In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

168 ARRAYS
postponement affords precious time in which they can try to win allies
before reentering the everyday world.
For upper-deck passengers, in contrast, the unreal world of ocean
liners is a realm of play. While the rich and beautiful are impatiently
awaited on both sides of the ocean, as indicated by the society columns
in papers like the New York Times [see Americans in Paris], they indulge
in high-class sports such as tennis and golf-but also in soccer games and
boxing matches, which they would hardly consider appropriate pastimes
in their real-world lives (Chronik, 73). On his frequent voyages between
Argentina and Europe, the Argentinian tango singer Carlos Gardel delightedly
observes all the carnivalesque rituals that mark the crossing of
the Equator. He concludes long nights of dancing and music with sumptuous
meals, and he gives lavish tips to the stewards and waiters (Collier,
74ff.). But even the upper-deck passengers face a tradeoff-the inverse
of the one that confronts stowaways and dropouts. The wealthy have
long been used to a transcontinental lifestyle. Since ocean liners are the
only means of transportation available between the continents, the rich
and beautiful cannot avoid losing a week between their various spheres
of action. This situation causes serious conflicts for Rudolph Valentino,
who early in the year finds himself traveling back and forth between
Paris, where he is being divorced from Natasha Rambova, and the West
Coast of the United States, where he has to fulfill studio obligations
(Orbanz, 136; Morris, 176ff.). To make things worse, there are just two
passages per week between France and the United States. According to
a timetable published in Le Figaro on Thursday, March 18, the Orleans
departs from Cherbourg on March 19, the France from Le Havre on
March 24, the Deutschland from Boulogne on March 27, and the Paris
from Le Havre on March 31.
Trying to describe a possible scenic effect for his play Orphee, Jean
Cocteau alludes to "the airplanes or ships used in trompe-l'oeil photographs
at county fairs" (17). This brief instruction stages the temporal
rift between the imposed unreality of a long ocean voyage and the
unreality of a transatlantic flight. [see Present = Past (Eternity)] Meanwhile,
the New York Times announces, on September 22, that the
Goodyear Rubber Company and the U.S. government have begun negotiations
to establish a "New York-London line of dirigibles ... A dirigible
of 6 million cubic feet should be able to fly the Atlantic Ocean in
two and one-half days or not more than three, and should prove a