up being the buttoned up stooge passing along orders from Denver that everyone hated. or the weirdo down the hall who never left the room except to bring out buckets of frozen piss and pick up more beer.

at any rate, i finished his book several weeks back and it's one of those writings that has really struck with me. RIP nick johnson.

yes! great book. i didn't make the government bureaucracy connection with you, but it makes sense that would ring true for you.

gonna post this again now we have embeds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2SeEzxMuE

(xpost with new yorker thread)

i haven't read this yet but even a quick scroll through suggests it will be good:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-white-darkness

Encounters at the End of the World was so good. just interviewing all of the random people from all over the globe that end up there was v fascinating. the spooky minimal wildlife stuff was interesting as well. like when they are listening to the seals under the ice and it sounds like the most insane synthesizer filters. the place looks otherworldly beautiful - the cathedrals of ice sculptures reflecting light underneath the vast frozen seas, the crystal caves, the blinding force of the winds, the extremophiles that survive without oxygen, sunlight, or carbon. its all so extra-terrestrial!

Extremophiles are the ultimate adventurers. These organisms thrive where other microbes don’t dare venture: boiling water holes, freezing lakes, and toxic waste dumps.

Now, researchers have sequenced the genomes of two extremophiles that love life extremely cold. They live at the bottom of Ace Lake in Antarctica, where there is no oxygen and the average temperature is a brutal 33 degrees Fahrenheit.

The two organisms, called Methanogenium frigidum and Methanococcoides burtonii, produce methane and are known as methanogens.

Methanogens are unique among organisms in their ability to survive a wide range of temperatures, from the freezing point of water to 185 degrees Fahrenheit and everything in between.

In a new study, scientists sequenced the genomes of M. frigidum and M. burtonii and compared their genomes with those of heat-loving methanogens to identify features that may help these microbes adapt to their cold surroundings.

Some of these hardy organisms also live in oxygen-starved environments, without sunlight or carbon, and scientists believe that studying these microbes could reveal the boundaries of extreme environments that support life here on Earth and on other planets.

---

So what if Earth isn’t the only place these kinds of microbes live?

Some scientists speculate that methanogens could provide clues to life on other planets, such as Mars, and Europa (Jupiter’s sixth moon).

Evidence suggests that beneath the icy surface of Europa, there may be subsurface oceans that could support extremophiles like M. frigidum. The Antarctic lakes of the Vestfold Hills and their hardy inhabitants may, in some way, resemble the environment on Europa.

Other research suggests that some methanogens could survive life on Mars. Scientists at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville have grown methanogens in Mars-like soil and under Mars-like conditions.

After the Viking voyages to Mars in the 1970s turned up no trace of life, as we knew it, some scientists dismissed the idea of Martian life. Twenty years later, with the discovery of organisms that can survive without oxygen, carbon, or sunlight, researchers are rethinking the boundaries of what environments may support life.

http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/07_03/extremo.shtml

i find this page extremely poignant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_of_Antarctica

karl malone you should read the worst journey in the world

http://www.southpolestation.com/news/nicholas1.jpg

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/antarctica-big-dead-place/9662158

via the best blog (but CW weirdly glib description of suicide)

http://www.southpolestation.com/news/news.html

Nicholas JohnsonA bit of iconic history, otherwise elsewhere described as the "WikiLeaks of Antarctica..." is the iconic book Big Dead Place. Author Nicholas Johnson, unfortunately, is no longer with us after he blew his brains out in 2012, but his work survives. And his work has now been given a new lease on life. On 30 April, ABC's program Earshot aired a 30-minute podcast/download which describes and details Nicholas's work, life, and the rest of his story. The interview and accompanying web pages include the voices and photos of several friends. Two ABC links of interest: this page gives basic information about the episode along with links for listening to or downloading the story...and this page gives additional background information as well as more photos. But that is not all. Nicholas' sister worked to get THE BIG DEAD PLACE WEBSITE back up to coincide with the release of this documentary. Have a look! Not everything is there, but there is a lot of the good stuff. The photo of Nicolas at left shows him at work in the McMurdo waste barn in about 2001...it's from Kathy Blumm and used by permission.

great book; didn't know about the suicide (although it's . . . not exactly shocking)

(but CW weirdly glib description of suicide)

oddly, the place where i first learned about his death described it in the same way: http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson-rip/
maybe it was an inside joke, or perhaps just a way of addressing it that seemed in keeping with his style of writing. i'm not sure.

the earshot episode was good, although i didn't really like whoever was reading in the voice of nicholas johnson. reminded me of the old iron chefs with the english dubs

Thanks for the link. Weird personal trivia.... my copy of Big Dead Place has actually been to Antarctica. Haven't been there yet.

Thank you all for suggesting Big Dead Place. It's Rivethead... On Ice!

good account https://twitter.com/HotWaterOnIce

https://twitter.com/SPtelescope is good too.

if you read this thread you've probably already seen this, but just in case:

https://idlewords.com/2019/07/the_stranding_of_the_mv_shokalskiy.htm

that was excellent, thanks

Just finished Barry Lopez’ big memoir, “Horizon” in which he kinda ties things up with a big section that takes place in Antarctica. Recommended and the other sections are cool too (Arctic, Australia, Galapagos and Rift Valley).

"His memoir, with the unfortunately Dairy Queenish title Home of the Blizzard,"

i died

good blog https://brr.fyi/

My mom just got back. Her tl;dr was that it was a good trip but given the effort to get there nothing she would want to do again. She said the Drake Passage was just as terrible as everyone said, and that's basically a couple of days on either end of your limited visit to Antarctica proper, which she said was, besides cold, a lot windier than she expected. She was, however, impressed at how accessible the visit apparently is, however restricted the number of visitors (and cost) may be. Everyone from nonagenarians to Donna Shalala.

i just got done listening to _the worst journey in the world_. i had just given the book to a fellow outdoors person, and since my reading strength is not quite up to par since tbi, i figured i’d listen, to see how it went. it quickly sorta took me over. and there are long sections i’ve relistened to.

that is the most memorable and completely overwhelming book i’ve experienced. i feel like i could discuss it for hours and not really hit a same topic twice. also a fantastic narration, at least to me.

Was it Hugh Grant? (That may sound flippant but when he was just starting out getting roles in the 80s, he played Cherry-Garrard in the miniseries adaptation of The Last Place on Earth.)

Somebody named Simon Vance, a name I do not recognize offhand.

Ah, Vance! I've had the pleasure to meet him briefly after a talk he gave (with Guy Gavriel Kay, an author favorite of mine). I don't follow his recorded books work much but he has a massive, massive rep in the field, and he's a pleasant fellow. I'll have to pass that on to the folks I know who introduced me to his work.

the book is widely considered the best ever written about an antarctic expedition by one of the participants

ha ned that's wild. he is very very good. i expect most of the british accents of the original party were not too extremely far apart, but it is pretty clear when he is narrating say, scott's journal, rather than one of the seamen's, or even bowers's.

i've looked v briefly at readers commentaries. a couple of them complained of cherry-gerard's inclusion/melding of various participants' journals. i cannot disagree more, they are grafted in beautifully, are clearly distinguished, and add fantastic details. and this tale is one of almost innumerable details-- ones that blow my goddamn mind. amongst the many stories detailing the torturous lives of the ponies there is one in which one weakening pony has his hind quarters fall through the ice adjacent to a pod of taunting orcas the entire dilemma is just riveting.

Simon Vance does audiobook work regularly, I think. He read the Stieg Larsson trilogy.

He's done a lot of good books (which obviously excludes Larsson), and reads them really well.

the brr.fyi guy made it back home

"the many stories detailing the torturous lives of the ponies"

you get more of a sense of the character of Weary Willie than the humans at times, he's the only one sensibly saying fuck this nonsense, albeit through passive resistance. The passages from other fellow expeditionists journals definitely enhance the story. I can't remember whose journal it was, but there was a bit that made me chuckle that was butthurt at the positive advance of Amundsen's expedition party, and commenting that they have brought a good supply of potatoes with them he noted: "there must be a renegade Irishman amongst them".

ac-g’s slow boil fury at bureaucracy in his egg delivery to british museum or whatever showed v some amusing restraint, eh.

at least back the 1910's the explorer classes viewed orcas as the deadly predators they are, none of this anthropomorphic hippy shit about swimming with them, they knew that at times it only took one fateful misstep onto some fragile sea ice and they were lunch.

Vance’s recitation of this parody poem really is a delight:

THE PROTOPLASMIC CYCLE
Big floes have little floes all around about ’em, And all the yellow diatoms couldn’t do without ’em.
Forty million shrimplets feed upon the latter, And they make the penguin and the seals and whales
Much fatter.
Along comes the Orca and kills these down below, While up above the Afterguard attack them on the floe:
And if a sailor tumbles in and stoves the mushy pack in, He’s crumpled up between the floes, and so they get their whack in.
Then there’s no doubt he soon becomes a patent fertilizer, invigorating diatoms, although they’re none the wiser,
So the protoplasm passes on its never-ceasing round, Like a huge recurring decimal … to which no end is found.

From “The Antarctic Exploration Anthology: The Personal Accounts of the Great Antarctic Explorers (Bybliotech Discovery Book 1)” by Ernest Shackleton, Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen, Douglas Mawson, Apsley Cherry-Garrard)