More Secrets of the Reef

When we arrived, late, at the Exeter Theatre, we explained to the janitor and subsequently to Viola Berlin that we were from Harvard and had come to the movie and the long-awaited critics luncheon. "Oh, you're the critics?" We grinned. Viola Berlin turned to my companion who was a bear masquerading as a CRIMSON editor, and asked, "What do you do on the CRIMSON?" He sniggered.

After the movie, which was about the sea, we gathered downstairs with the other critics. Soon Viola Berlin, Mr. Schroeder of the Oceanographic Institute, the bear, and I were put in a car. Mr. Ellis Gordon drove us to the Harvard Club.

We went in the back way--by the ladies entrance--and, passing a color portrait of President Pusey, were led up to the second floor. "Our" room had in it two moose, two mule deer, an elk, and cocktails. WHRB had also arrived. The bartender asked if we were 21 and the bear sniggered.

Mingling with the drinks and criticisms, we chatted about the sea. "Well, how do you tell a female octupus?" asked one reviewer. While a group, far off, agreed that octupuses was better than octupi, the director said, that it was simple--you could tell by the third tentacle. When the reviewer asked, "The third tentacle from what?" the director observed that love will find a way.

We sat down. Somebody remarked that there are 250,000 plankton in a teaspoonful of sea water, I eyed my glass. There is no trust in the world, I thought, and somebody asked how large, really, is a portuguese man o'war? "You must be using a magnifying glass on your lens."

I thought about taking the chicken in my hands, while a lady critic at the other end of the table asked if the fish were inquisitive. Bob Young said that when he was photographing barracudas he had the feeling sometimes that somebody was watching him. "But what if they're hungry?" the lady asked, digging into her dessert. By then mine had come, and so had WHRB's microphone at the head of the table. Bob Young, who was not at the head of the table, suggested, "Well, there are lots of things you wouldn't particularly eat. I guess." The lady's dessert had gone.

The conversation returned to the head of the table where Alfred Butterfield was talking not about groupers, nor queen triggerfish, nor toadfish, but sponge crabs. "Sponge crabs dress themselves up to look like sponges," he said, explaining that discriminating fish don't consider sponges good eating, "but little crabs are!" He went on, "We were determined to get them in the picture. We got some little sponge crabs. We left them alone because we wanted them to be happy. We didn't bother them, except to feed them, and didn't turn on any lights. And they didn't do a damn thing!" Finally, after weeks of trying unsuccessfully to get the crabs to dress themselves up like sponges, he and the group gave up and turned on the lights. "And as soon as we turned on the lights... it was as if the crabs had screamed, 'Ye Gods, we're naked,' "They dived for the sponges."

By that time the bear's stomach was full and so was mine, of scrod. As we left, Viola Berlin thanked us and we thanked her, and wished her a fine, cloudy day for the movie's opening.