Change comes slowly with humans. We are-after all- still trying to live out our lives in an economic based system of culture ignoring borders with imposed societal boundaries governed by resource extracting- money mongering thieves..
Less than a thousand miles from the south pole where the big bang is being studied through neutrinos captured in the ice I find its not too hard to believe that 50 years ago- we put a man on the moon. But Traveling backward through time is simple to do down here- the time machine has already been installed. It is our modus operandis. Using all of our very best antiquated technologies-which we have applied to everything in order to not progress while continuing to provide for the logistical infrastructure required by the scientists, we go about slapping on duct tape band-aids. Picture a group of researchers from the jet propulsion laboratory testing robotics that might someday be employed on Mars. They are waiting patiently for a thug in muddy, torn, Carhart bibs to fire up a 40 year old oil burning heater in order to heat up the engine of a Korean war era truck so that they can drive out onto the sea ice in order to air up a beach ball whose momentum they are studying. It creates a scene that -depending on your perspective -should appear to be either painfully humorous or disturbingly depressing.
I have sketched a Fuller inspired station whose core-centered- biosphere dominates the massive dome. Sleeping pods, sunlight prisms, rotating belts, oscillating shelves, recaptured, filtered gray water which then rains down inside the hydroponic nucleus- which in turn- provides food and green life, moisture and circulating breezes are all critical aspects of the design. There is a surface level pool for swimming and an indoor track belting the greatest circumference of the dome for running, walking or cycling.
McMurdo is not about architecture-at least not yet. Nor is it about things that makes sense. Or efficiency. It is nothing anyone would ever have imagined a base in the Antarctic might have looked like in 2010. Especially Fuller. It is what people would imagine a mining town in northern Alberta -built in the late 1970s- might look like, smell like, taste like, feel like. Except for the fact that time has not traveled backwards in relation to the people who choose to work here. Women, gays, lesbians, burning man followers, old hippies, estranged husbands, frustrated insurance brokers, bored to tears professionals, archaeologists recovering from carpal tunnel syndrome, post doctorates looking to liberate themselves by washing dishes.
Those of us who believe in the future of hope imagine this town to someday -finally-be declared a super-fund site. We could all then come down, donned in our Tyvek, haz- mat -alien remediation looking suits- to dismantle this hulking abomination of manifest destiny while far off in the wilderness, scientists would be deployed with their tidy prim self sufficient mars prototype shelter pods. Field technicians -whose purpose is now to live harmoniously with assigned researchers- melting snow into drinking water, rotating the solar panels, charging the batteries, tending to camp-sit up late into the night reminiscing about the days they used to spend in McMurdo writing e-mails, schlepping cargo or cooking for 999 hungry dirty ungrateful slobs in an erroneous mining slum impervious to any one investigating anti freeze producing fish, algal blooms or halide crystallising, snow flake potentials.
I am excited about 2010 despite my rather sour-puss sounding, Eore on a rainy day, diatribe. What I did not feel in the air around town during Christmas I certainly felt over new years. But for some, celebrating Jesus's enforced to dissuade paganism- birthday in December-rather than in July by exchanging store bought gifts which nobody really wants anyway, can be a bit of a metaphysical to say nothing of a spiritual hazard compared to simply agreeing that our earth-ship has made yet another stupendous journey around the sun. Thank God!
Attitudes here are largely determined by time allotments. How much time you have left to work in this hope-void is a major component in the Psychcological factoring equation. Some, who arrived in October are already leaving this coming week. Naturally-they are elated. Others who also arrived in October might have less than 40 days to count. But for Steve and I, who left home on the 16Th of August, and arrived on the ice on the 21st, still having to face two and a half more months makes a word like daunting look trite. Carpe Diem!
Steve is still at the South Pole. After a failure to a part of the undercarriage on one of the tractors (while fortunately still at the station), the traverse has been awaiting a flight from McMurdo to bring in a part. They are expected to begin there journey back North on Tuesday. During this little delay, Steve has most importantly been able to catch up on his sleep. He wrote to say that he also played a lung busting game of high elevation indoor soccer and has gone around the station fixing a few wonky tables and broken chairs which had been driving him nuts. He got a piece of the original dome which is being torn down, attended a mind bending science lecture on cosmic back ground radiation, and has already "plowed through" all of the magazines I sent to him. Having eaten his fair share of cookies (I'm sure) the station's baker is ready to see him go.
The trip back down "the hill" (from 10,000 feet to seal level) should take less time than the trip, up-which took 26 days.
The weather has been warm with a high of 37 above zero. The run-off streams offer the most calming satisfactory bubbling noises. Sitting beside one, with the eyes closed, in the sun, is a retreat into another world. At least until a back up alarm starts drilling it's awful warning noise alarming into your ear.
I have a new roommate who is a geologist from CA. Her eight year old son is worried that she will get too cold and not make it out of here alive. She leaves soon for the Dry Valleys to study weatherization. She has offered to buy one of my pieces of art. This will be a first-and since it has been a goal of mine this season to become more disciplined with producing something artistic everyday, my new year has started off successfully.
Recently, I have started sketching images related to certain memories of fishing and writing in the margins the consequent thought streams. As an experimental idea for a book-it has opened up some blockages which I have been struggling to overcome.
It would be wrong of me to say that we are deprived down here. Today we were served sushi, fresh fruit, sticky buns and smoothies. We have just had a 2 day weekend. We are getting paid and I haven't washed a single dish since I left home-but it is fair to say that we are deprived of life forces such as photosynthesis, starry nights, rain, cat whiskers, and dawn. These reductions of natures, of home of family and friends is an incredible motivation factor for a human because it allows for retrospective introspection. The questions, What can I live without? What do I need? What do I wish to accomplish-really? spin around and around in the jukebox of the soul while enveloped within this blinding sun filled colorfully peopled colony of logistical thrumming and stimulus starved, planet of ice where no matter how hard you look there is no place to go for a milkshake.
Happy New Year!
