Woke
up in Massachusetts again.
Went to New Bedford. Walking down the cobblestoned street
with my Modern Library edition of Moby Dick under
my arm I wondered what the difference is between a
tourist and a pilgrim. A couple of tourists passed me on
their way into an art gallery and smiled when they saw
the book. I guess I'm part of the typical New Bedford
scenery -- earnest reader clutching the great American
novel.
The reading started in the Lagoda
Room as usual, and there weren't enough chairs set up for
both readers and spectators so I ended up sitting on a
box onboard the Lagoda curled up against a wall of the
forward cabin. Nancy joined me a bit later (she took the
bus from Providence whereas I drove down from the edge of
the universe) and we found seats as some people got up to
move around. We listened and followed along happily until
the Seamen's Bethel chapter.
When the reading moved to the
Bethel, we took our traditional lunch break and headed to
Java Jungle. They told us the Moby Dick readers
cleaned them out of food before noon and the grill was
shut down because they close at 2:00 on weekends. Java
Jungle ran out of food! We walked down the block to Java
Bean, which I used to confuse with Java Jungle. Java Bean
went out of business! The space is available for lease.
We
wandered around and ended up at the Catwalk
Bar and Grille. It's one of
those bare brick places that's supposed to make you feel
all sophisticated and urbane even though you are in New
Bedford. Our waitress kept confusing our orders and then
the cook got confused and cooked what we hadn't ordered
but eventually we got lunch. The onion rings were good. I
think the place would feel more sophistcated and urbane
at night and under the influence of alcohol. To me it
just felt dark and cavernous.
As we walked back to the Whaling
Museum we passed a small storefront that advertised
itself as the Hetty Green Museum. There's a
Hetty
Green museum!?! We couldn't
pass by without a quick look. Three families of tourists
from New Jersey (Green was from Morristown) had just
settled in to watch the orientation video and the docent
enthusiastically asked us to join them. The video was
staticky and concentrated mostly on Hetty's son and not
on how she managed her immense fortune by extreme
frugality, but the docent's enthusiasm and the
responsiveness to questions more than made up for it. It
was a fun diversion and really did fit in with our
mission as it put Captain Bildad's Quaker frugality in a
real life context. Besides, it added to the general
weirdness quotient for the day. Plus we had much fun
imagining an alternative universe in which Hetty Green
owned the Pequod and fired Ahab for wasting her precious
capital assets on personal revenge.
The reading had moved to the big
room underneath KOBO's bones after the sermon, so we
found seats easily. Yes, KOBO's bones still smell of
whale oil but less so than in previous years. If you look
closely at the skeleton you can see spots where the oil
is still oozing out. Every once in awhile from certain
spots in the museum you can still get a whiff of how the
entire city of New Beford smelled when it was the city
that lit the world. They're reassembling the skeleton of
a sperm whale that washed ashore dead on Nantucket
upstairs in the room where the panorama used to be
displayed. I'm not sure how they'll fit that skeleton in
here with KOBO. Maybe they'll have to build another
addition.
So, under the skeleton of the late
KOBO, we listened as Ishmael and Queequeg ate chowder at
The Try Pots, signed on with the Pequod, and set sail.
People actually laughed at Peleg and Bildad calling
Queequeg Quohog. This indicates the presence of locals in
with the academics in the audience. Actually the audience
seemed much more tuned in to Melville's sense of humor
this time because there were may more laughs during the
Cetology chapter, where Ishmael classfies whales
according to book sizes, than usual. I think it helped
that the people reading that chapter were actually
familiar with whale biology.
In the refreshment room over
chowder we met a woman who had written her thesis on the
chapter where Ishmael describes walking through a whale
skeleton in the Bower in the Aracides chapter. She didn't
think she'd be able to stay awake 'til that chapter
because it would be in the wee hours of the morning. It
was fun to talk to her, clearly an Ishmael reader rather
than an Ahab reader (academics make that
distinction/debate all the time). Somehow we got on the
subject of American literature in general and Nancy
chimed in with how I read far more American lit that she
does even though she's the one with the advanced degree
in it. Before I knew it, my thoughts about A Week on
the Concord and Merrimack Rivers having themes -- in
particular the criticism of religion -- and rambling
organization in common with Moby Dick were
tumbling out of my mouth. Whoa. I rarely dare to speak of
literature with academics but it was fun. The woman we
were talking with understood exactly where I was coming
from. Not that anyone in their right mind or wrong mind
either would organize a marathon reading of A Week on
the Concord and Merrimack Rivers -- but think of it,
you could do it on a boat floating downriver... hmm, what
exactly is in this chowder, clam or cod?
We listened to the many readers
until Nancy started to fall asleep. Then we decided to go
to Providence to sleep and then come back in the morning
for the chase scene.
