August 20: A Bower in the Arsacides, Feeling Very Old, High School Bullshit

Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his unconditional skeleton.

But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been, Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters, ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels.

I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances. Think you I let the chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young cub?

And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted to my late royal friend Tranque, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.

Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores.

Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of its fathomdeep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it.

The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again sent forth its vapory spout; while, suspended from a bough, the terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung sword that so affrighted Damocles.

It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy Glen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom, with a gorgeous carpet on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and woof, and the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their laden branches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying air; all these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!- pause!- one word!- whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver!- stay thy hand!- but one single word with thee! Nay- the shuttle flies- the figures float from forth the loom; the fresher-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements. Thereby have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar.

Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging- a gigantic idler! Yet, as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed the sunning weaver; himself all woven over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.

Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as an object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced before this skeleton- brushed the vine aside- broke through the ribs- and with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid its many winding, shaded colonnades and arbors. But soon my line was out; and following back, I emerged from the opening where I entered. I saw no living thing within; naught was there but bones.

Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton. From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the altitude of the final rib, "How now!" they shouted; "Dar'st thou measure this our god! That's for us." "Aye, priests- well, how long do ye make him, then?" But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning feet and inches; they cracked each other's sconces with their yard-sticks- the great skull echoed- and seizing that lucky chance, I quickly concluded my own admeasurements.

These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied measurements I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where they have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have what the proprietors call "the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or River Whale in the United States." Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's.

In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony cavities- spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan- and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead.

The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing- at least, what untattooed parts might remain- I did not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.

Now, you're probably thinking:  here we go again.  Melville has already described the physical appearance of the sperm whale in great detail.  Now, he's going to describe the INSIDE of the sperm whale, starting with its skeleton.  Now, if you have little patience for Melville's digressions, then this chapter is not for you.  If digression is your thing, then a meditation on the skull and vertebrae and ribs of a sperm whale is right up your alley.

So, in the spirit of digression, tonight I'm going to write about something completely unrelated to the above chapter from Moby-Dick.  Instead, I'm going to discuss the fact that, in about a week, my daughter will be walking through the doors of her high school as a senior, and also that I'm feeling very old.

I know that I am being a total cliche.  Daddy not ready to let go of his little girl.  Little girl spreading her wings, getting a car, not depending on me anymore for rides to school or dance lessons or football games.  On the way home from Calumet this weekend, I was talking about the next trip to Calumet in October.  My daughter was complaining that she didn't want to miss school.  I said, "Well, we can pick you up after school, and drive up with us.  That way you only have to miss two days of school."

"Or," my daughter said, "I can drive up in my car for the show and then drive home afterward.  That way I don't have to miss any school."

I sat in my seat for a minute, incredibly uncomfortable, and then said, "Yeah . . . I guess . . . we could do that, too."

And it begins.  The slow process of pulling away, testing the waters.  Independence.  It kind of sucks.  Especially for a control freak like myself.  It's not that I don't trust my daughter.  She's smart and sensible.  She doesn't buy into the high school bullshit that other teenage girls do.  I've always admired that about her.

That is my story this evening.  My daughter is sliding toward her eighteenth birthday, and I am having severe separation issues.  Perhaps, I'm not ready to be the father of any almost adult young woman.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight that his daughter still calls him "Daddy."

May 11: Procopuis's Sea-Monster, Digressions, a Buffet

Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a black night an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any hospitable shore. "The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; the dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance."

In another place- p.45,- he speaks of "the mysterious and mortal attack of the animal."

Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions to it.

Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J-- then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks later, the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore's interview with that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense.

I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern's famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter:

"By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An uncommonly large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured."

Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.

In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too, of honest wonders- the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier's old chums- I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a corroborative example, if such be needed.

Lionel, it seems, was on his way to "John Ferdinando," as he calls the modern Juan Fernandes. "In our way thither," he says, "about four o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground. * * * The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!" Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about that time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath.

I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, let me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and secured there! the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time we say amen with Solomon- Verily there is nothing new under the sun.

In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in some one or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently to be mentioned.

Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis.

In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar substance called brit is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of the sperm whale- squid or cuttle-fish-lurks at the bottom of that sea, because large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all human reasoning, Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale.

Moby-Dick can be a frustrating book.  Its actual narrative--which is skimpy, at best--creeps along.  Melville is a master of digression, going on for pages and pages about subjects that sometimes interest me and sometimes bore me beyond comprehension.  This particular chapter of affidavits is a mixed bag for me.  Part of it enthralls me.  Who doesn't like a good sea monster tale?  The other part is skimming material.  I can only patiently read just so many "firsthand" accounts of angry sperm whales damaging leaky whaling ships with their monstrous flukes.  Then, I'm looking to change the channel.

I'm not sure if this need I'm feeling for constant brain stimulation is a result of my exposure to social media/television/film or if it's a symptom of my ADHD, which I've written about before.  It may be a little of both.  However, I'm not the only person who gets angry with Melville's inability to remain focused on his story.  One of my good friends from the university, who claims Moby-Dick is one of his favorite books, says that he gets mind-numbingly bored with it.  "That's why I love it," he says.  "It's a book that invites us to engage it on so many different levels.  I get excited.  Frustrated.  Bored.  Frustrated again.  It's like a buffet."

I'm sitting on my couch.  Been sitting here since I got home from work.  I spent a good portion of today answering phone calls from cardiology patients, which is my Friday gig.  My wife knows that when I spend my day on phones, I'm not in a very social mood when I walk through the front door.  I usually need a good hour or two of non-verbal communication.  I may nod.  Grunt.  Anything beyond that is difficult.  I appreciate the fact that my wife understands this need.

I think most of my weekdays are a lot like the chapters in Moby-Dick.  I spend a lot of time doing things that do not feed my soul in any way.  Assembling medical charts.  Typing up surgical schedules.  Answering phone calls.  Entering charges on patient accounts.  These tasks wear me down.  Make me impatient and irritable.  Before I can reenter the REAL narrative of my life, I need to take a few steps and breaths back.

I'm a poet and writer.  These blog posts are my way of reminding myself of this fact.  Often during my work days, I spend hours performing tasks that in no way are related to words or poetry or art.  That can be a little difficult for me.  A majority of my waking life is one big digression from what I truly find meaningful.

And I think that is probably the main reason that I get so irritated by Herman Melville's book.  I get the feeling when I'm reading chapters on cetology and affidavits that I'm wasting even more of my time.  I don't need more digression.  When I get home from work, I want to go hunting for Moby Dick myself, not read a footnote on Captain D'Wolf's encounter with a pissed off sperm whale.

After typing these words, I'm feeling more centered.  Ready to reengage with life.  I have a couple days to avoid pointless/mindless work.  Days to read and write and draw.  Maybe I'll clean my bathroom.

Saint Marty is thankful for weekends.

August 3: Pedagogical Question, New Poem, "What I'd Be," New Cartoon

"Holden . . . One short, faintly stuffy, pedagogical question.  Don't you think there's a time and place for everything?  Don't you think if someone starts out to tell you about his father's farm, he should stick to his guns, then get around to telling you about his uncle's brace?  Or, if his uncle's brace is such a provocative subject, shouldn't he have selected it in the first place as his subject--not the farm?"

Mr. Antolini is asking Holden a completely English teacher question here.  Holden is telling him about a speech class he's taken, and Mr. Antolini is attempting to make him see the benefits of staying focused on one topic in a presentation.  Holden is all about digression, which isn't surprising.  Holden's head is all over the place at this point in the book.

I have to say, as an English professor, I'm with Mr. Antolini on this one.  Nothing is more irritating than pointless digression.  On the other hand, as a listener/reader, I'm going to side with Holden.  Sometimes a writer's/speaker's digression is more interesting than the established topic.  In fact, the digression might actually be the real topic.

For example, when I sit down to work on a new poem, I sometimes have a fairly good idea where I want to start, what I want to write.  Then, when I've finished my draft and go back to revise, I find out that I can often remove the first two or three stanzas.  The "meat" of the poem begins in the middle, with a so-called "digression."  The initial stanzas are simply scaffolding, getting me to where I needed to be.  Then the scaffolding can be taken away.

That's my advice to any would-be poets reading this post.  Don't be afraid of digressions when working on a draft of a poem.  Sometimes, digression is where poetry lives.

I have a new poem and new cartoon for you today.

Saint Marty hopes he's removed all the scaffolding.

What I'd Be

if I weren't a poet.
The question stops me,
makes me think of teenage
summers when I installed
water heaters with my dad,
hauled empty tanks up
cellar steps, sagged wood,
away from canned tomatoes,
screws and nuts sorted
into baby food jars, secret
places where dirty laundry
breathed with spider and mouse.
Midnight shift at a hospital,
I cleaned the morgue
each night until I met
the body of an old woman,
wrapped in white sheets,
left on a table like scraps
from a rained-out picnic,
her face yellow as melted butter.
In a book store,
I organized porn,
paired magazines of foot fetish
with magazines of hairy legs,
girls with serpent stares,
breasts like icebergs
in National Geographic,
boys with shoplifted smirks,
penises, gibbous moons in the black
curl of universe.  I would not
do any of these jobs again,
given the choice.  If words
were taken from me,
maybe I'd turn to some
other sound occupation,
climb to my roof,
sit with mourning doves,
bubble, cluck daybreak to dusk.
Or maybe ransack woods
for skulls of squirrels,
ribs of deer, skunk spines
left behind by hungry owl, wolf,
piece together these scrimshaw
remnants with thread or chain,
hang them on my porch,
let them sing all night
of chase and hunt, dark grass,
fat, ripe blueberries.
Or maybe, just maybe,
I'd eat the silence,
make it part of me.
I'll practice this August
evening for my new career,
go outside, watch my son ride
his bike up and down
the street, not shout at him
about cars, trucks,
curbs and uneven sidewalks.
No, I'll let myself fill ip,
rise like bubbles of yeast in dough,
with the quiet ferment of love.

Confessions of Saint Marty