by grantwoods

1. The Titanic- They sure said it was too big to fail. And weren’t they wrong. Isn’t it great when they are wrong? The Titanic was lauded as the premier ship to make it to the Americas. A guaranteed romantic voyage across the most storied of all seas, the Atlantic. Leo and his lady sure bought that message, boarding the holy ship in jolliest England. Little did they know the fate that would eventually befall them. All we learned about in elementary school is the social structure on the boat, but all we learned in the movie is that none of that matters: that anyone can have sex with anyone if your on a boat and someone’s as handsome as Leo DiCaprio. Either way, the iceberg, which is a perfect analogy for anxiety, knocked that ship out. In a few years, none of the seafloor remains will be existing anymore. Good riddance.
2. The Suez Canal Ship- God forbid we don’t get all our things! If we don’t have our things, if our things don’t make it from a land far away, sure are we cursed. God forbid we think about our life, not in terms of things, but instead in terms of nothing. I hope we never have to consider that nothing at all is just enough and that we don’t need our Amazon wishlist to feel fulfilled. Get that ship unstuck!
3. The Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria- What villainous ships! With men, mostly men, I bet, who came to kill and pillage. If history were to go my way, we’d still be kempt in Europe, having never travelled to the Americas. We’d let things be, content with how we are. Sure, I agree this likely means I’d never be born. Sure, I agree this likely means we’d be without Will Ferrell or my mom, but I’d rather the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria fuck off! Fuck you, Cristobal Colon. 
4. The Mayflower- A similar vein. Forget Thanksgiving, forget crowding around a table of loved ones. Don’t you remember that the ship crew pillaged their way from Plymouth to Holyoke. And let’s not forget that the boat had one more crew member by the end than when it started. More people fucked on that boat than hearts stopped beating! And that’s not to mention all the people who un-reproductively fucked, which was surely a lot. 
5. Friendship- Sure, it’s important, but can’t it be just as challenging as a cross-Atlantic voyage. Everyone is just an Etch A Sketch in an unshakable world, souls written with diverging experience and feeling. It can be hard to maintain connection when lives seem so disparate. But like all ships, they serve a purpose. They remind us not to depend on something that has yet to happen. They remind us that the best things in life are not things. Friendships keep our hearts from freezing like an iceberg in the North Atlantic. They push onward, ceaselessly against the tides, baring the waves of life. May we be unselfish in friendship and forever eager to bear the burdens of others. This is what makes friendship the best boat.

Categories: grant woods, nov. 9, review, vol 25