pole positon

South Pole:

The greater of the two, no question. The North Pole has Santa and Polar Bears, but Santa's just a story parents tell their children and it won't be long before polar bears are the same. Oh my god, I just got it. Polar bears. Because they live at the North Pole. Jesus. Nineteen years, and I just got that. But on to the South! Environmentally speaking, the South Pole is the location of the most important research being done to reverse global warming. In that clean, dry, cold place, men of science sharpen their tools and breathe the purest air there is, they read secrets in the sky, they cry out: "Not for the greed of our fathers shall the world of our grandchildren burn!" They gather stones and crack them, and written in the stones they see our salvation. In that pollution-free place the secrets of chlorofluorocarbons and ozone are laid bare, in that place mankind can atone. The South Pole also has penguins, those fat little gentlemen. The average temperature is ice. There's actually land under all that ice, which is why we don't have to worry about it melting, the frigid cushion on which our world rests as it endlessly (hopefully) whirls through existence. Speaking of, the South Pole is one of the few places where the curvature of the earth can be viewed unobstructed. Which, I imagine, is a little terrifying.

The South Pole: 15/20. It's an amazing place, but there's no getting around the fact that it's so cold that you just die.


Drive-In Movie Theaters

Let's address the obvious first: Drive-Ins are a thing of the past. Where they still linger, they do so as kitsch, not as a primary form of movie-delivery. They are a token of a world where Americans as a people were in love with our cars. We loved them. Long, sleek, steel and chrome ships, they sailed seas of asphalt and rivers of concrete. Shiny, gorgeous, powerful. Comfortable. The back seat of a Chevrolet Nova was as long as a park bench. Kings of the road. And so we pulled them into a drive-in, and, with the car still running (oil spewed from the slightest divot in the ground like blood from a Japanese papercut) leaned our seats back and watched a Movie. Not a film, no. A Movie. Elvis on the beach, fighting, love, singing and dancing. Kung-Fu, horribly dubbed, with weird Chinese humor and unbelievable Chinese fight choreography. Plucky animals. Despicable Russians. A woman's bare thigh. The truth is, I don't know much about Drive-Ins, except what I've gleaned from The Outsiders and other movies set around that time. Apparently the privacy afforded insured that your kids wouldn't ruin other people's movie experience. Also you could fuck, if you were so inclined. The whole concept of private viewing of a movie is extremely attractive to me, which is I suppose why I have a DVD player. It would be unfair to review Drive-Ins by today's standards, for against a backdrop of home video, tiny cars, and the rising price of gas, they're like that ugly, less evolved horse that looks like a rhinoceros. Instead I place them where they belong--the crown jewel of post-war excess and sexualized wholesomeness.

Drive-Ins: 17/20. They must have been magnificent.