On Cooking Duck by bookseller

cutting myriad little slits into the duck's (or goose's) skin, repeatedly pouring boiling water over it, and then drying it in front of a fan helps render a lot of the fat from under the skin, and also helps the skin crisp. The theory, at least, is that the boiling water opens up the pores. I'm not sure what the fan-drying is meant to do -- maybe you want the skin ultra-dry, so that when it hits the heat, all of the heat goes toward crispinating, without any having to be given over toward first drying out the skin?