Out To launch - sorry

Hey readers - Sorry for the quiet page lately - This is November and I am attempting Nanawrimo - google it -
If it makes you feel any better the story involves a quasi-sequel to moby-dick and follows the happenings of ishmael's kin generations later as well as the kin of one more survivor of the pequod.... who knows? it could have happened... anyways Keep reading moby-dick and I will see you december first.

On Reading reviews for Nathaniel Philbrick's "Why Read Moby-Dick?"

I'm positing that Philbrick is AGAIN making a few bucks off MD and I applaud him, nay may be jealous of him, but NPR wrote that his new book is a "Passionate " argument for reading MD. Google the NPR article - it is nice and his interview is pleasant and he does rightly claim that MD is our "American Bible" which I respect and concur with. In fact a few weeks ago I jotted this down in the Stacks of the Downtown Minneapolis Library and I'd like to add it to my blog as a new entry. NPR, take notice - if you want "passion" here it is -

NEW Blog Post - The Passion of the MD Fan

First and crucially you must assume MD by HM is in fact a true account of a certain point in American history. A climactic moment about the first century of this hallowed soil of ours - and tho set on sea - it is about soil - About the land we call home - about the lengths men will go to protect and defend America. It is not a war story - please forgive those obsessed with battle - those moments are regrettably important to our country but anyone who dedicates their lives to battle has certainly lost the war, if you will. No disrespect to any soldier - there are necessary times for that. Yet it must be remembered why those wars are fought. but I digress.
     Moby-Dick is one of the most accurate histories of America. Truer and more beautifully wrought than most other attempts at encapsulating the search for truth. The quest for beauty.
If you haven't read it -try -if you have - pick it up and thumb through it again. For some it may be easy, others confusing.
I found my introduction to it in a class devoted for a month solely to it. This is my best recommendation as an intro. And feel free to skip around, skip and come back to parts. Read about it.
And tho Melville has many many other great works - forgive me here... Ignore them!
This text is much more crucial to our history - even more so  and I say this with no apologies - more so than the King James Bible.
Time and Place my friends - time and place - the KJB, like many religious tracts, contains valuable nuggets of wisdom, endearing stories, and many many contradictions, false histories, and most importantly (tho not the fault of the Bible itself) - it lends credence to misinformed hateful people around the globe - like a poorly formed mirror reflecting the best and worst of mankind. If you read it with love for your fellow man may you find happiness but if that love ever turns to fear or hate or (even worse) PITY for anyone -ANYONE - you have fallen into the trap of idiots the world round - and I've lived too long to apologize for this but yes - if you take ANY tract as an incentive to judge or hate - you are stupid and your stupidity has caused all of the woes for which good people must rise against and waste precious moments of their own searches for joy and truth and beauty to defend the world against your vile stupidity. You'd think by now - 2011 - people in America could unbind themselves from the chains of mistranslated readings of religious texts but we have short memories and every life cycle every generation is born again and begins anew and repeats it again and still teaches these heresies as FACT.
      I SHOUT FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP RIGHT NOW! Let it be known, my beloved country - Do us all a favor and shelve the Bible for awhile - Pick up Moby-Dick. Preach Moby-Dick. Shout crazily on street corners Moby -Dick - Teach it to your children.
And read into it what you will - yes there are dangers out there -yes there are misguided leaders, yes there are well-intentioned christian men too weak and unable to stand up to treachery - yes there are capable men of other or no religions who are justifiably deserving of equality and employment and joy and work and recognition as Americans as much as the so-called 'Puritans' - and we - all of US - as a SHIP - as HUMANS - are caught at odds -  at times lost - at times bountiful - at times filled with certainty and at best filled with DOUBT - and let the lessons of doubt be the greatest lessons we know as Americans - Horrible men have attempted to find CERTAINTY in the BIBLE -
May the best of you find ambiguity - nuance, paths to further explore - and may we as Americans (Nay HUMANS) realize - please, finally -that we are okay not "Knowing," not being "Right" all the time.
Because let me tell you - no - let yourselves find - That Moby-Dick stands alone as uniquely historic Americana because you can spend your life with this book and it will vex you and inspire you and hopefully allow you to realize that certainty can be lethal - That doubt can be freeing. And may our Planet one day Unite freely as humans but for now - at least as Americans - may we rise with doubt - with our collective 'not knowing' and venture, Nay SAIL, into the Destiny of this GREAT LAND - this Imperfect IDEAL - this UNCERTAIN UTOPIA -
And may we never find pure happiness. But may - as our forefathers so inspiredly wrote in the Declaration of Independence  - may we forever
PURSUE.

JTM

ELEGY IN BLUE - Remembering the Pre - 9/11 World

I began this blog as a Moby-Dick inspired space for rants and ramblings, as a way to process my passion for a great book and to discuss ongoing scholarship in reference to it - I went offline for the summer and have been errant in my posts and sometimes it takes a kick of nostalgia, or memory, or inspiration to get back to the act of writing so today, on this anniversary of September 11, 2001 I am going to go off-topic and muse on some things I've been kicking around in my head lately - memories that all of the media coverage of late has reminded me of - Forgive me if this is a continuation of the media saturation surrounding this event but a friend recently reminded me that in this digital age of information we all have many choices of outlets from which we get our information and simultaneously have the same choices to ignore what we choose to - That being said this story, like my blog, is just one guy's ramblings, an amateur amongst a world of experts, another voice from the darkness giving his witness to history, perhaps, as Shakespeare said in Macbeth, "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Or perhaps this story has merit like all of our individual stories do, but either way, merit or not, this is mine...

ELEGY IN BLUE - Remembering the Pre- 9/11 World -     September 11, 2011

     I moved to New York City from Boston on April 1, 2001. I had vague yearnings to be a writer but more importantly, I just wanted to live in the city of my birth, to see for myself what my parents had seen in the 60's and 70's - to view for myself the actual blueprint of the silver screen depictions I adored - the inspiration and often main character of Woody Allen and Spike Lee films - the CITY ITSELF.
I arrived with a modest sense of self-protection - I had been weaned on stories of crime, rudeness, and danger- all portents which armored me with a caution I lost within hours of living there. I found instead a city vibrant, open, and most excitingly mine.
     The first spring and summer in New York were, up to that point, the best times of my life - new york was expensive so I worked my butt off at a midtown steakhouse but I also visited every park, museum, restaurant, synagogue, cathedral and landmark I could find. I ambled through my old nabe of Cobble Hill Brooklyn, hung out in Williamsburg, hopped the water taxi to Hoboken, sat in the stands of Arthur Ashe Stadium at the U.S. Open, visited the Seaport and Battery that was home to Herman Melville, listened to shitty bands at CBGB, and had many many innumerable other escapades including visiting the grounds of  the World Trade Center Plaza.
     Years earlier a school trip had brought me to the Trade Center's summit and I remember being high inside with my hands pressed against the glass and the real sense of feeling it sway.  It was transcendent - this colossus moved ever so slowly - and I and my classmates moved with it...
     Early on in my time in Manhattan, I met a french speaking girl from Montreal who had just finished acting school in the city. We began dating and she brought me to my first off-off- broadway play. We saw theater in small venues all over town -even a few on broadway - My fondest memories were of late nights after work- she and I would duck into hidden diminutive french wine bars and I'd chill and reflect on the day as she'd converse with the waiters in french and I'd acquire a fondness for steak frites and bordeaux.
     I toiled eagerly at a midtown gin-joint - a respected steakhouse and grill slinging steaks, wine, and martinis to Sony record execs, Disney sales managers, the cream of the crop of advertising agents as we were the epicenter of the ad world - and the place was replete with wall street guys; traders, brokers, bond guys, fund managers - including many of the Cantor - Fitzgerald folks who worked , and perished, in the WTC. It was a lively place - and for a small town kid from the coast of Maine - it was a refreshing mix of hardcore personalities - ranting lawyers, cheery brokers, grizzled ad execs, aging rock stars, beautiful models, oscar winning actors, foreign diplomats from the UN - Big-Hearted Cops, flashy wanna-be mob guys, modest, quiet, but huge-tipping ACTUAL mob guys, famous writers I admired, and Hall-of-Fame athletes sitting beside midwestern tourists - central casting be damned! - this was a cacophony of excess and joy- skippered by the best bartender in town, a stick thin tall puppet of a man who seemed to know everyone and their stories -Rich to poor, Society to Fireman - and treated them with the same smiling cranky indifference and simultaneous humanity.
     I had a mountain bike at the time and it was my ticket to Manhattan and beyond. I lived in Mid-Town East - Turtle Bay - but I could be in Union Square in minutes. Moments later I'd be in Battery Park, the Seaport, the West Village, over the bridge into Brooklyn, back across a different span into Manhattan and then spinning over the Queensboro bridge bound for Astoria. In fact my biggest coup as a biker was to spend that summer peddling over all of the accessible bridges of Manhattan, the Brooklyn was the most iconic, the Manhattan bridge brought you to DUMBO - the Queensboro was a few blocks from my home, the Williamsburg Bridge was always fun - whipping the rider into a funny blend of hipsters and Hasids, and others but the one I looked forward to the most was the George Washington Bridge - It is situated on the far far upper west side of Manhattan and I got lost on my bike more than once attempting the approach in Harlem and Washington Heights - I even took the wrong ramp near the bridges' entrance and eventually had to scale down a 30 foot stone wall with my mountain bike slung around one shoulder -  At the moment i was thankful I had once spent a summer free-climbing the sea-side cliffs of Monhegan Island back in Maine.
     I rode across the GW on a brilliantly clear hot summer afternoon in august. I was a speck on the congested track, making my way to Fort Lee, New Jersey where I would lunch then return. On my trip back I marveled at the view down the Hudson River and of the Statue of Liberty in the bay - miles and miles away from my pedestal on that bridge - and of the behemoths that were those two sparkling Towers like giant goal posts within her visage.
   In short those five months swam by and though less than half a year - I learned more, saw more, (perhaps drank more), and lived more than I had anywhere else in my life.  I vividly recall walking around the corner from my small apartment on the way to meet a friend and I was struck - maybe possessed - with the instant realization that I was happy. Not content, not hopeful, but positively happy. At That Moment. It was visceral - my cynicism tried to shrug it off but it was too powerful -the morning sun shown down upon me, honking cabs blared around me, a tranquil waterfall of a synagogue park glistened beside me and my life and this city lay before me but right then - I knew I was happy.
     The summer of my culture and exploration culminated with one thing I had put off - one thing I needed to do. I wanted to go to Yankee Stadium. I was a fair weather Yankees fan throughout my youth but I had grown up in New England and all of my friends were devout Red Sox fans - So early in September the Yankees were playing the Red Sox with the formidable Pedro Martinez on the mound.  My girlfriend and I probably over-paid for shitty seats in the bleachers but I couldn't have been more pleased, It was my first trip of many to that stadium and the Yankees nipped the Sox 3-2 in an exciting game.
     It was September 7, 2001. I was 27. I had returned to the city of my birth of which I only knew of from stories from my parents and from films, music, and books - I had a fun job - I was living in mid-town manhattan - and I was at a Yankees game with a pretty girl and a lifetime of memories. It was September 7, 2001.
And All Was Well With the World.


JTM

Recap So Far and Future Goals

Alright - let's get back to melville and MD.

I hope we didn't scare you off with discussions of the profane or Brants about Religion, but then again - HM included both in his novel and amazingly people are still reading it!

Now that we got some of that out of the way I'd like to outline a few things I am going to go into over the next few weeks - This is a random list that will grow and change but here's a few hot-Button issues I am going to tackle -

-America  - Probably the biggest theme of MD - how our country found itself from it;s infancy until 1850 when Melville wrote MD and how it has evolved since then into 2011 according to themes presented in the novel

-More religion and philosophy -including but not limited to Zoroastrianism, quakerism, Calvinism, the nature of the Parsee (fedellah), discussions on destiny, fate, good vs evil, the omnipotence of God, the irrelevance of God, the ambivalence of God, the religion of Queequeg and Idolotry, discussions of the Weaver God and the use of the Loom, etc

-The treatment of africans in MD from the perspective of three characters - Daggoo - the Noble Strong fearless african harpooner, Pip, the young cabin boy, and Fleece - probably the most caricatured person in the book, but  an important one who melville allows to still subvert the domination of his oppressive leaders.

-One of my favorite subjects in Moby-Dick..... THE GAM
I am going to break down every gam and show how the Pequod used the info gleened from the meetings with other ships and how each one could be a modern warning to any of us on how to listen to the advice of our peers to better achieve our goals...

- The Discussions of The coffin, the markings on the coffin, the tattoos of queequeg and the mysteries of symbols that "tantalized' Ahab and continue to tantalize us all.

-The continuing scarcity and importance of ambergris

- The Suicidal thoughts of Ishmael that Launched this whole journey and the suicidal terrorism of Ahab and how one man's successful suicide (ahab) convinced the other (ishmael) to keep on living

And many more -

BUT Let's Recap a few things I've stated already that may or may not be Revolutionary in Melville and MD studies but at least are an attempt at finding new pathways out of this Labyrinthine novel

Here are my bullet points so far

1) You gotta read Moby-Dick
2) you should read as much scholarship about it as you can - You are robbing yourself if you do not examine my 3rd to 7th posts which briefly discuss "My Moby-Dick Library." If you're local I will lend you my copies for further reading
3) you can't discuss the book without examining the interaction of Cultures and the "Melting Pot" that was the Pequod and that IS America
4) Ishmael and Queequeg's relationship was more metaphorically wedded than physically wedded
5) Ahab's relationship with pip was inappropriate -
6) Pip was branded as Coward in the novel but HM meant you to figure out that he was the most regal ie, "the meek shall inherit the earth'
7) No true spiritual person can find truth without criticizing and disbelieving religion, questioning authority, speaking truth to power, and constantly reexamining their own beliefs
8) I invented the "BRANT" :)
9) Bob Dylan based  "Mr. tambourine Man" on Chapter 110 of MD
10) 'Bob Dylan's 115th Dream' is a riff on him meeting the cast of the pequod - and is pulled directly from Chapter 115 of MD
11) The use of 'blackface' and minstrel acts were, are, and always will be inappropriate and insulting but in chapter 2 of MD Melville inserted a heretofore unrecognized coy example of ishmael in blackface in his attempt to let his narrator 'commune with', not insult, african-americans.
12) So Far Charles Olson's 'Call me Ishmael' is the best thing written on melville because it is wild and crazy  - and this 'Brant' was created and is profane because there's no way to tackle a wicked book without being a bit wicked about it - JTM

Read These in Order Please

I'm just learning how to write this Blog - No wait I am calling it a "BRANT" now because I'm just an amateur 'ranting' about my interest in all the facets of the great text that is MD so this is my 'web rant' or Brant -
anyways to truly appreciate it please go back to the earlier posts and read in order - the first two are not necessarily pertinent but please start at "My Moby-Dick Library" or if you are a Bob Dylan fan then begin at "Dylan/Melville - a study in affinity"


or if you are a college professor or scholar or journalist or member of the Melvile society read those pages first and then go to the audio files -  thanks- I'm just making this up as I go along but I hope I can commune with other fans and scholars of the book and we can glean some new wisdom from this Old Yarn -
perhaps we can take it outside like a rug and beat all the dust off it - or to overkill the metaphor maybe we can beat it like an old sofa until  quarters (of knowledge) come tumbling out from within its crevices...   You never know... JTM

Melville Scholars only - audio file

I had to go outside my blogger site to get this published - this is another idea I had about Moby-Dick - please check this out if you're a melville scholar and tell me if I may be right (Of course I think I am right either way... but I'd like your feedback) This is not meant to be offensive - just an obvious reference Melville made that was coy - and prior to me saying it, I've never found it in any Melville scholarship.
thanks for listening -JTM


NOTE- SCROLL DOWN AND READ Ishmael in blackface post first

http://jimmoran69.podbean.com/#

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