Thursday, October 23, 2008

Iceberg, straight ahead

I was working from home and it was nice and quiet without the kids around. Almost too quiet for me, so at lunchtime I heated up a piece of leftover pizza (chicken with feta!) and turned on the T.V. for some company. The news was all about the global economic crisis, and I wasn't in the mood for that, so I flipped the channels looking for something else and came across the movie Titanic already in progress.



It was the black and white 1953 version. Barbara Stanwyk is in it. I think she is just so beautiful and glamorous. I turned it on just as the fake-looking ship was heading towards the fake-looking iceberg. They show the people on the ship noticing the jolt, and kind of saying "did something just happen?" and then going back to playing cards, and singing around the piano. Then it cuts to the scene in the boiler room where water is gushing and slamming the boiler guys into the walls. Then they showed the people milling around on the deck, not really wanting to get into the lifeboats, still unsure of what was happening, thinking maybe it was just a precaution. And it's so profound because of course you know what is going to happen, and they don't yet, and are therefore concerning themselves with the insignificant details that will not matter at all when the ship goes down.


I decided that I wasn't really in the mood to watch this either, and since I'd finished my pizza I turned off the TV, put the dish in the sink, and got back to work.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very profound Mindy.
Mary Beth

Anonymous said...

So literary and symbolic. Maybe you get it from my side of the family. Lots of us from theatre of the absurd as well as iceberg world. Aunt Chris
ps Also- from bakers world- when old aunts send you baked goods a little feedback is needed to motivate them for further baking.

kid_curry said...

But if your ship is going down, don't you want the best carpeting in it.

Mindy said...

You so know I do! Gotta go down in style.

As the ship sank, the band played...