Frontierwatch

“Working in Antarctica, we witness documentary film teams at work around us just about every season. The differences in Herzog´s style were easily witnessed in 2006, especially to those of us who became part of the film.”

“March of the Penguins was the atom-bomb of penguin cuteness that changed the world as we know it today.”

“Meals for Americans in the Scott Base canteen are by invite only. Such invites can be used by unscrupulous Kiwis to garner all manner of favours.”

“‘A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine, except that on a day without sunshine you can still get drunk’, and it applies particularly well to the long winterover sunless nights.”

“Mattresses and pillows were arranged on the floor and encased in heavy plastic in such a way to contain the 600 pounds of red Jello in a sort of kiddie pool.”

“…hands-on participation from a manager is an affront to God’s order and it blurs the lines of nature.”

“Recruits who tested ‘too dumb to kill’ could be made into cooks.”

“No doubt some cynics, now accustomed to working for years under dubious labor-contracts in the guise of Human Progress, will merely see the vest as yet another example of a stingy bone left over from distant feasts.”

“When an ironworker with his dick hanging out of his pants in the bar is later brought to the HR office, it is unlikely that the memo urging employees to spice up their day with spontaneous behavior will be considered in his favor.”

“Bathrooms at Pole are co-ed, for the most part, but have enclosed stalls. The doctor never would have seen Big John’s (or anyone else’s) private parts outside of the context of a medical exam.”

“Antarctica is America sometimes, and sometimes it’s not, depending on who’s asking.”

“Often I feel as if there were a tight band about my head.”

“To do otherwise would be unnecessarily risky, and the bear would most likely end up wedged in a colossal crevasse, his body to be retrieved with meathooks the following summer.”

“We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors.”

“…which brings the narrator to the many perplexing legal questions that Antarctic territory offers the curious mind, before the story resumes and the bureaucrat reminisces about his wife’s ass, and is fascinated by one of the crew’s fat asses, and maybe there are other asses, but by now I am skipping swiftly through the book looking for any trace of mercy.”

“We heaved boneless breasts of chicken into our collective maw and lie face down on mounds of pasta.”

“NSF is a science outfit attempting to oversee what is essentially an industrial operation.”

“The conditions of the visit made it quite clear that we were not really welcome. Almost to a person the passengers left feeling they had been an unwelcome imposition. Quarantine was a word commonly used.”