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1

Jeez Chris, I thought Moby Dick was last month's flavor of the month. Why don't you and your boyfriend Moby Dick just have sex and do away with all this foreplay!

Posted by Justard | March 7, 2007 2:29 PM
2

The Whore of Mensa is also in Woody's 1975 collection "Without Feathers."

Posted by elswinger | March 7, 2007 2:32 PM
3

look at the gleam on that whale.

Posted by josh | March 7, 2007 2:46 PM
4

In order to test the intellectual sensabilities of rural american high school teachers, a friend of mine plagiarized 'The Whore of Mensa' for a Creative Writing class...The teacher, not thinking it odd that an overweight, Mid Western, Catholic school girl could write so convincingly in the voice of a 4o year old, East Coast Jewish comedian, gave the story a B and encouraged her to not be so fanciful....

Posted by michael strangeways | March 7, 2007 2:57 PM
5

@1, give it time. they're still at the "accidentally holding hands in the spermaceti vats" stage.

Posted by josh | March 7, 2007 3:04 PM
6

Be sure to check out Mastadon's concept album based on Moby Dick, "Leviathon". As a rule, I don't read the lyrics to my metal albums because they're usually painfully awful. So I don't know how well they interpreted the book, but the CD's heavier than fuck and every once in a while you hear the guy growl, "White whaaaaaaale!"

Posted by skweetis | March 7, 2007 3:43 PM
7

geez. what now? i've gotta buy the soundtrack from dances with wolves to hide my bartók cd in? thanks a lot christopher.

Posted by m. | March 7, 2007 3:54 PM
8

I will not tolerate any knocking of Sammy Davis, Jr. (my idol) or Bela Bartok.

Posted by Fnarf | March 7, 2007 4:10 PM
9

check your facts the japanese vessels were not rammed by australian federal police but by the "sea sheperd society". the same folks who said the siberian yupik of st. lawrence island killed two children due to a accident in the course of subsistence whaling. not nice people really.

Posted by Jim | March 7, 2007 4:15 PM
10

I hate that freakin' chapter - so full of pseudo-scientific speculation, general misinformation (okay, okay, they didn't know all that much about whales back then - except that their fat was good to burn in lamps, and their barf made a great base for perfume), not to mention being perhaps one of the most boring passages in American Literature. Plus, it just brings the plot to a grinding halt.

I say, if you're going to read "Moby Dick" skip that chapter altogether; you won't be missing anything.

Posted by COMTE | March 7, 2007 4:50 PM
11

Oh, Comte, I always knew we weren't right for each other.

(Read it again? It's not supposed to be taken seriously.)

Posted by christopher frizzelle | March 7, 2007 5:26 PM
12

Give “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex” by Nathaniel Philbrick a read. I details the historic events that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick, and upon which he based his book, and is fascinating.

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | March 7, 2007 5:40 PM
13

I also hate that chapter. Isn't that the one where he goes on and on about the physiology of whales, then, at the end, erroneously concludes that they're actually big fish?

Posted by they're mammals, duh | March 7, 2007 6:45 PM
14

Hey I thought I would poke my head in as the Seattle ex-pat living in Sydney and point out that the Australian Federal Police did NOT dispatch ships to attack the Japanese Whaling ships (the Nissan and Keiko Maru, respectively.) Acually it was the Sea Shepherds, a militant anti-whaling group a la Greenpeace; and it was a fantastic job they did as well. The Howard goverment would NEVER dispatch ships to dally in environmental concerns being as they are all too busy sucking American cock right now and trying to sell us on Nuclear as green energy. Nice try kids, but if you wanna report the Aussie news read smh.com.au and fact check that shit.

Posted by Nora | March 8, 2007 3:17 AM
15

Moby Dick is such a great book that coded messages foretold the assassinations of several world leaders!

Posted by Aexia | March 8, 2007 8:10 AM
16

@13:

Yep, that's the one.

Sorry, Mr. Frizzelle, but if I want to read something genuinely humorous, there are much, much better sources than Melville.

Posted by COMTE | March 8, 2007 8:46 AM

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