V.O. [noble, majestic]: A cold South wind buffets a lone figure trapsing through the tundra, its face shrouded in layers of wool scarves. This is the first Southern expedition by a Westerner, or at least the first Southeastern expedition by a West-North-Westerner this week. And it hasn't been easy, because the last expedition ended just minutes before midnight on Sunday which would have made this the second such expedition this week. Actually there's another expedition which technically started a little before this one but they had to turn around after three minutes because they had left the oven on during which time this expedition started, making it the first one to really get underway this week. Nobody said it was going to be easy. [pause] The further South you get, the closer you get to the South pole. Any schoolchild will tell you that. Even if they don't know it. But what none of them know, and what the lone figure whose thoughts we can only guess at knows, we can only guess, is that the further South you go the further away from the South pole you get. Because the world, after all, isn't just round, as any schoolchild will tell you of course within the conditions I outlined above. It's also the topological equivalent of a coffee cup. What kind of man does it take to follow a dream like this to wherever it takes him? Take it!

[blazing be-bop saxophone solo]

Some call him crazy, but we call him what most people do: Sir Ethyl Cartwright the Ninth, the first man to explore the South pole -- without exploring the South pole.

[Strauss -- Also Sprechen Sie Xarathrustratocaster a la 2001]

[service bell]

Clerk: Can I help you?

Cartwright [old man]: Yes ... I'd like a cup of coffee.

Clerk: Here you go. That'll be thirty-five cents. Looks like a big flurry out there.

Cartwright: You can say that again.

Academic: Cartwright's real importance to an exploriographer such as myself is in recontextualizing exploration into an urbanized conceptual structure in which localizationism dominates the pre-industrial imperialist dogma in which the field floundered for decades.

V.O. [historical]: In 1973, Cartwright wrote the diary entry which established him as the flounder of a new school of explorers -- one to which the very notion of location had been very freed from its very epistemological shackles in very logical empiricism.

Cartwright [writing]: June 3rd, 1973. Went next door to explore the South pole. The frozen tundra consisted of a endless linoleum terrain. Traversing it on foot I came upon the coldest part of the South pole; a place called the frigidaire. Upon exploring it I discovered a store of foodstuffs. My attempts to take samples of these, however, met with violent opposition from the locals. I was forced to flee. However I intend to return there tomorrow, as the food supply at my base has begun to dwindle.

Academic: What Cartwright did was really incredible, and frankly we theorists are still reeling from it. I mean to really take him up on his premise there oughta be camera crews from Nova and National Geographic following 100% of the population around. So we're in a double bind. On the one hand, Cartwright seemed at last to have fundamentally lowered the cost and risk of exploration. But on the other hand, the scope of what he's proposing is unimaginable. And on the other hand -- well, there is no other hand, really, is there?

[Science TV show theme music]

V.O. [science show ad].: Next week we'll follow the intrepid David Smith of Terre Haute, Indiana on an incredible journey deep into the heart of his downstairs bathroom. "Half Bath" explores places few get a chance to see, including behind the drain of the sink where all the drain cleaner and old dried-out sponges are kept. Come with us on what may well be the journey of your lifetime.