Editor’s Note: We’ve long been charmed by the sartorial wit and uniquely esoteric perspective of Madam Tami Knight, whose cartoons have graced our pages since the start. One scotch too many a month or two ago, we thought it would be a good idea to bring Tami to Jackson to report on The Alpinist Film Festival for our readers who are unable to attend. Getting her to actually say something about adventure films in general and the AFF in particular presents its challenges, but stay tuned: Tami will be blogging (or blawging, as she puts it) from now until the dust of the event has settled.
You’ve been warned.
The homepage of Troy Duckels ( www.DuckPower.com ) subtitled “Let the
craziness begin” has what appears to be the wafting aftersmoke from a big
bong – not some Hamsterdam rodent pipe – but a whompin’ Vancouver Special
blowing on the homepage banner. Okay so more likely it’s just an iconic
graphic describing smoke-no-fire c’os Duckels is a firefighter. He has a
film clip on the site of him being a firefighter in Antarctica. Remember
that now.
Perhaps Duckels unintentionally channeled some of the ghosts of stoned
climbers of yore because the work you discover perusing his site is
wonderfully raw and unsophisticated, sometimes unfinished and always loony.
He appears to be the kid whose tolerant parents kept him off Ritalin,
preferring, perhaps, to sacrifice their own braincells so their son could
pursue his own nutty and madcap adventures. Or maybe they just liked to watch
and they didn’t mind picking up the pieces.
One clip on DuckPower shows Troy trying to escape McMurdo Base Fire Dep’t.
That’s a problem c’os there are limited forms of transport in or out of
Antarctica. And there’s this : Derek doesn’t want Troy to leave. To the
tunes from The Great Escape, Derek tackles Troy as he makes first for the
C-130 transport then what looks like the petroleum tanker ship. At least
Troy doesn’t go for the blow up pool toy and sextant in a bid to swim to South
Georgia Island. All’s well that ends well; Derek is successful in keeping
Troy from escaping. Look out Federico Fellini! This is DuckPower!
Troy Duckels’ film Sew it Up presents – appropriately enough – on Stone
Night, Saturday, January 19th.
Sew it Up- and you can’t see it at the DuckPower site- is mentioned on the
Alpinist Film Fest site with words like short and hysterical. It’s three
minutes in duration. Described as large amount of gear in short amount of
distance, sketched out, crappy placements and lightenin’ the load, this film
sounds PERFECT for the short attention spans of old, brain damaged climbing
types. If Sew It Up follows the threads of Duckels’ other work ( that you
can see on DuckPower ), it is more about capturing the essential climber and
the abject lunacy of the situation-at-hand. Yey! Whahoo!! It’s not about
flogging some goddamn product other then, perhaps, the general animal rights
movement. Duckels mentions at the end of some of his films that seals
weren’t
harmed in the production of the film. If he ever does consider sponsorship,
he should consider Tupperware: it too enjoys a tight seal.