David: Second Day Afloat

Carole mentioned our tour specialist guide, Giles Ramsay, who specializes in staging theater productions in post-colonial, post-war environments such as Kosovo and Zimbabwe (although he got a job directing a show of "The Glass Menagerie" in Vermont last March). The planetarium show ranged from new findings about the surface of Mars to mind-boggling facts about the cosmos, with rilly kewl graphics. It was narrated by Laurence Fishburne. We're told there are two other planetarium shows (running time is 25 minutes) narrated by Harrison Ford and -- I heard -- Robert Redford.

We split up after lunch and I went to see a performance of the suite from Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat" and a Dvorak piano quintet by musicians from the National Symphony[?] based at Lincoln Center. After that, playwright and novelist John Guare lectured on "How to Read a Play." I was mildly astonished that it was really him and not a video, but it turns out he and his wife are making their first trip on the QM2 because the Old Vic has scheduled a revival of "Six Degrees of Separation" for next winter so he's going over to participate in casting it. The talk was wonderful, the Q&A even better.

I suppose these will make more sense if I give the background and his anecdotes to support them, but what struck me was his comment that "Art is intended to prepare us for the great experiences of our life," so that we'll say, oh, this is love, I've read about this, and aha, this is death, I know something about it. He also said a play should give its audience "new costumes," so that people say, "God, I never knew I felt that before."

Carole and I found a little time to work on a jigsaw puzzle of stylized jungle foliage and tigers that someone else had started, before dressing up for our first formal shipboard dinner. The ship's captain, who also happens to be the commodore of the Cunard fleet, Bernard Werner, spoke to us in the "Queen's Room," a ballroom for dancing, and said there were about 2500 passengers aboard; not sure if I got the 1,053 Brits and 951 Americans correct in my hurried notes, but from there he cited 759 Canadians, 104 Germans, 22 from Holland, 18 from Australia, 16 French passengers, 12 from the Republic of Ireland, and then a whole bunch of other nations of origin, including Mexico, Albania, Russia, Trinidad, South Africa, Venezuela, Portugal, etc., etc.

What interested me more was his mention that the staff that serves us amounts to 1,250. Which brings me to one of my better (or worse, depending on your perspective) spontaneous puns of this era. The wait staff in our dining room, the Britannia, though impeccable in their manners and service, evince complexions and speech accents that suggest they originally came from Russia, the Philippines, and elsewhere. (Dealers and croupiers in the casino seem to be especially weighted toward Russian descent.) Carole said if my acting career doesn't pan out, I could do their job. But I don't have an accent, I protested. You are an actor, she pointed out. Oh, I responded, you mean I should imitate a staff inflection? Whereupon, as usual, she slapped me.

I can attest that Classic Rock is alive and well on the East Coast. Somewhere during our wanderings through the streets of New York a few days ago, we overheard the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" playing somewhere, which struck me as especially appropriate for out-of-town visitors. Then, yesterday afternoon in the Cunard terminal at the Brooklyn docks while we wended our way through security and ticket checks, I heard over the sound system -- in succession -- "Spinning Wheel," "Fortunate Son," and "Pinball Wizard"; all great tunes, and all vaguely appropriate to our coming experience.

A few more random notes before I have to go upstairs and join Carole for the "Black and White Ball" (I'm typing this in my tuxedo). I can't recall whether I've ever had a waiter hold my chair for me and place my cloth napkin in my lap before; I'm sure it happens in the better restaurants on the East and West Coast, but I've never been in such a one. Also, the restrooms on this ship, in addition to paper towels, offer the option of individually rolled hand towels lined up in a flat straw basket for you to dry your hands after washing.

Things are not perfect, though. In the dining room, a raft of waiters will serenade a birthday person with the "Happy Birthday Song" or an anniversary couple with a chorus of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and they are mostly neither native English speakers nor good singers. I'm not convinced a majority of them even know the proper tune to the latter song. So the result is rather amusingly ragged -- almost tacky -- but that makes it rather more endearing, I think, than if it were as perfect as almost everything else seems to be on this voyage.

I also wish to note that we managed to raise the pet caretaker on Carole's cell phone yesterday morning before we left the East Side Marriott ("Mawrio Eas' " in the parlance of an Hispanic bus captain at the airport) and learned that Pixie has taken to her very well, running in circles, wagging her tail, and going for walks with Mary the pet whisperer. So that took a load off our minds. We only hope this convinces her (the dog, I mean) that not everyone else is out to get her, either. In that way.