Down to the sea in black tie

It’s been pretty much all-Titanic, all the time in the media this past week. You can’t flick the cable remote without coming across docus and dramas—they’re re-sinking it, saving it, exploring it, selling it, freeze-drying it and pan-frying it.

There are Titanic museums popping up, and I expect there are many, many Titanic parties and Titanic-menu dinners at restaurants all over; no doubt with titanic price tags. There are even two official Titanic memorial cruises, although why you would want to pay top dollar get into a boat and go to sea emulating a ship known only for the spectacularly systemic failure that prevented it even completing its maiden voyage I really don’t know.

I’ll confess that I’ve never been able to slog through the 1997 feature film—the parts I’ve seen are really laughably heavy-handed; I’m just not a fan of soap opera. Although I grant you that the costumes were pretty top-notch.

(I did see the end. Can I be the only person who wonders why Kate Winslet didn’t have enough breath/strength to yell for the rescuers, but did have enough to swim to another ice floe and then blow a whistle? What’s up with that?)

But still—this is the 100^th anniversary of the event, so I’ll mark it by returning to a story I read back in the last century by my favorite writer on the Washington Post. Ken Ringle reported on a gathering of the Men’s Titanic Society, a group of D.C-based TV (male) news producers who met annually to honor the men of the Titanic.

They dressed in black tie, ate oysters and foie gras, drank Bordeaux and toasted “those brave men”. Then they piled into limos to lay a wreath at the Titanic Memorial (4^th and P Streets, SW), which was erected in 1931 by “the women of America”, but languished in obscurity long since.

Ringle was exactly the writer to tell the story, so just follow the link to it and enjoy.

I can’t find anything about the society today, so I suppose it’s faded out. I’m sure there will be commemorative dinners around, but wonder if any will be as classy as this one.

For those in D.C., though—go to the memorial and drink a little tot. Just because you can.