books & whales.

this sidebar picture is literally me at this point in the semester.

[mobydickvevo]

ENG 302  —  Moby Dick, week twelve.

안녕 오랜만이야 물음표 없이 참 너다운 목소리 정해진 규칙처럼 추운 문가에 늘 똑같은 네 자리

제대로 잘 먹어 다 지나가니까 예전처럼 잠도 잘 자게 될 거야 진심으로 빌게 너는 더 행복할 자격이 있어

그런 말은 하지 마 제발 그 말이 더 아픈 거 알잖아 사랑해줄 거라며 다 뭐야 어떤 맘을 준 건지 너는 모를 거야

Inspired by my project from last week, also from the fact that I have now had 아이유’s (IU) newest album on repeat since its release, there was another strong, and fitting connection to my favorite song on her new album: “이런 엔딩 (Ending Scene).” It paints the recollection of an ended relationship between two lovers who meet once again, presumably on a subway. They speak briefly, but she ultimately asks him to move on from her, saying he will be happier that way. 

What struck me about this song in regards to the chapters we read was specifically the scene in which Queequeg prepared his own ritualistic death. In general, though, watching Ahab’s own madness push them towards Moby Dick is what this song’s sadness makes me think of. There is no happy ending for the crew of the Pequod who I have grown so attached to throughout the book. From Starbuck to Ishmael to Queequeg to Pip, they are a litany of stories, experiences which make them feel more than simply ink pressed onto pages. 

As she says to her lover, IU warns that there is no happy ending despite whatever he says: their relationship is over. In a sense, Ahab’s own indifference towards his crew, their needs, their safety as he blew out the flame upon the blood-blessed harpoon, it feels just as cruel and cold as her goodbye does. As a reader who knows the ending to their story, I only grow more anxious as Ahab rushes them forth to their destruction, the end to their tale. It seems appropriate that for my final creative project, this ending scene painted in both words and sounds, lulls my blog to a placid slumber. 

Struck moonlight, gleaming Crests gather in schools, fortune Red finale, fate

[mobydickvevo]

 ENG 302  —  Moby Dick, week eleven.

밤에 밤에 너는 낮보다는 밤에 밤에 밤에 환한 낮보다는 밤에 밤에 이 밤에 어두운 방에 낮보다는 밤에 와

우리 이렇게 바쁜 일상 속 둘이 uh 만날 시간은 없고 밖은 사람들이 너무나도 많아 따가운 햇빛 좋다기보단 그냥 눈부신 느낌 uh

그런 느낌 느끼는 거 싫어 밤에 너 하나로만 눈부시고 싶어 넌 내 살이 하얘 좋다면서 대낮은 위험해 숨을 그늘이 없어

밤에 밤에 너랑 낮보다는 밤에 밤에 밤에 나는 낮보다는 밤에 밤에 밤에 우리 둘이서 이렇게 Oh get it on get it on get it on babe 낮보다는 밤에 와

This is a song I’ve been listening to quite a bit! By the group 이엑스아이디 (EXID), “낮보다는 밤” (Night Rather Than Day) and whilst reading the assigned reading, I had their latest mini-album playing in the background. Perhaps that influenced my decision this week for the creative project but I figured I’d just do a basic analysis of the chapters in relation to the song’s lyrics, delving deeper for a different meaning. Music is underrated, in my opinion, as another form of poetry.

To begin with, I live and breath the nighttime aesthetic. Stars, darkness, I feel like that is the most mystical time at night. I mean, they do say that the witching hour is three in the morning, so I’m sure there’s validity towards that. In Chapter 102, A Bower in the Arsacides, there was a section speaking of a skeleton of a whale left abandoned. There, flora would grow upon it, a sort of life passed death. I connect nighttime with growth, and in this case, the overgrowth upon the whale’s remains. In the song, that’s when the relationship between the singer and her lover will bloom; in my mind, that is also the time for children to experience their growing pains, and while the sun is down, for vines to creep up and engulf the whale’s body in foliage. 

The entirety of this trip into the ocean makes me think of my own experiences with travel, staring up at the sky when there’s only a horizon on sight. The song paints the daytime as tiring, harsh and in this context, it’s completely true. On a roadtrip, I’m the type to sleep through the day, as all the adventures occur at night. In this sense, the sailors themselves allow their truer selves to emerge once they are allowed to relax. Nighttime is given that idea of truth as it is when work stops, when we are allowed to be our true selves without having to maintain a facade nor meet our responsibilities, as they passed when the sun went down. With the doubloon that is found, it allows a glimpse into the souls of many of the characters including their ambitions, way of thinking, and state of mind. Truly, such small moments of truth are as stars in the night sky, alighting the constellations that are the inner machinations of these complex characters.

[mobydickvevo]

ENG 302  —  Moby Dick, week nine.

Stars engulfed your ribs Your weary eyelids laden heavy with black Voids spiraling into the next world Frozen limbs, frozen souls become thee

Waves feel more than physical A lapping of the spirit Skin and blood brush off your beachhead Sandbank adorned with artificial rubies

Gods crafted you with longevity and softness Akin to the prey, a mouse swallowed A monolith drifting among undersea cosmos The hand to your throat tightens its demand

Mortals sought their own release in corpses Worllds killed in expansion The stories unspoken kings and queens continue Until the tides reach the heavens

There was quite a bit in the assigned chapters which spoke about the majesty of the whale, which is also offset by the gory depictions of slaughtering one of these breathtaking creatures. Also, the name Andromeda is a direct reference to a video game I’m currently playing non-stop, Mass Effect: Andromeda, a video game which story revolves around a futuristic humanity expanding its reach to the Andromeda galaxy. (It’s a real galaxy, by the way! More than just a character in a myth or an object created for a video game’s plot.) 

The idea of space travel is so grand, and that inspired me to tie it all back to the whale. While we as humans look to the skies as the next frontier, we know near nothing of the expanse which is the ocean that surrounds our land. There, creatures such as the whale truly rule, and with how much water there is on the planet, perhaps its truly them who own the planet and its greatest secrets. 

The way Melville destroys the whales throughout the more recent chapters is interesting, but also quite a difference from the reverence that is also present in these same chapters. In my poetry, I sought to return a bit of that elegance to the whale. It feels that the whalers rip any sense of grace from these whales as they tear through them, weapons drawn and all. My ode to the whale was merely my way of rectifying this disservice, as best I could with a keyboard and a blog.

[dankmemesreasonforliving]

[bob-belcher]

[michitae]

Visit Original Link

BTS - Whalien 52

[birthofasupervillain]

Lit

[12chainz]

Everybody log off I need alone time

[thelordofthebutts-deactivated20]

so my post was good enough to like but not good enough to reblog

[mobydickvevo]

ENG 302  —  Moby Dick, week eight.

Sea monstrosity Tales spun of your false bloodlust  All they saw were bones

Vishnu, whale prophet Sculpted by ancient hands for They quivered in fear

Wondrous, land of water Where you rule like kings, blubber Throne chilled lazily

All men bow as fools Their fingers paint prophecies But their eyes are blind

Your grave burst ashore Shivering upon space, time Masterpiece of corpse

Remember, the clock Strikes passed the time of oil Your age is buried

Inspired by Chapter 55: Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales, I was inspired to write my own poetry instead of creating yet another erasure poem. Haiku poems actually are my preferred style of writing poetry. I find them simple enough to get a clear point across, yet the structure allows for a lot of creativity in what will work and what will not. Another reason for writing such short poems is the idea of threading these short strands into a much larger idea, similar to sowing or brainstorming, if you would. With all of these individual thoughts I’ve written out into separate haiku poems, I really meant to write the chapter as a whole through them. Meaning, they are all connected to Chapter 55, and in somewhat chronological order.

I began with the talk of how whales were feared by man, therefore there was a falsity about how they were immortalized throughout time. One great example was of the Indian religion’s depiction of Vishnu, half-whale and half-man, as a being of power by the gods. The reason for this trepidation around whales was for the fact that most men, those who lived solely on land and never took out to sea, only witnessed the ends of a whale that had washed ashore upon a beach. Never had they seen these creatures in all their majesty, swiming through the sea in their glory, blubber and all.

However, it is the hubris of man, which even after time and experience has proven them wrong, has allowed them to continue to depict whales in such a way. Now, the hunt seems almost a passage of requirement, rather than survival. Akin to baptism or exorcism, it is a rite of removing evil from the world, doing a service to those around. The benefits of this include riches in oil, among the other goods rendered from a whale’s corpse.

[tastefullyoffensive]

Cool cats don’t look at explosions. (via subtractive)

[stability]

[youvegotishmael]

“Selectively painting over much of a forgotten nineteenth-century book, Ruefle’s ninth publication brings new meaning to an old story. What remains visible is delicate poetry: artfully rendered, haunted by its former self, yet completely new. A high-quality replica of the original aged, delicate book in which Ruefle “erased the text, this book will appeal to fans of poetry as well as visual art.”

[joydrurycox]

Or, Some of the Whale

Launch F18, NY, NY ~ Sept. 13 - Oct. 25, 2014

(no lie. there are that many commas on pg. 590 of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Come see the whole book in commas this Saturday in NYC.)

[this-is-me-irl]

[shaunxgrine-deactivated20190807]

Pretty much

[setheverman]

[mobydickvevo]

ENG 302   —  Moby Dick, week six.

Hinted yet unsaid, considerations awaken in alarm Horror, intensity yet nigh  —  I despair I hope, explain in dim chapters Natural beauty  —  as virtue pearls in royal hue

Barbaric lord above modern kings Unfurling snow bearing one heir Imperial itself  —  though human itself The white man significant, touching the noble belt

Whiteness contributes to power, fire Forked altar incarnate in sacrifice Faithful spirit tidings with fidelity, derive beneath Holy, sublime  —  yet lurks this panic redness in blood

Elusive, whiteness divorced kindly associations Terrible, to terror bounds  —  makes them horrors Ghastly it is, even more loathsome, dumb Stagger courage, gliding ghostliness, mass for dead

Bethink of pale dread, that phantom spell Remember seas, dashed upon a vast ark It cries in distress, secrets so white, so wide Long that hint a bird replied, indirectly a merit poet

In Chapter 42, The Whiteness of The Whale, there is a long divergence which takes place for the entirety of the chapter. As with Melville’s other digressions from the main plotline, the outside information he brings into the novel with these chapters are incredibly important to not only the story but just the overall context and mood of the book. 

One of the physical characteristics which earn Moby Dick its infamy, and the myths surrounding it, is the whiteness of it, hence the title of the chapter. There is a discussion of the place which whiteness as a color, or lack thereof to be more scientifically accurate, has in the world and society as a whole. For the most part, it begins with how whiteness is connected to positive things. Holiness, imperialism, and unsurprisingly, white supremacy. 

My erasure poem this week speaks of the dangers of white supremacy, especially in a modern lens. While for the most part, white imperialism and colonization has ended, the world still feels its effects to this day. Beauty standards are skewed in favor of those with lighter skin, for instance. White people also are paid the most for the same amount of work, are hired more than people of color, etc. In the modern era, white supremacy exists but in a much more elusive, malevolent, passive way. It is important to expose it in its midst, all in order to destroy it and create a society in which all are equal.