Sub-Zero Fun

Yesterday we watched from afar, as out on the sea ice (a land of brilliant distance littered with giant fissured ice chunks) silohuetted pirates kidnapped a seal. The wind was biting us something fierce and my fingers went past pain into that other painful numbness, but the sun was so bright and the end of the earth stretched before us, so we felt compelled to be witnesses. I kept saying "If this was Wisconsin I would be really scared". The two figures got off of their snowmobiles and approached a giant bulk of seal, threw a bag over it's head as it thrashed wildly, and then did something to it (we think they injected it with something or took some kind of sample from it) while crouching next to it, and released it.
The utter silence made it so eerie. The pirates were of course doing their piracy in the name of science, and the kidnapping also took place to further our understanding and open our minds, but to us perched on a bank of slick snow on the overlooking hill it seemed very exciting and malicious.

Singing loud and stomping, clapping our hands, rattling the tiny wooden stage we preformed at the "Freak Train" talent show last Saturday. It was our friend Sean's idea (Toofless Sean ), he being a legitimate and talented blues musician, to get together a ragtag bunch of people to holler and generally have fun and perform standards as well as hip hop songs about make-out parties. We formed the Pentacostal Painkillaz or Pillshakin' Beatboxin' Blues Chorus or whatever you want to call us, and got dressed up in ties and wigs and tutus and had a ball. Our song was an acapella medley of "Jesus Gonna Be Here" by Tom Waits, seguaying into "Movin' on Up" (the theme from the Jeffersons -Mom, that's a TV show from the 80's- that Mykle and I had to be taught since when growing up in the bottom of a well you don't have TV). We only made one mistake, and the verse was the one about drinking, so that made sense!
Later we did our other number; a hip hop, sort of moldy peaches-style song that Sean and Michelle's friend wrote. Michelle rapped, and we all "beatboxed" and shook our little rattles (which were all aspirin bottles and Advil bottles, hence the name "Painkillaz".) It was SO fun to rehearse and also pretty damn fun to sing on a stage in a low ceilinged bar while being filmed by famous German filmmaker Werner Hertzog. No, I am not lying. He's here, and going to make a documentary or something. Did I mention that the only real instrument in our band is a tuba? Yes, we are in Antarctica, I swear.

Saturday night was condensed Wonderful, probably because we only get one day off, and therefore the weekend night has to be super rad. The talent show was amazing and debaucherous and came with a side show replete with a Man-eating chicken and a fortune-teller. Our friend Ruth belly-danced wearing full belly-dance garb and a beard made from human hair, and the winner of the talent show ($300! What a prize) was a girl Etosha, who did absolutely picture perfect lip-sync to Tina Turner while wearing a giant fur St. Petersburg-style Russian hat. There was juggling and some chick did tricks with her tongue in front of a video camera (guess who), and whale jokes, and the fine poems of Ludacris, and two ways to shotgun a beer, and and handstand push-ups.
I love the freaks, I really do. Wow.

I realized halfway through the night (under a bright sun) as I was on the porch of a strangely suburban-house looking out on a frozen ocean with a crazily-dressed band of people taking pictures and playing the tuba.....

I came to Antarctica for the surrealism.