Shipwrecked

It was so hot that I spent much of the day in my small bedroom. It's the only room in the house with an air conditioner. I spent the time cutting up a picture book of the Titanic for collage purposes. I bought the book for a dollar at a library sale. It seemed a shame to cut it up, but my rationalization was that I wasn't destroying anything rare since it's one of the most popular disasters in our culture.

I have a friend who is fascinated with shipwrecks. I don't think of myself as such a one, but the information that came with the pictures cast a morbid spell. I found myself reading once again about how the management didn't carry enough lifeboats on board and the crew didn't fill the ones they did have up to capacity. Lifeboat #1 only carried 12 people though it had a capacity for 60. And then there are the statistics about how many people perished in third class accommodations as opposed to first class. These chilling statistics gave rise to the rumor (later proved untrue) that the crew locked in the third class passengers so that the rich people could escape first. And the legend of how the band played on nobly as the ship sank: "Near, My God, to Thee." And the story of the girl who was thought to have drowned on board with her mother, but later re-appeared to claim her family's estate. She was proved to be an imposter.

Then there are the details about the ship itself: the exquisite craftsmanship in the carved wooden panels, the crystal chandeliers, the marble fireplaces, the sweeping staircases, the luxuriousness of the staterooms, the coziness of the men's smoking room, the elegance of the women's writing room, the swimming pool, the dining area and so on. The Titanic's fussy Edwardian luxury becomes our version of lost Atlantis.