In addition to pulling together a portfolio and biting my nails over my long weekend, I started reading about Ernest Shackleton’s 1915 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition:
There is nothing that makes you think, “Wow, it could be worse” faster than hearing about people stuck in the frozen Weddel Sea.
They were for all practical purposes alone in the frozen Antarctic seas…Nobody in the outside world knew they were in trouble, much less where they were. They had no radio transmitter with which to notify any would-be rescuers, and it is doubtful that any rescuers could have reached them even if they had been able to broadcast an SOS….
Thus their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity. If they were to get out–they had to get themselves out.
And in a nice cross-media tie-in, I watched Encounters at the End of the World Saturday night. (Highly recommended, especially for Werner Herzog’s voice-overs.)There are crazy scallops underneath the ice in Antarctica! And seals make weird clicking whistles underwater! The world is a cool place, and I’m not trapped in the ice. It could be worse.
February 2, 2009 @ 3:38 pm
The story of the Endurance (apt name) is amazing… I recommend this book as well: http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antarctic-Expedition/dp/B001O1O6PE/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233610594&sr=8-20
It’s more of a coffee table book, but it has a whole lot of fascinating, horrifying, and deeply moving photos.
It’s funny: with all the unpleasantness of the past few days, I actually found myself thinking about Shackleton and the Endurance. Great minds, eh? 🙂
February 2, 2009 @ 12:14 pm
“Her stories go on forever”