Closing Out the Cruise

Before I cease writing about the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, I want to pass along a few additional links to relevant material found elsewhere on the Web:

• In a well-coordinated presentation, rolled out overnight, Critics at Large posted “eight pieces that look at the tragic event from a cultural point of view.” As the series’ introduction explains, those posts range from “a combination memoir and critical overview of films and documentaries by David Churchill; to insightful commentaries on a variety of other films and music from Steve Vineberg, Mari-Beth Slade, John Corcelli, Andrew Dupuis, [and] David Kidney; and [finish] with a discerning look at the broader implications of the Titanic’s sinking from Shlomo Schwartzberg ...” In addition, writer-broadcaster Kevin Courrier tried to embed in the blog the “Titanic Overture,” from Alice Cooper’s 1969 debut album, Pretties for You. YouTube has blocked it for copyright reasons, but you can still listen to the piece here.

• The Huffington Post features a too-brief video about the remarkable life of silent-film star Dorothy Gibson (1889-1946), who survived the White Star liner’s foundering in 1912, only to retire from pictures at the height of her popularity. She was later arrested in Italy as an anti-Fascist agitator and thrown into a prison--from which she escaped not long before dying of a heart attack in Paris. Why has nobody made a movie of Gibson’s life, I wonder.

• Terence Towles Canote from A Shroud of Thoughts glances back at ways in which the Titanic disaster influenced popular culture.

• Television Obscurities recalls “the Kraft Television Theatre adaptation of Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember (published in 1955), which was broadcast live on Wednesday, March 28th, 1956.” This was two years before the big-screen adaptation of Lord’s book was released. “Although the 1958 film has been released on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray,” the Web site notes, “the television version has never been commercially released on any format.”

• The Web site for Illinois’ Suburban Emergency Management Project has this story: “How the RMS Titanic Disaster Galvanized Birth of the U.S. Coast Guard and International Ice Patrol.”

• And this posting comes from The Daily Kos: “RMS Titanic as Metaphor and Other Thoughts.”

• USA Today reports that “Cruise ship passengers and crew said prayers Sunday at the spot in the North Atlantic where the Titanic sank 100 years ago ..., while the city that built the vessel looked back with a mixture of sorrow and pride.”

• From the same newspaper: “Human remains may be embedded in the mud of the North Atlantic where the New York-bound Titanic came to rest when it sank 100 years ago ...”

• Finally, novelist, short-story writer, and longtime January Magazine contributing editor David Abrams ponders the question, “What books on board the Titanic might passengers have used as flotation devices?” His conclusions are here.

READ MORE: “Meet the People Who Didn’t Know the Titanic Disaster Was a Real Historic Event” (JimRomenesko.com); “Titanic Little-Known History,” by Madeline Ortiz (History Confidential).