Net Work
I’m still reading Moby Dick. It’s not about a whale, but it does actually contain a lot of lines like “Oh ye be, be ye?!” So that’s fun, even if the reading is one that requires almost constant vernacular translation. It gets really meta when Ishmael talks about how the people of Nantucket sound strange to him, with their “thous” and “thees.”
My most delicious moment was coming across an instance of the word(s) “network” — hyphenated as “net-work." Used to describe wrinkles around the eyes, the distinct meanings and originations (and seafaring and net-weaving!) were all just right there, and it felt like looking at the evolution of man.
Is it just me?
I was ignorant of the depth of friendship between Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, but it makes me feel warm and fuzzy, a small kinship in relation to my writer friends. It’s not a tradition so much as a necessary phenomenon. It’s funny, we think of Legend and Greatness, meanwhile, Nate and Hermy were writers trying to find the best way to tell the stories they had.
If you want to read some Moby Dick yourself, you can do it a page a day (believe me that’s about how slow i’m going, which is not remotely normal) with DailyLit. There are a lot of good and/or classic books available for free, and tons of trashy brain-candy books for a low price. You sign up for what you want, and every day (you pick what days, and you can even pick the time the email hits your inbox, which is genius) they email you one “page”. Because the books are sent in this way, you know how many days it’ll take you to read.
You can also pretend to be working while you’re reading totally normal looking “email” at work. Score.
Maybe you always wanted to read War and Peace. (and who hasn’t?! hah totally!) Instead of spending twenty years saying that, you can have it read in 675 days.
Moby Dick on Daily Lit is free, and sent in 252 parts. This book in front of me has 594 pages, badly printed and poorly formatted (never has a shallow page gutter so frustrated me). Oof. I shoulda signed up about 250 days ago. ‘Specially since I’ll be damned if I don’t make time to work a little paper craft, star wars style, or maybe I’ll use these instructions as inspiration for bunnies and Ts.
p.s. Yesterday I made a little book for Susan, who is moving away to Philly with Josh. The wee book was trying to be brave, and requested “no photographs” with a quivering lip and downcast eyes. For additional courage, we all got tipsy. I’ll keep teaching her about the internet, and she’ll teach me to use a phone. Philly’s closer than Queens anyway. I just hope she doesn’t start twittering while the color wars are going on. She’d be so confused.
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