Antarctic Anecdotes

Faithful readers (of which I’m not sure there’s any except me, and that’s mostly just to assure myself that I’ve been doing something other than watching old movies and eating starches) will have noticed that I posted nothing in July and minimally in August.   These months were the start of the doldrums, a time when I couldn’t get motivated to do anything creative.   The research tells us that the third quarter of an Antarctic winter stay has the highest incidence of winter-over syndrome, with insomnia, irritability, depression, and withdrawal dominating our interactions and behaviors.   The months are even named things like Angry August and Stabby September.   Despite knowing what might happen, and even telling others about Winter-Over Syndrome so we could watch out for each other, I nonetheless chomped down on the bait of sloth.   It’s not like we didn’t do anything…we’ll talk about some of these events in a moment. But on a daily basis, the combination of isolation and monotony an

One of the bigger events over the past few weeks has been preparing for the Winter International Film Festival of Antarctica (WIFFA).   During both summer and winter seasons, all the outposts of every nation are invited to submit short films for consideration by their peers.   The WIFFA has two categories of films.   The Open Category films can be of any length and display any content.   I have previously noted that several months ago we had a Red Carpet Premier Party for our Open Category entry, but I couldn’t disclose about the film until now.   That celluloid diversion was “Polewatch.”   The first three minutes of the film is the extra-long opening sequence form Baywatch, with any number of requisite hardbodies dashing around the surf; this is followed by three minutes of our…well, bodies…skidding across the ice, capped by a shot of everyone rushing for their Extreme Cold Weather Gear before they die. The former one hundred and eighty seconds hormone-flushing adolescent fantasy is d