I'm not disputing anything here, just wanted to add that 2,000ish years before Linnaeus, the distinction between "fish" and "whale" wasn't so well understood.My favorite Bible misinformation is the story of Jonah.
In Genesis only reference to this is: Jonah was in a great fish. Whereas nowhere else in that same verse is Jonah near the ocean. Some scholars believe that the phrase "in a great fish" was comparable to "in a pickle". The fact was Jonah was in trouble, and that is what the phrase refers to. Jonah was never in a whale (which isn't a fish anyway...)
I have a thread somewhere on "Samurai Misconceptions" that cover most of my Japan related history that did not happen or facts that are fail...
True, but whale isn't mentioned at all. It was someone in medieval period that associated Jonah with whale, the Bible never did. And as I said, the "fish" in question was a colloquialism of "problem" and had nothing to do with fish or whale. So the distinction is not even an issue.
Hmmm. I'm by no means a biblical scholar, but wikipedia says that the story occurs in the Book of Jonah and that, fleeing from Nineveh to present-day Jaffa, a port city where he booked passage to southern Anatolia.
Oh, and I just thought of a traditional whaling tune called "Greenland Whale Fisheries" (I learned it from The Pogues) that similarly confuses whales and fishies--a considerable time AFTER Linnaeus!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I believe Patrick told me that story about his ancestor before.
My wife's ancestors actually. My ancestors were island-dwelling monkeys from the Hebredies who made it over to Canuckistan in the mid 18th Century. My wife is the one with an actual Yankee pedigree.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh, and I just thought of a traditional whaling tune called "Greenland Whale Fisheries" (I learned it from The Pogues) that similarly confuses whales and fishies--a considerable time AFTER Linnaeus!
Melville went on at tedious length about how whales were fish in Moby Dick. But then Melville never expressed an opinion without going on at tedious length. I can only imagine what his pillow talk was like.
Melville went on at tedious length about how whales were fish in Moby Dick. But then Melville never expressed an opinion without going on at tedious length. I can only imagine what his pillow talk was like.
Oh, and I just thought of a traditional whaling tune called "Greenland Whale Fisheries" (I learned it from The Pogues) that similarly confuses whales and fishies--a considerable time AFTER Linnaeus!
I read Moby Dick in the same month that I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Talk about the marine life!
I didn't find Melville tedious, though. I'll admit that it takes an effort for 21st-century readers to acquaint themselves with overly-verbose 19th-century lit, but, inmho re: Moby Dick, it's well worth it.
Why do I giggle so every time someone says, "Moby Dick"?
Wait! Am I the reason the Paizo forums dumped INT?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I didn't find Melville tedious, though. I'll admit that it takes an effort for 21st-century readers to acquaint themselves with overly-verbose 19th-century lit, but, inmho re: Moby Dick, it's well worth it.
I re-read it again last year, annoying the hell out of my wife, because I have a tendency to laugh out loud during long stretches of the first half. Then in the middle, Melville prattles on for like 3 chapters about nonsense marine "biology," and then suddenly breaks into his own monologue and basically scolds you for reading the last 2 chapters... and then throws out some diamond-like insights into the human spirit hidden amongst a bunch of random observations about furnaces or something. It's like panning for gold.
Moby Dick is one of my top favorite 100 novels of all time.
I didn't find Melville tedious, though. I'll admit that it takes an effort for 21st-century readers to acquaint themselves with overly-verbose 19th-century lit, but, inmho re: Moby Dick, it's well worth it.I re-read it again last year, annoying the hell out of my wife, because I have a tendency to laugh out loud during long stretches of the first half. Then in the middle, Melville prattles on for like 3 chapters about nonsense marine "biology," and then suddenly breaks into his own monologue and basically scolds you for reading the last 2 chapters... and then throws out some diamond-like insights into the human spirit hidden amongst a bunch of random observations about furnaces or something. It's like panning for gold.
Moby Dick is one of my top favorite 100 novels of all time.
My thesis advisor is a Melville maven. She maintains that the chapter on the biology of whales is actually an analogy for books. Take it as you will.
That said, I did enjoy the novel. I really enjoy the dynamic between Ishmael and Queequay.
His name was Queequeg!
I re-read it again last year, annoying the hell out of my wife, because I have a tendency to laugh out loud during long stretches of the first half.
(Rough paraphrase) When I start feeling like knocking off men's hats, I know it's time to go to sea.
Hee hee!
|
3. Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned
When asked who fiddled while Rome burned, the answer "Nero" will get you a zero. Legend has it that in A.D. 64, mad Emperor Nero started a fire near the imperial palace and then climbed to the top of the Tower of Maecenas where he played his fiddle, sang arias, and watched Rome flame out. But according to Tacitus, a historian of the time, Nero was 30 miles away, at his villa in Antium, when the fire broke out.Nero wasn't exactly a nice guy -- he took his own mother as his mistress, then had her put to death. Despite this, historians believe that the fire was set by Nero's political enemies, who were right in thinking that it would be blamed on him. Actually, Nero was a hero, attempting to extinguish the blaze, finding food and shelter for the homeless, and overseeing the design of the new city.
There's a lesson about human nature in there.
Tacitus is our most reliable source but Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars is much more popular because of its trashy, proto-tabloid obsession with murder, sex and weirdness (hopefully all at once).
If you take the saying as a piece of figurative speech (Nero indulged himself in artistic distractions while the empire suffered under a heavy tax burden) then it might be closer to the truth.
That said, even Tacitus had his bias and assumptions, and his source was a tradition filtered through the lens of the Year of Four Caesars and the Flavian rule. He rose to political office and literary success under Nerva, an emperor who had been a friend and ally to Nero.
|
I saw a Biblical scholar who gave a seminar on Jonah. He mentioned that the books of the Bible show much of the varied life of humanity, at least in the Middle East. The good, the bad, and the Fugly.[sic] Warts and all. This included in the Bible were in his words some fiction as well. While comparison of Kings and Chronicles could give a varied view of what the daily life of the monarchs of this small kingdom went through. There was just something fishy about the story of Jonah.
Edit: for clarity... silly me
|
|
3. Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned
When asked who fiddled while Rome burned, the answer "Nero" will get you a zero. Legend has it that in A.D. 64, mad Emperor Nero started a fire near the imperial palace and then climbed to the top of the Tower of Maecenas where he played his fiddle, sang arias, and watched Rome flame out. But according to Tacitus, a historian of the time, Nero was 30 miles away, at his villa in Antium, when the fire broke out.Nero wasn't exactly a nice guy -- he took his own mother as his mistress, then had her put to death. Despite this, historians believe that the fire was set by Nero's political enemies, who were right in thinking that it would be blamed on him. Actually, Nero was a hero, attempting to extinguish the blaze, finding food and shelter for the homeless, and overseeing the design of the new city.
There's a lesson about human nature in there.
Tacitus is our most reliable source but Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars is much more popular because of its trashy, proto-tabloid obsession with murder, sex and weirdness (hopefully all at once).
If you take the saying as a piece of figurative speech (Nero indulged himself in artistic distractions while the empire suffered under a heavy tax burden) then it might be closer to the truth.
That said, even Tacitus had his bias and assumptions, and his source was a tradition filtered through the lens of the Year of Four Caesars and the Flavian rule. He rose to political office and literary success under Nerva, an emperor who had been a friend and ally to Nero.
Yes it is also a very sad lesson. Dry reports maybe more accurate but they are the least fun to read.
His name was Queequeg!
You are correct, sir. Serves me right for posting before I'd finished my morning coffee. Funny story, I gamed with a guy whose character was named Queequay, and a blatant ripoff of Melville's Queequeg. That was 25+ years ago. Interesting what will creep to the surface when you're tired.
I didn't find Melville tedious, though. I'll admit that it takes an effort for 21st-century readers to acquaint themselves with overly-verbose 19th-century lit, but, inmho re: Moby Dick, it's well worth it.
I probably would have considered less sadistic ways to torture my junior year English teacher if the damned thing hadn't been presented as a novel. The whole thing reads more like a hopelessly turgid fictionalized ethnography to me. The business with Ahab's obsession is more or less an overlong frame story into which Melville dumped some unrelated short stories, lots of portraits of the life of a whaler, and assorted rants about how Americans are better whalers than Europeans, biology, and so forth.
It says something when I couldn't even be made to laugh at sailors dancing around in a whale's foreskin. Not even when he named the chapter after a clerical vestment. Between Melville and Conrad I think I'm permanently soured on any kind of nautical fiction.
I probably would have considered less sadistic ways to torture my junior year English teacher if the damned thing hadn't been presented as a novel.
Yeah, my experience with the novel was outside of school. I can't imagine what I would've done if I'd've been assigned it for class. Well, actually, I can: I wouldn't have read it, like I did with every other book my Jr. English teacher assigned. School sucks!
Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I was high the entire time I read it, which might (?) have contributed to my enjoyment.
|
|
I didn't find Melville tedious, though. I'll admit that it takes an effort for 21st-century readers to acquaint themselves with overly-verbose 19th-century lit, but, inmho re: Moby Dick, it's well worth it.I probably would have considered less sadistic ways to torture my junior year English teacher if the damned thing hadn't been presented as a novel. The whole thing reads more like a hopelessly turgid fictionalized ethnography to me. The business with Ahab's obsession is more or less an overlong frame story into which Melville dumped some unrelated short stories, lots of portraits of the life of a whaler, and assorted rants about how Americans are better whalers than Europeans, biology, and so forth.
It says something when I couldn't even be made to laugh at sailors dancing around in a whale's foreskin. Not even when he named the chapter after a clerical vestment. Between Melville and Conrad I think I'm permanently soured on any kind of nautical fiction.
LMAO was it Nostromo?
Yes it is also a very sad lesson. Dry reports maybe more accurate but they are the least fun to read.
Tacitus is our most reliable source but Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars is much more popular because of its trashy, proto-tabloid obsession with murder, sex and weirdness (hopefully all at once).If you take the saying as a piece of figurative speech (Nero indulged himself in artistic distractions while the empire suffered under a heavy tax burden) then it might be closer to the truth.
That said, even Tacitus had his bias and assumptions, and his source was a tradition filtered through the lens of the Year of Four Caesars and the Flavian rule. He rose to political office and literary success under Nerva, an emperor who had been a friend and ally to Nero.
I was under the impressions that while Suetonius and Tacitus obviously had their many differences in tone and subject matter, they were both equally dilligent historians, even though S considered himself a biographer which was considered slightly different than history.
I was also under the impression that, by the standards of ancient history and Latin composition, Suetonius was far, far from a tabloid-monger.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, my experience with the novel was outside of school. I can't imagine what I would've done if I'd've been assigned it for class. Well, actually, I can: I wouldn't have read it, like I did with every other book my Jr. English teacher assigned. School sucks!
Amen to that. The problem with assigning classics to high school kids is that 99% of kids that age lack the life experience needed to make the classics even vaguely relevant to them. I'm glad I waited until I was a lot older, with a lot more water under my personal bridge, before I tried tackling Moby Dick or Walden.
Amen to that. The problem with assigning classics to high school kids is that 99% of kids that age lack the life experience needed to make the classics even vaguely relevant to them. I'm glad I waited until I was a lot older, with a lot more water under my personal bridge, before I tried tackling Moby Dick or Walden.
Junior year, I was assigned Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, a book that I loved and had already read three times; I didn't even read that for the easy A.
Yeah, me and school didn't get along.
Nero wasn't exactly a nice guy -- he took his own mother as his mistress, then had her put to death. Despite this, historians believe that the fire was set by Nero's political enemies, who were right in thinking that it would be blamed on him. Actually, Nero was a hero, attempting to extinguish the blaze, finding food and shelter for the homeless, and overseeing the design of the new city.
The mother thing was the other way round - she "took" and controlled him and more than likely had his step father (Claudius) and step brother killed to make him Emperor so she could have the power.
She thoroughly dominated and humiliated him (she even had a place in the senate) ... he hated his mother he attempted several times to have her killed.
Nero needed a scapegoat for the fire as his political enemies were attempting to pin it on him and the Christians were very convenient.
Nero's biggest crime was to neglect the Army - the Army made most of its cash from campaigning and donations from the Emperor he didn't do much of either.... Hitting the guys with the weapons in the hip pocket is not a smart move.
Caligula and Caracalla were far worse.
Yeah, my experience with the novel was outside of school. I can't imagine what I would've done if I'd've been assigned it for class. Well, actually, I can: I wouldn't have read it, like I did with every other book my Jr. English teacher assigned. School sucks!
I read almost all the assigned readings through high school and enjoyed many of them. (Of course I hated plenty too.) I think I read Lord of the Flies four or five times on my own after encountering it in Freshman English.
No evidence Vikings had horns on their helmets. Or sang opera for that matter. Although interestingly enough many germanic and celtic warriors did use urine to make their hair stand up straight prior to battle. Hey budy, can I borrow some product? The battle is about to start.
Yes, horned helmets are a very bad idea in hand-to-hand combat.
But they're a great fashion statement.
I read almost all the assigned readings through high school and enjoyed many of them. (Of course I hated plenty too.) I think I read Lord of the Flies four or five times on my own after encountering it in Freshman English.
Yeah, my experience with the novel was outside of school. I can't imagine what I would've done if I'd've been assigned it for class. Well, actually, I can: I wouldn't have read it, like I did with every other book my Jr. English teacher assigned. School sucks!
Pfft. Teacher's pet.
Lord of the Flies and me did not get along in school - or later for that matter. What can I say, I'm largely an optimist when it comes to human nature. I did however fall head over heels in love with John Steinbeck's writing thanks to a very good literature teacher.
Excellent thread thus far. Sorry to hear you and school did not get along, Anklebiter, my wife had a similar experience.
No evidence Vikings had horns on their helmets. Or sang opera for that matter. Although interestingly enough many germanic and celtic warriors did use urine to make their hair stand up straight prior to battle. Hey budy, can I borrow some product? The battle is about to start.
Pigs Urine mixed with limestone powder to help stiffen the hair was, I believe, the recipe used by the Attecotti of Ireland and Dalriada
|
|
Yes it is also a very sad lesson. Dry reports maybe more accurate but they are the least fun to read.
Tacitus is our most reliable source but Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars is much more popular because of its trashy, proto-tabloid obsession with murder, sex and weirdness (hopefully all at once).If you take the saying as a piece of figurative speech (Nero indulged himself in artistic distractions while the empire suffered under a heavy tax burden) then it might be closer to the truth.
That said, even Tacitus had his bias and assumptions, and his source was a tradition filtered through the lens of the Year of Four Caesars and the Flavian rule. He rose to political office and literary success under Nerva, an emperor who had been a friend and ally to Nero.
I was under the impressions that while Suetonius and Tacitus obviously had their many differences in tone and subject matter, they were both equally diligent historians, even though S considered himself a biographer which was considered slightly different than history.
I was also under the impression that, by the standards of ancient history and Latin composition, Suetonius was far, far from a tabloid-monger.
Suetonius had access to imperial records but often preferred using rumour and innuendo as a source. He's not a complete shocker but I would never describe him as reliable. Suetonius, it could be argued, was a republican. A republican who wrote biographies of the first twelve caesars.
The idea of History was not fixed in the classical period as it is now. You could be a Herodotaean or a Thucydidaean and your style would be quite different. I don't think it is useful for us to treat any ancient writer as a historian, they are all primary, secondary or tertiary sources.
Sorry to hear you and school did not get along, Anklebiter, my wife had a similar experience.
Thank you, but it's quite alright. So far, I've made a lucrative livelihood in the field of picking things up and putting them down somewhere else, so it's all good.
EDIT: PS: School sucks!
|
|
No evidence Vikings had horns on their helmets. Or sang opera for that matter. Although interestingly enough many germanic and celtic warriors did use urine to make their hair stand up straight prior to battle. Hey budy, can I borrow some product? The battle is about to start.Pigs Urine mixed with limestone powder to help stiffen the hair was, I believe, the recipe used by the Attecotti of Ireland and Dalriada
Interesting and disgusting at the same time.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry to hear you and school did not get along, Anklebiter, my wife had a similar experience.Thank you, but it's quite alright. So far, I've made a lucrative livelihood in the field of picking things up and putting them down somewhere else, so it's all good.
EDIT: PS: School sucks!
I found that school didn't suck anymore, as long as you broke away from school for awhile then returned. I hated college, so went to the army for 4 years, came back and I loved school afterward. I went from a C+ student, to straight A's.
School as far as a child's career in education (5 years old to 18) sucked. Come back as an adult and school is great!
The only book I ever read that I think I would have benefitted from reading with a class was Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire.
I still have no idea what happened in that book.
|
4. The Forbidden Fruit
Both the apple and Eve get an undeserved bad rap in the story of Paradise. According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were evicted from Paradise for eating "the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden." There's no mention of any apple! Some biblical scholars think it was a fig, since Adam and Eve dressed in fig leaves, while Muslim scholars think it may have been wheat or possibly grapes.Aquila Ponticus, a 2nd-century translator of the Old Testament, may have assumed that the apple tree in the Song of Solomon was the fruit-bearing tree in Genesis. Two centuries later, St. Jerome also linked the apple tree to the phrase "there wast thou corrupted" in his Latin translation of the Old Testament.
Related interesting bit:
In the Old Testament, the serpent in the Garden of Eden is never specifically referred to as the devil in disguise. This only entered the literary consciousness when John Milton made the connection in Paradise Lost (though people had probably been making the connection between Genesis and Revelations* for centuries previous).
Revelation 12:9
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old , called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
Sorry for bringing up religion--it's just really interesting how all of these things fit together.
|
|
I've only seen the first two, but they're hilarious. I understand the actors deeply hate the characters and spend most of the later commentaries ripping them new ones, likely while high. Considering how funny Pattinson was even in the first one with the director in the room to put the brakes on him, I mean to see the rest eventually.They made another one?!?!? We are all doomed. Doomed I say.although the Albigensian Crusade was viscous and brutal. Some of the worst things mankind can and has done to each other.Second only to the recent theatrical trailer preview for the upcoming Twilight movie. Worst.
OK, I need to see this now... I just gained a lot of respect for Pattinson and Stewart. I know they can be good actors (see: Little Ashes and Into the Wild), but I always thought they dug their roles in Twilight. Shows how much I know.
Needless to say the violin/fiddle wasn't even invented at the time.Nero won the fiddle at the same time he won rulership of Rome from Satan in a harp duel.
Well, you know the old song.
Il Diavolo went down to Grottaferrata, he was lookin' for a soul to steal...
Or something like that.
|
|
The central tenet of Buddhism is not "every man for himself."And the London Underground is not a political movement.
A man in black walks close to a similarly dressed woman. Their hands pass a message swiftly between their coats. The woman raises her hand in a circular gesture. "Mind the gap," she says as they part ways.
|
|
I believe Patrick told me that story about his ancestor before.My wife's ancestors actually. My ancestors were island-dwelling monkeys from the Hebredies who made it over to Canuckistan in the mid 18th Century. My wife is the one with an actual Yankee pedigree.
Still, more interesting than being related to Typhoid Mary. Not a direct descendant, but we share a surname, and she immigrated directly from one of the ancestral homesteads after one of the last "let's get all the Catholics out of Tyrone" pushes.
|
|
Melville went on at tedious length about how whales were fish in Moby Dick. But then Melville never expressed an opinion without going on at tedious length. I can only imagine what his pillow talk was like.
Oh, and I just thought of a traditional whaling tune called "Greenland Whale Fisheries" (I learned it from The Pogues) that similarly confuses whales and fishies--a considerable time AFTER Linnaeus!I read Moby Dick in the same month that I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Talk about the marine life!
I didn't find Melville tedious, though. I'll admit that it takes an effort for 21st-century readers to acquaint themselves with overly-verbose 19th-century lit, but, inmho re: Moby Dick, it's well worth it.
My favorite is still The Lightning-Rod Man.
|
|
Amen to that. The problem with assigning classics to high school kids is that 99% of kids that age lack the life experience needed to make the classics even vaguely relevant to them. I'm glad I waited until I was a lot older, with a lot more water under my personal bridge, before I tried tackling Moby Dick or Walden.Junior year, I was assigned Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, a book that I loved and had already read three times; I didn't even read that for the easy A.
Yeah, me and school didn't get along.
I had a nearly identical experience: the only difference is that the book involved was Mother Night.
|
|
I found that school didn't suck anymore, as long as you broke away from school for awhile then returned.
Incredibly true. I've been taking periodic breaks from university education. I took a couple courses right after high school, waited a few years, started my freshman year, then switched schools for another year, and now I'm on a leave of absence. If I'd done it all at once, I'd be dead.
|
I believe Patrick told me that story about his ancestor before.Actually the person Giles Corey was not sentenced to execution he died during the interrogation "torture phase" of the case. They were hoping to get him to confess to being a warlock so they could take his land away from him. During the interrogation he simply kept saying "More Weight" Until he died and thus his children were able to keep their lands.7. Witches Were Burned at the Stake in Salem
Although there really were witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, and 20 people were put to death, none of the accused were burned at the stake. Hanging was the method of execution, although one victim was crushed to death under heavy stones.Moreover, there's no evidence these people were practicing witchcraft or were possessed by the devil. Historians now believe that they, along with the townspeople who persecuted them, were suffering from mass hysteria. Others believe the accusers were afflicted with a physical illness, possibly even hallucinating after eating tainted rye bread.
Hmm interesting because Giles Corey is an ancestor of mine as well. Is this the infamous Patrick Curtin from the Cape in MA?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, my experience with the novel was outside of school. I can't imagine what I would've done if I'd've been assigned it for class. Well, actually, I can: I wouldn't have read it, like I did with every other book my Jr. English teacher assigned. School sucks!Amen to that. The problem with assigning classics to high school kids is that 99% of kids that age lack the life experience needed to make the classics even vaguely relevant to them. I'm glad I waited until I was a lot older, with a lot more water under my personal bridge, before I tried tackling Moby Dick or Walden.
excellent point, and one that I ran into a lot while tutoring and in school. Yea, Shakespeare is amazing if you pick him up on your own, but he is not nearly as good when he is being forced on you by a 50+yo man who is desperately trying to live out his youth through you.
|
|
I believe Patrick told me that story about his ancestor before.My wife's ancestors actually. My ancestors were island-dwelling monkeys from the Hebredies who made it over to Canuckistan in the mid 18th Century. My wife is the one with an actual Yankee pedigree.
Ah ha of course I responded to Crimson's post first. I should have known it was you ...or rather your wife. Seems your wife an I have some family ties. As I am also related to one Giles Corey as well. I would be interested in finding out where that matches up. I am Allan Douglas Parker IV (yes I know a little pretentious but ut is who I am).
|
|
4. The Forbidden Fruit
Both the apple and Eve get an undeserved bad rap in the story of Paradise. According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were evicted from Paradise for eating "the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden." There's no mention of any apple! Some biblical scholars think it was a fig, since Adam and Eve dressed in fig leaves, while Muslim scholars think it may have been wheat or possibly grapes.Aquila Ponticus, a 2nd-century translator of the Old Testament, may have assumed that the apple tree in the Song of Solomon was the fruit-bearing tree in Genesis. Two centuries later, St. Jerome also linked the apple tree to the phrase "there wast thou corrupted" in his Latin translation of the Old Testament.
Related interesting bit:
In the Old Testament, the serpent in the Garden of Eden is never specifically referred to as the devil in disguise. This only entered the literary consciousness when John Milton made the connection in Paradise Lost (though people had probably been making the connection between Genesis and Revelations* for centuries previous).
Revelation 12:9
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old , called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."Sorry for bringing up religion--it's just really interesting how all of these things fit together.
Nothing to be sorry for. I also find it interesting, not only how things fit together, but how they do not. As well as how people think they do compared to the reality.
|
|
Still, more interesting than being related to Typhoid Mary. Not a direct descendant, but we share a surname, and she immigrated directly from one of the ancestral homesteads after one of the last "let's get all the Catholics out of Tyrone" pushes.I believe Patrick told me that story about his ancestor before.My wife's ancestors actually. My ancestors were island-dwelling monkeys from the Hebredies who made it over to Canuckistan in the mid 18th Century. My wife is the one with an actual Yankee pedigree.
Yeah the ancestral homeland is unknown to us for the most part. Its somewhere in the realm known as France.
|
|
My favorite is still The Lightning-Rod Man.Melville went on at tedious length about how whales were fish in Moby Dick. But then Melville never expressed an opinion without going on at tedious length. I can only imagine what his pillow talk was like.
Oh, and I just thought of a traditional whaling tune called "Greenland Whale Fisheries" (I learned it from The Pogues) that similarly confuses whales and fishies--a considerable time AFTER Linnaeus!I read Moby Dick in the same month that I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Talk about the marine life!
I didn't find Melville tedious, though. I'll admit that it takes an effort for 21st-century readers to acquaint themselves with overly-verbose 19th-century lit, but, inmho re: Moby Dick, it's well worth it.
"That I travel in thunder-storms, I grant; but not without particular precautions, such as only a lightning-rod man may know. Hark! Quick -- look at my specimen rod. Only one dollar a foot."
"A very fine rod, I dare say. But what are these particular precautions of yours? Yet first let me close yonder shutters; the slanting rain is beating through the sash. I will bar up."
Cool I have dabbled with Melville but can not claim to have ever read the whole of Moby Dick or really anything else he may have written.