Moby Monday – Dickmas Comes but Once a Year

Just keep it away from your legYou may think you don’t know anyone who needs a Moby Dick hat. But have you seen this Moby Dick hat? Hand crocheted by a teen crafter who sells her wares under the name WhatsEatinYou, the cap comes pre-harpooned for the wearer’s safety and convenience. I found it on Etsy.com, the online handcrafts superstore, a location packed with potential for Dickmas—the traditional Herman Melville’s birthday celebration on August 1—in case you aren’t yet finished with your shopping for this year.

No whales were harmed in the making of this feltidermySadly, someone snapped up this cruelty-free “feltidermy” Moby Dick trophy head almost as soon as it was posted on Etsy by crafter girlsavage last week. But there are lots of other options. Who could resist a Moby-Dick GYOTAKU, a fish printed onto a page of everyone’s favorite metaphysical novel by artist Barry Singer? Or a stunning map of the voyage of the Pequod by printmaker Kathleen Piercefield—whose own website, by the way, offers a slew of other Moby Dick prints, including the haunting Pip: Alone. Have a look around; you might find the perfect item for your own Dickmas list.

Some commentators rue how commercialized Herman Melville’s birthday has become, but I personally prefer the gift exchange to earlier forms of observance, including the ritual donning of the cassock.

Happy shopping!

•••••

There are only four more days of voting left in the Guardian (UK) poll that pits Moby Dick (an asskicking sea monster) against Black Beauty (a talking horse). While the whale did pull ahead last month after we first mentioned the poll on Sea-Fever, he is currently once again losing to the horse by a hair—and whales don’t even have hair.

If you didn’t vote before, won’t you take a minute to put our boy over the top in this thing? Hint: your friends can vote, too.

Margaret Guroff is the editor and publisher of Power Moby-Dick.

Moby-Monday: A big honking book in tiny poems

I will write haiku / without "Call me Ishmael" / e'en if it kills me!
You might think nothing could be more antithetical to Herman Melville’s sprawling Moby-Dick than haiku, the compressed Japanese form that was the salvation of every “write a poem” assignment in school: five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables, and time for lunch. But where there’s an idea, there’s a haiku about it on the Internet.

In the case of the white whale, online haiku abound. Here’s one by Dan Higgins, a reader of the Albany (NY) Times Union newspaper:

Call me Ishmael
Then we will go whale hunting
‘Til the thing kills us.

A darker version showed up on muruch.com last week:

Call me Ishmael.
Ahab’s white whale heart of Hell.
Obsessed depths of death.

The king of Moby-Dick haiku, though, is Moby-Dick in Haiku, a hilarious 15-part retelling by the genius behind MadHaiku.com. Here’s chapter one:

Call me Ishmael
a white boy from Manhatto
I’m not really gay!

Noticing a pattern? There are other Moby-Dick haiku out there … and they all seem to start the same way. Do you think Melville wrote that famous first line in five syllables on purpose?

Margaret Guroff is editor and publisher of Power Moby-Dick.

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Moby-Monday: Let’s Beat a Dead Horse!

Artist's rendering with baleen whaleWe all know Moby Dick is a badass—the erstwhile Badass of the Week, in fact. He can crush a wooden whaleship with his wrinkled brow. But can he crush Black Beauty? This is the question raised by a poll running on the Guardian (UK) website through the first week of July.

Along with Moby Dick, contenders for “Best Performance by an Animal” in the newspaper’s literary poll include Buck, the half-St. Bernard, half-Scotch-Shepherd dog from Jack London’s The Call of the Wild; the unnamed bear from William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale; and lapdog Jip from Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. But it’s the autobiography-writing horse in Black Beauty who is currently giving everyone’s favorite cetacean a run for his money. In fact, the horse has been leading by a nose since the poll started a couple weeks back, albeit by just a dinky horse nose, not a mighty sperm whale’s.

Seriously: The terrifying freakish embodiment of God, death, nature, vengeance, or [insert true meaning of Moby Dick here] is up against a talking horse … and the horse is winning? Something is wrong here, my friend. Will you help make it right?

“Horse and Whale,” by Marilyn Burkhardt, used with the artist’s permission.

Margaret Guroff is the editor and publisher of Power Moby-Dick.

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seaz me, a blog for a new venture

Earlier this week we launched a new venture called seaz media which will function as the social media unit under the umbrella of Sea-Fever Consulting LLC. We will focus our efforts on assisting maritime organizations, nonprofits and small businesses get their “feet wet” with social media. A companion blog called seaz.me was launched and hope you will visit it, subscribe and join in the conversation.

seaz-me

We’ve been actively engaged with social media for about 3 years and have worked on several pro-bono nonprofit projects through Sea-Fever. So it seemed like a good time to share our experience and knowledge.

Social media is still in it’s early days but if you lead a business or nonprofit organization you need to be thinking about developing a strategy to use these new communication tools and integrate them into your marketing mix. Communicating with and engaging stakeholders has never been more important than during the challenging economic times we face today. Don’t miss the boat; social media is here to stay. If you need help getting started, seaz media is here to help.

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"Weird Fishes" by Radiohead and Tobias Stretch

Earlier this year the rock band Radiohead challenged their fans to create videos for the songs on “In Rainbows ” album. Instead of choosing one winner as originally planned, they chose four. Here’s my favorite which is Tobias Stretch for their song “Weird Fishes.” Hope you enjoy it.

Radiohead Picks Four Winners For Animation Contest, Pays the Extra $30,000 in Prize Money (Rolling Stone – August 11, 2008)

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Dream Boats (Tilt Shift Videography)

I’ve previously posted about tilt shift photography. (Foto Friday – Miniature maritime?) I love the dream like qualities.

If you enjoy the above, check out Keith Loutit’s other videos on Vimeo.

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Moby-Dick Mash-Up (Melville/Huston/Zeppelin)

Triple classic! Great mashup of Melville story, Huston film and Zeppelin music.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfK_AMiFaKQ]
YouTube – Herman Melville’s Moby Dick

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Messing About In Ships Podcast Episode 28

Lou Vest calendar photo Jan 2008 Heather Knutsen - header

(28 minutes)

Download MP3: Messing About In Ships podcast episode 28

Subscribe Via iTunes HERE

Shownotes @ Messing About In Ships blog

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Boing Boing TV on the USS Pampanito

Last week we reported about BBtv welcoming us aboard the SS Jeremiah O’Brien. Today the Boing Boing maritime heritage tour continues as Telstar Logistics’ Todd Lappin dives into the WWII sub USS Pampanito. It’s really great stuff, watch it!

WWII Retro-tech: USS Pampanito sub with Todd Lappin

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