my buddy could be rich

A while back, I gave my buddy Mike and his family a fragile, yellowed copy of a newspaper dated about a week after the sinking of the Titanic. That paper's massive headline blared, "THE FOUNDERING OF THE TITANIC." In its current state, the paper wouldn't be worth more than a few cents: if you were to try to unfold it, it would crumble like a flaky croissant. I had mentioned to Mike, some moons ago, that if he were to get the paper professionally restored, it would be worth a hell of a lot more. Did he do it? Is my buddy rich?

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic (yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's having struck an iceberg). I doubt that any member of my family tree has any sort of connection to that event, so I'm not nearly as interested in it as some are. My big Titanic memory comes from the 1998 Academy Awards, when James Cameron's so-so film won Oscar after Oscar. Cameron's a talented filmmaker, but he's also a consummate dick. Earlier in that show, he had accepted one of the Oscars and asked, piously, for a moment of silence in honor of the over 1500 dead. The audience gamely obliged, and air time was wasted on a John Cage-style tacet moment. Later in that same awards show, Cameron won again-- this time for Best Director. Forgetting his previous piety in the face of all those dead, Cameron held up his arms-- in imitation of Leonardo DiCaprio's moment on the bow-- and shouted, "I'm the king of the world!" As I said: a consummate dick.

Fuck you, you 1500 drowning victims! This is MY moment, bitches!

That is, unfortunately, how I remember the Titanic on this day.

May your own remembrance be untainted.

(NB: I've written about James Cameron's true nature before. See here, too.)


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