Perhaps there is some odd synchronicity with Tim J's haunting post, but this is a picture I was moved to take from my hotel hallway early Sunday morning as I was getting reach to leave the Long Beach National Square Dance Convention for the drive back to San Diego.
That drive should be only two hours, but with traffic it can be four five (and has been!), so I wanted to get an early start, and I happened to get up early enough that there was a lot of fog in the area.
The fog was so bad that when I got on the toll road to bypass a bunch of early traffic, I could not read the signs announcing the oncoming toll booths, making me wonder about traffic safety. Nevertheless I got home fine, despite all the fog.
The kind of fog you could hit an iceberg in.
This post isn't about that, though. It's about the ship that you can see between the palm trees in the center of the picture (look for the black and red smokestacks; click to enlarge).
The ship is the Queen Mary, which sailed as part of the Cunard-White Star Line in the mid-20th century before being retired and permanently anchored in Long Beach as a tourist spot.
I've never been aboard the Queen Mary. That'll have to wait for another trip (traffic and all, y'know). But I have encountered it in various ways.
For example, its gorgeous interiors were used as the setting of the outstanding and cinematically dazzling X-Files episode Triangle (one of the very best of the whole series).
Beyond the way the X-Files treated the ship, it's also reputed to be haunted, with various reports of ghostly happenings since it was permanently moored in Long Beach, with past guests supposedly making posthumous appearances, including soldiers who were housed on the vessel when it was used as a troop ship during World War II. (Bunks, apparently, were stacked in the central ballroom, with some bunks reaching almost to the ceiling.)
On that basis, it's also the location of the climax of Tim Powers' novel Expiration Date, which is one of my most favorite Tim Powers novels. It's simply marvellous–chocked full of audacious inventiveness, action, and humor. I love it!
And the ship has a connection (believe it or not) to my square dancing life.
One of the past presidents of my square dance club was named Vic. He passed away a couple of years ago, when I was president of the club (before I was its caller), and I spent time with Vic during his final illness, trying to provide companionship and making whatever conversation he felt up to.
One of the things he talked about was the fact that he had been housed on the Queen Mary during World War II. He was one of the soldiers billeted in the ball room.
Of course, I told him about Tim Powers' novel as part of passing the time.
And so, though I haven't yet been aboard the Queen Mary, it still has a special status for me. I look forward to going aboard and seeing it for myself.
This weekend, though, I couldn't resist snapping a picture of it through the morning mists.
Oh . . . and what's that ghostly ring of light around the ship in the picture? An electronic image artifact? A reflection in the hotel hall's window of the iPhone's circular camera, caused by holding it close enough to the window that the hall lights wouldn't get in the picture? A spectral manifestation of Koot Hoomie Parganas, Thomas Edison, Sherman Oaks, or (shudder) Loretta deLarava?
You decide.
I was just in Long Beach, where the Queen Mary is, for the conference I attended two weeks ago. Rats. This means Jimmy and I missed each other by a week!!
The Chicken
About 40 years ago my dad pulled me out of school one day to tour the Queen Mary when she was docked in Ft. Lauderdale. She’s a magnificent ship, well worth the visit even if you don’t run into any spooks (which we didn’t).
I LOVED “Expiration Date”!! And Tim Powers in general, thanks to Jimmy for introducing me to his books.
Obviously a fake picture. No cowboy boot in the corner!