damp, drizzly November in my soul

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly [January 6] in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.”

~~ [mostly] from Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Herman at Home

Treat yourself to Jill Lepore's "Herman Melville at Home."

student debt under the lights

General Electric (CNBC) takes time out from lighting the world to swoop in late and sell advertising off the student-loan bubble. When I watched, I saw race (three white people with white-collar jobs in a report on a black family with significant intergenerational student-loan debt), and I thought that it would be disingenuous not to share that aspect of it with you. The show's anchor, like our President, is the perfectly middling-hued gent Melville waxed utopian about in the middle of Moby Dick, so no doubt, despite the segment's visual rhetoric of a race-to-obligation correlation, we are rowing toward a greater America than ever before. Or, at least increasing our collective debt. . . on your oars, ladies and gents!

and don't forget

Strictly for the purposes of personal promotion, I'm writing an even slimmer volume on why people should read Benito Cereno and Billy Budd, Sailor, but I'm also tearing my hair out in neurotic angst over whether or not I should italicize or put these titles in quotation marks. Or maybe throw folks off by italicizing one and putting the other in quotes? (The Billy Budd hypertext from the University of Virginia is worth linking to more than once.)

And please don't forget Pierre, "Bartleby the Scrivener," "I and My Chimney," "The Encantadas," Israel Potter, and so forth.

As a final thought, I'm transfixed by the possibility that Herman Melville would have been a great name for one of those huge, seven-foot, tree-trunk centers who were so prevalent in the 1970s NBA (the other NBA). Of course, Nathaniel Philbrick also resonates in this regard. Where have you gone Caldwell Jones? And what are you reading?