Lenin on Ice

Explorers discover an Elder Thing in the Antarctic ice:

Scientists trekking across a little visited part of Antarctica have discovered a bizarre relic of the Soviet Union is dominating the South Pole of Inaccessibility.

In the middle of nowhere -- literally the point on Antarctica furthest from the sea -- an imposing bust of revolutionary Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin peers out onto the polar emptiness….

The Scientific Traverse this week made it to the Inaccessibility Pole for New Year's Day and found a one time Soviet Union base buried under the ice.

The group's website says Soviet scientists first visited the Pole in December 1958 and built a small cabin there.

After several weeks they left, putting the bust of Lenin on top of the chimney facing Moscow.

Here he is:

stuff.co.nz

[Hat tip: Bryan Alexander]

Comments

[J sub D]

Neato keen.

[Guy Montag]

First Chilly Post!

So who is goign to serve him an ice-cold Coke?

[Guy Montag]

Blast! Foiled again!

[joe]

How Ozymandian.

[Chucklehead]

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Lenin R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

[brotherben]

So that's where the cold war started.

[joe]

Remember, workers, when you throw off your chains, DON'T PUT YOUR TONGUE ON THEM!

[MacReady]

If that head sprouts legs and tries to get away, I'm fucking burnin' it.

[Guy Montag]

Wait! Hold it!

Shouldn't that be dry land instead of a snow-covered cabin if Al Gore, Jr's PowerPoint presentation was correct?

[Character played by this guy]

I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!

[Akira MacKenzie]

Does that make Stalin a shoggoth?

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

[Brian Sorgatz]

LOL I'm thinking of the point in the movie Contact when the first television signal relayed back by the Vegans (say "vay-gan," not "vee-gan;" for all I know, maybe they eat meat) happens to be of Hitler in the 1930s. The extraterrestrials are immediately accused of Nazi sympathies.

Further, that reminds me of the time I heard Tuvok described as an African-American Vulcan.

I have fanboy Tourette's. I can't stop.

[MacReady\'s pic]

I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now,
so some of you are still human. This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. It'll fight if it has to, but it's vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it's won.

[de stijl]

I really hope this doesn't suck like most other Carpenter remakes.

[J sub D]

Another example of communists acting almost like religionists. The Vatican would have erected a cross.

[Andrew]

So how does this play into the Antarctic Nazi conspiracies?

[Hugh Akston]

This was the last step in the contingency against MAD. Had someone actually pushed the button and obliterated life on earth, the last remaining intact object would be this bust, which the aliens would find and posit that this must have been one of our gods.

[Guy Montag]

So how does this play into the Antarctic Nazi conspiracies?

The statue hides the opening to the hollow core of the earth.

[Mudkipz]

"Another example of communists acting almost like religionists. The Vatican would have erected a cross."

Well, in all fairness, we would have left a flag, like that one time when we went to the moon. Nothing wrong with trying to awe the locals, whether they be penguins or invisible moon men.

[SugarFree]

de stijl,

I really hope this doesn't suck like most other Carpenter remakes.

The audacity of hope.

[Guy Montag]

Mudkipz,

We left a flag each time we went to the Moon, if you believe in that sort of thing . . .

[Mudkipz]

"We left a flag each time we went to the Moon, if you believe in that sort of thing . . ."

Well, that's because the teamsters kept stealing them from the sound stage.

[Chucklehead]

I really hope this doesn't suck like most other Carpenter remakes.

You're hoping a remake of a Carpenter remake won't suck?

[Pro Libertate]

Carpenter's The Thing was a little closer to the source material, Campbell's "Who Goes There", as I recall.

Remaking any Carpenter film is a mistake in my book. He's too original to be messed with.

[J sub D]

Well, in all fairness, we would have left a flag, like that one time when we went to the moon. Nothing wrong with trying to awe the locals, whether they be penguins or invisible moon men.

A flag is a monument to an ideal, not a person. NYAH, NYAH, NYAH. 😛 [/quibble]

You're right of course.

[daniel k]

People BELIEVE there's an Antartica? C'mon - its right next to the moon set.

[de stijl]

You're hoping a remake of a Carpenter remake won't suck?

Watching Marshal Dillon play a carrot from outer space ain't too enticing.

(Actually, the original is very good sci-fi for the era it was released, but I do love the Carpenter version. Disclaimer: I think I have a man-crush on Kurt Russell.)

[ed]

It's quite an ingenious location, actually.
Not a drop of pigeon shit on it!

[Stevo Darkly]

That photo is making me crave a cool, crisp, refreshing York Peppermint Patty. And a vodka.

[R C Dean]

I do love the Carpenter version.

Me too. Must update Netflix qeue.

[Jamie Kelly]

Has anyone checked the North Pole to see if Lenin's feet are sticking out of it?

[Dangerman]

joe | January 4, 2008, 2:19pm | #
Remember, workers, when you throw off your chains, DON'T PUT YOUR TONGUE ON THEM!

WIN
WIN
WIN

ALSO IM A BIG TROLL. A_R IS A SANDY PANTS PPPTTHHHH!

[Pro Libertate]

Stevo,

Russian vodka, of course. I have extremely expensive tequila in my freezer (left over from an incentive trip with a previous employer), but I fear that's not appropriate to the Lenin Experience?.

[superconnected]

In Soviet Antarctica, Ice Freezes You! Oh.. wait..

[mediageek]

I declare this thread to be FULL OF WIN.

That is all.

[John-David]

How Ozymandian.

joe gets the win, but for this awesome Watchmen reference.

[anonymous coward]

Is this some recent discovery? They mentioned it on the last season of QI, and that started airing in the early fall.

[Daze]

joe gets the win, but for this awesome Watchmen reference.

JW's original Lovecraft reference trumps the Watchmen reference. Personal taste, I suppose.

[bigbigslacker]

Ozymandian? Who, that receptionist chick?

[Jesse Walker]

joe gets the win, but for this awesome Watchmen reference.

I think Joe was referring more to Percy Shelley than to Alan Moore.

[Jesse Walker]

Oh, and I say that Mudkipz wins, for this:

that's because the teamsters kept stealing them from the sound stage.

[joe]

Thank you, Jesse.

[joe]

You don't win threads with Percy Byshe Shelley

[Maurkov]

As long as we're patting each other on the back, Jamie Kelly's is the one that made me lol.

[Frank_A]

I don't care if joe and Jesse have already mentioned Ozymandias, the poem needs to be retold:

1I met a traveller from an antique land,
2Who said -- "two vast and trunkless legs of stone
3Stand in the desert ... near them, on the sand,
4Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
5And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
6Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
7Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
8The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
9And on the pedestal these words appear:
10My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
11Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
12Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
13Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
14The lone and level sands stretch far away."

[joe]

For my part, I pick Chucklehead.

[Hugh Akston]

joe wins the thread because his was a double reference.

[Pro Libertate]

This being a Lenin thread, I must take the win from Mudkipz and give it to myself. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. I have deemed myself needworthy.

[bigbigslacker]

http://www.adultswim.com/shows/frisky/index.html

Great show, click on "Pilot episode" for Ozymandius quote.

[joe]

I can't live with the lie anymore!

It was not a double reference. I have no idea who "The Watchmen" are. Is that one of those superhero shows on the WB?

[cbmclean]

Joe,

It's a graphic novel. See wikipedia.