I'm Coining "BRANT" MO-FO's

I got this great review of MD from the fantastic MD- themed tumblr, "Iron-Bound Bucket"
 This clip is from  ----  Methodist review, Volume 34, 1852

Which leads me to what I  hope to be one of many inventions and neologisms that I will attempt to Create here on my blog - which HENCEFORTH is really not a "web log" anymore - I'm realizing my passion for Moby-Dick is too intense and my opinions and conjectures are too outsider to really be 'logged' -
And because in sports radio and other medias, anytime any one goes off the 'deep-end,' it is said of them that they are "Ranting."

The Pequod Sails in Deep waters so therefore so must I.....

Welcome to my "Web Rant"  or  my BRANT!!!!

let's begin -


If you're still reading this after my previous meandering profanity-laced tirade-filled posts then thank you for hanging on - As I hope you can see, I really do love this much ballyhooed text that is Moby-Dick. I guess one reason is that it contains a lifetime of ambiguities and is open to so much interpretation that it is inevitable that it CANNOT BE SOLVED.
Puzzling?, yes. Tiresome?, at times. Worth it?, always. 
It brings me quickly to other things in our culture that cannot be solved and the biggest ones are Religions. I tend to bash them on occasion, I'm not gonna lie - but not from a hatred, but more from the acknowledgement and yes, even the respect that I acknowledge that many (the successful ones) of them were created akin to a great piece of art - that is - with craft, with passion, and yes with just enough ambiguity that even tho you realize they are full of shit, you can't really prove it. I respect that about religion. What I don't respect is when the religion - which is for all intents and purposes, just a well-crafted story, becomes a commodity that humans trade in - that is they sell pieces of faith to each other, and buy more from their congregations, and the markets become filled with stories that to the rational human being are just  good stories (well- spoken Myths) but now are, to the holder of misguided faith, all of a sudden worth more than the humanity around them. The blind faith in the eyes of the faithful is now a Truth - and their truth now has a price - and that price is intolerance and ignorance and often hate of those that don't have as much spiritually invested in that bit of faith that they spent so much time 'buying.'

And I'm getting just old enough but still young enough to be done with those that bought their faith at a high price in the past and are now upset it is worth nothing - or even worse, those in our culture who got a good deal on their supposed bits of truth, ie -they bought in at a low price and are NOW trying to Unload their bullshit on the world for a profit.

Which thankfully brings me back to Moby-Dick. I'm not going to claim I am certain of Melville's exact spiritual proclivities but he sure as shit was nice enough not to shove any of them down our throat in his novel. He played with religion. He kept it diverse. He discussed many of them. He panned a few. Queequeg's he may have even made up. And though the pious may have been slightly put-off, even Melville left just enough ambiguity for you, the reader to figure out your own ideas. And I think in the mind of many religious people that is the most WICKED thing an artist can do - Let you make up your own mind. Because by definition of you trying to sell me a line of someone else's Myth as Truth, that is something you certainly have never done :) JTM