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January 4, 1997
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. - Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Off to New Bedford for: Moby Dick: The Marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. We've been anticipating this for a month. Nancy and I are both on the waiting list to read. I couldn't believe it when Nancy told me the schedule was already full when she called. Apparently neither could the local New Bedford paper because they called Nancy and interviewed her for a story on why people are desperate to read Moby Dick. It must be a slow news day in New Bedford when the waiting list is a story.
What can I say? I was, I think, the only kid in my class who actually liked Moby Dick when we were forced to read it. My battered copy with the red and blue cover and really thin cheap paper has long since disintegrated. I finally found Nancy's copy New Year's Eve after searching her bookshelves unsuccessfully on Sunday. I bent over to pick something up off the floor and there it was tucked in an improbable corner of the bottom most shelf. We were going to read some of it aloud on the beach on New Year's Day after the morning at the cat shelter but it was single digit cold out there and my sweatshirt was wet from washing dishes. I would've turned into an icicle. So we didn't practice. I'm not worried. We'll never get called to read, but we'll be there to listen.
I've never been to the whaling museum before. I'm interested in the history, though not in seeing depictions of gore...
I'll write about it when I come back. Meanwhile, if you've always wanted to read Moby Dick but were waiting for it to be online, here's the text.
Just what the doctor ordered for the drizzly November [January] in the soul.