SPEAKER_01 0:00

For several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze, and slowly waking from it, half steeped in dreams, I opened my eyes, and the before sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly, I felt a shock running through all my frame. Nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard. But a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom to which the hand belonged seemed closely seated by my bedside. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand, yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me, but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all. And for days and weeks and months afterwards, I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I do have a cat. Her name is Yola Tango. Her favorite Yola Tango song is, of course, The Bartle Be Hardly Working. She's very sweet. She's in her teenage years, so she's got a lot of energy. She's got a lot of personality. She breaks things that don't belong to her. She eats things that don't belong to her. And basically, my job is just to walk up behind her and say, oh, sorry, let me reimburse you for that. Oops, sorry, let me reimburse you for that. But now that I'm living alone, that's just me talking to myself.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Ah. Now, when you say your cat's in her teenage years, is that in cat years or in human years?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

In human years, so she's like one in some change, which is kind of analogous, if I'm reading the Petco app correctly, sort of to like a teenager, which what is what does that mean? It's just to say that she knows what her boundaries are and likes to kind of push against them. So she's kind of like, she knows she shouldn't jump up on the thing, but she, you know, she like looks at it and I'm like, uh-uh.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yeah. No, those those uh age conversions between animals and humans, uh, I always find them confusing. Um it reminds me of my least favorite shirt that I've seen multiple times at various gift shops, which is in dog beers, I've only had one. Which if you actually do the math on that one, you means you've had one seventh of a beer.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Just glides over the brain like a okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

So Meg's moved. Johnny, you're uh in the midst of rehearsing for uh some some Shakespeare. Do you want to talk about that?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Um actually, at time of recording, I'm between two shows. I wrapped up on a show yesterday, which was a very lovely, very small-scale compilation show called Shakespeare by Candlelight, and we sewed together scenes from different plays by Shakespeare. There are only two actors, so we were playing loads and loads of different parts, which was wonderful. And the show was thematizing music and Shakespeare. So we did lots of scenes. We did Orsino from Twelfth Night, if Music be the Food I'd Love Play on, and uh a couple of the sonnets which mention music and that kind of thing. We did the meeting at the ball between Romeo and Juliet, and so that was absolutely wonderful. Uh, but a very, very small scale and very limited run that we did of that. And then next week, because I'm a glutton for punishment, uh, I am going on tour with a production of Twelfth Night, which is totally unrelated to the production that I was doing yesterday. Um, which is gonna be really good, really silly, uh, very funny. Um there are only four actors in it, and so the mistaken identity element of it will be ramped up to the highest degree. Uh we are at that stage now where we can't quite remember who we're playing on stage. Uh so you know the chaos will be real. Um so yes, I'm very, very um Shakespeare'ed up at this point. I'm also two show tired, which spells uh you know disaster for the level of my Melville discussion this evening. Or maybe it will bring a new and exciting dynamic, two show jobs.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

I think being like hungover on Shakespeare is pretty much the best way to attack anything that we're about to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Absolutely. Just having I I will just end up just speaking in malvolioisms and and all that kind of thing. I'll just be I'll be on theme. I will be, I will be. The the the listeners can't see, but I've got my finest yellow stockings on for the recording. Um so I'm a cat in yellow stockings now, canonically, on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Yeah, I mean famously Melville was hung over on Shakespeare when he wrote all his uh and also hair of the dogging on Shakespeare as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Like he was just on a constant Shakespeare binge, I think. It was a good Shakespeare bender that lasted a lifetime.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Yeah, never recovered.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

No.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

So Meg's moved, Johnny's uh he's uh two show Johnny, and I've got uh my second kid now. So um a little bit of behind the scenes for our listeners. So up to this episode, all of our episodes were recorded in like before the release of the first one, if that makes any sense, because I knew that I was uh I had impending child number two coming. So we planned ahead, we recorded well in advance so that we could release uh very timely, very uh consistently across these past Tuesdays, but now we are uh basically up to date now. So there won't be the same kind of time gap, which you may or may not have noticed um from our previous episodes. This one uh is in sync, so to speak. Um and yeah, so I've had uh uh very excited to uh have my second child. Uh it's very fun, it's a lot easier than the first one, much easier adjustment for sure. Welcome to Pequod Pod, the podcast on the Wonder World of Herman Melville. My name is Tristan Bavil Marquise. I'm Meg.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

And call me Johnny.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

And today we're talking about the counter pain, which is a uh like a quilt. I asked you this up. It's a quilt or kind of like a blankets kind of thing. Um fascinating chapter. I I think I may have to put it up there in like my top ten most interesting Moby Dick chapters. I don't know if it if y'all feel the same way, but it's it's a loaded chapter um in uh a relatively uh compact space. Uh Meg, will you tell us a bit about this chapter?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Um, yeah, for sure. This chapter um is iconic. Um, it is the moment. It's um basically in this chapter, um, Kuiqueg and Ishmael um get up, get dressed, and go downstairs. Um thank you for listening to Pequon Pod. Um next week we'll be talking about breakfast and um yeah, tip your waitresses. Okay, so of course, um, as with so much in Moby Dick, it is about the telling of the thing as much as the thing being told. And um in the counterpane, Ishmael um relays the story of waking up and then Kuiqueg next to him waking up and then watching Kuiqueg get dressed and go out the door by way of a number of really extraordinary passages that are both um a some of the most famous in American Lit and B genuinely fascinating, lovely, and dense for us to read today. Um so we open in uh one of the most well-known episodes of the whole book. Uh the chapter begins uh with Ishmael waking up to find that as they have slept, Kuiqueg has draped his arm over him in a most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife. Uh, which is a very that is interesting, the verbal construction is interesting. We gonna get into it, so don't worry about that. Um then Ishmael attempts to explain a seemingly inexplicable feeling that this embrace invokes in him by way of an anecdote from his childhood about waking up to find a figure holding his hand as he's kind of frozen in bed. He says basically, minus the stark terror. It was just like that. So we get another moment of um strange trying to interpret the present by way of another story. Um, and then Kuiquag wakes up and gets dressed, uh, notably from the hat down. He shaves with his harpoon in not the first and definitely not the last instance of him being the coolest guy ever. Uh, and then he cheerfully kind of goes out the door to go get breakfast. Throughout um watching him, Ishmael is doing his best to infer Kuiqu's uh um the way he communicates to Ishmael and sort of what he can infer of his inner feelings, um, notably in a much more competent and compassionate way than he was able to only 12 hours previous. So plot-wise, the bullet points of what happens are small. What there is to talk about ends up.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yeah, yeah. I think uh there's a yeah, right here. So uh my sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. I think is uh kind of encapsulates this aspect of this chapter. How yeah, like we get these very interesting anecdotes. We get some of the like only like kind of biographical information about like Ishmael's upbringing that we get, like kind of throughout the book, um, and it's very loaded stuff. Um what do you think about it, Johnny? Let's pass it to you.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Well, I think we need also to, in order to partly explain what you're what you're referencing there, Tristan, jump back right to the beginning of the chapter where of course these two wake up as snuggle buddies. Let's get this out of the way. Uh it's a very, very queer moment. And I think part of the way in which that, which I hope we'll get on to talk about in in a moment when we've when we've uh addressed your point, Tristan, is that it speaks to and Meg you were gesturing towards this, it speaks to this ongoing affective thawing that Ishmael is undergoing. And I think it's absolutely fascinating that with the interpersonal release that happens between Ishmael and Kuiqueg, uh partly actually already in motion at the end of the spouter in, but absolutely in motion here, and there has been a little in-between of time as well. The thing that that gives rise to is a really, really potent childhood memory. And so I'm really fascinated with the ways in which present uh interpersonal and also personal development is happening in really, really important ways. That's that arrives as part and parcel of this really, really fascinating insight into Ishmael's childhood. You're right, Tristan. This is the biggest biographical window we ever get. Following this point, biographical details of Ishmael are actually really sparse for the remaining 132 chapters.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Yeah, okay, so trying to think like the best way to work through this. Um so first we obviously have uh like the queer aesthetics that uh Melville's creating here. Um with like these uh he really beats you over the head with uh Queekweg is like basically uh treating Ishmael like a like a lover, right? Yeah. Uh so uh we we've got uh he's uh you know snuggling me as if I'm his wife. We get uh what else uh in a most loving and affectionate manner. Uh and we also get the uh uh there's uh you know uh alluded to a baby uh being in there uh like with them in the bed with the baby. A hatchet-faced baby, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Um bridegroom clasp, I think, is the nicest one.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Oh yes, oh yes, bridegroom clasp, uh, and the unbecomingness of hugging a fellow male in this m that matrimonial sort of style.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Well, now that's really interesting because that's actually a step back, isn't it? Yes, it's almost like it's that that that that phenomenon where in the morning you know one's thoughts are quite kind of unrestrained, and then it's actually as as one goes through the process of waking up that actually the rational brain kicks back in. So, yeah, a lot a lot of what happens in that in that sentence that you were just alluding to there, Tristan, is really interesting. So he talks about yeah, the the the wifeliness of Kuiquay, and then all of a sudden um he sort of upbraids him by dint of much wriggling. I mean fantastic image of just Ishmael wriggling in bed like a little like like a little like a little caterpillar. Um by dint of much wriggling and loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt. It's also couched in very kind of analytical language, isn't it? As distinct from the very, very affective language that we get in that opening passage where you you had almost thought I had been his wife. That's all very, very simple, um, easily um identifiable kind of affective language, and then suddenly it all becomes very kind of um verbose in in what rings in my ears as quite a false tone. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Right?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

He's kind of protesting a bit too much at that point. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

He has to wake up to irony.

unknown 14:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

I think that sentence, that sentence is funny. It's not not funny, but you're right. Like he has to sort of warm up into the discomfort. Um, whereas as you were saying, when he wakes up and it's he's sort of in his like id state, the feeling that that embrace brings is so primal, he can only describe it by trying to put you in his body at another time. This thing that happened to me when I was a kid, which is where all of us learned emotions, like when we were young. So um, yeah, we're in uh we're treated to really like I I know we keep bringing this up, but like the sort of psych psychological insight that we expect our protagonists to have in like the later 20th century. He's doing a lot of that here, where it's like I had a dream and it was like this thing that had happened to me earlier. We get a lot of that in other books that are to come. But one of the reasons this this um passage is is so extraordinary is it looks familiar going the other way. As a lot of really good sort of innovative art does.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Yeah. Um yeah, and I I think like the specific childhood remembrance is like so freighted with like really like kind of a Freudian interpretation. Uh that instructs position with um I I love what you're saying too, Johnny, about like how it really is like, you know, at first he, you know, like as he's waking up, he's he doesn't seem like he has an issue with this. It's like when he starts self-reflecting on, hey, this is gay, I can't do this. That like these sorts of yeah, that's what it feels like.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

You should also note that um it's for what thinking about as it as the thing that our author wrote, he does two extraordinary things really. He has them wake up like that, and then he decides that's an interesting decision. And he has this um reaction that we've described, which is not some sort of horrible like 2003 college movie where they go, oh my god, and they like ratchet apart like um magnets and like hit the wall with how fast they're running away from each other. Both of those decisions that he makes are extraordinary for a piece um of the time. So that's two really interesting decisions he didn't have to make. Um, and um, it's a really it's it's a wild thing to think that the stuff in the chapter just before when they get into bed together was not like a one-off, not like an anomaly. But instead he said, and I am continuing this thing. We could have cut two, we're at breakfast. But instead we took the time to we wake up. And in fact, we wake up so slowly that we kind of leave real time and go even more slowly.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah. It speaks to what you were saying in your summary, Meg, that plot-wise, not a great deal happens here. And I think it's probably fair to say that this is the first chapter where interiority is the dominant focus rather than the movement forward of narrative. Of course, there's interiority and kind of introspection in the chapters that we've been looking at up to this point, but this is where it is front and center almost to the cost of narrative forward motion. And I think any any listeners approaching Mobidic for the first time probably ought to strap in for that to be something that isn't just limited to this chapter.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Yeah, if anything, the narrative goes backwards, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:36

It does. Spoiler alert.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

We're gonna see more. Obviously, we're going into a completely homosocial environment when we got on the ship. This is obviously sort of like a um a trope or like uh an interaction that just sort of like is an itch in his in his brain. And you could, I think it's important to remember, remember that he puts his characters into that on purpose rather than, oh, they're on a ship. Well, I guess now I have to talk about it's like, no, they're going to be on a ship. I'm going to write a novel where they are on their 30 men or whatever on a boat that was done on purpose. So obviously, this is a thing that interests him, and we'll see other things later on that we can compare it back to. But yeah, for for now, thinking of um coming off of the chapter that it's coming off of, we get a whole thing where Johnny was just saying where it's Ishmael's interiority and he's starting to be curious about Kuiqueg's interiority. He's starting to try to make predictions, he's starting to try to make inferences. You would do this with any person that you were probably spending the night in like a hotel with um in like a not sexy way, but our author has decided to say, by the way, it was like he's my husband. All of that is done on purpose. I think sometimes um, I definitely know like student reading can kind of you can forget that things were done purposefully, and then you kind of treat things as like accidents, but it's all done on purpose.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

We we talked last episode about how Ishmael will use Kuiqueg's body as a way of under treat his body as like kind of a body of knowledge or a way of understanding the world. And we get to the counterpane itself. So the counterpane is this quilt, and Kuiqueg's arm blends into the counterpane, right? And going back even to the first chapter when we have uh the ungraspable phantom of life, right? So like a number of things that we get in this chapter are uh Ishmael's, like two of Ishmael's encounters where like they sense this presence that they can't see. Uh first with Kuiqueg's arm clasps around him, and he can't see the arm because it blends in because of the tattooing with the quilt. And he's he feels this like phantom presence. In this case, it doesn't, it's not frightening to him, but then it causes him to recall this other time where it was frightening to him, where he also had this phantom experience. And so what I see in this chapter are are these uh uh uh these recurring bits of Ishmael's experience of the Phantom of Life, and that that like Phantom of Life as being sort of the uh the you know, besides Moby Dick, like the real like kind of the the adversarial uh antagonist of the novel, especially for Ahab. I think it's interesting to see these two experiences, like read these two experiences uh as like kind of prelude to that.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Absolutely. Well, and and the connection between what you've just been describing, Tristan, and Moby Dick is actually set up for us right at the end of Bloomings, where we get Moby Dick foreshadowed as one grand hooded phantom like a snowhill in the air. So this kind of this phantom presence, it's a it's a I think it's absolutely the right phrase to be using, is inextricably linked to that central and very, very visible battle that will unfold later on in the text. So, like like we've been saying, none of this is by design, and the interior and exterior battles, if that's what we want to call them, are absolutely made to be two sides of the same coin, might not even be might it might not even be the phrase that sets them close enough. But hopefully, in in for want of a better phrase from my Shakespeare adult brain, that's what we'll uh that's what that's that's what I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Yeah, so moving on a little bit more. So uh we get the my sensations were strange, let me try to explain them. And we get this what I think is again like one of the most fascinating passages, is this um is Ishmael thinking about his childhood and thinking about this one particular experience from his childhood. Meg, what do you what do you see in this? What do you make of this uh this interesting uh childhood memory?

SPEAKER_00 21:41

This is so fun. I think um I have to imagine that this experience almost had to have happened to Melville. It's so specific. It's well, let's look at it. Okay, first of all, I think it's fascinating that it's a stepmother and not a mother. I think it's cute. He was trying to crawl up the chimney like he had seen a little sweep do a few days previous. Chimney sweeps, of course, would have been his age.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

He's cosplaying as a chimney sweep.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah, he was like, Oh, I'm gonna do that. So they um don't sweep their own chimney. Um she sends him to bed early. I like the sort of irony of the line, but she was the best and most conscientious of stepmother's in back. I had to go to my room. This is as if you've said, the most of Ishmael's background that we learn. So we have to start making sort of like implications of, oh, again, he's like kicked out. He can't he can hear the happy voices on the other the jolly voices. I mean, it's kind of the thing. But I feel like, yeah, this weird description of this um terrible, frightening sort of thing that happens to him, he had to have heard from some like I don't know if he can have come up with this. I I shouldn't say that. It feels like something that happened to our author. And he was like, I can use this as an example of this weird feeling that I'm gonna project onto um my protagonist as I try to explain one feeling away by another uh another anecdote.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Yeah, yeah. Um, so have either of y'all read Eye in My Chimney?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

No, but it sounds fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

So there's this is one of Melville's short stories. Uh so I read it for the first time today in preparation for this episode. Um, and it's it's very fascinating to read that short story. So that was 1856, I believe, when that was published. So this is 1851 when Moby Dix published. Um and Eye in My Chimney is about um kind of the protagonist reads kind of like an uh elderly Ishmael almost, um, but like another sort of elderly, like uh it feels like uh Melville inhabiting a character in a similar sort of way that Ishmael kind of feels like that compared to some of other uh of uh Melville's protagonists. Um but it specifically that short story is about uh the protagonist is this old man who has this great chimney in his house who that he loves and he loves smoking by it, but his wife and his daughters are constantly nagging about how he should tear down this chimney um so that it can like you know uh uh build like a great hall instead. But it's his like fierce determination to like preserve this chimney. Um and and that short story specifically uh is very often like so like the chimney is another one of these accessible phallic images, I would say. And I think it's very interesting that both in this like this crucial childhood memory for Ishmael and for this whole short story he writes, like their characters have this like kind of fascination with the chimney. And specifically, like what he remembers in the in our chapter, the counterpane, uh, about this encounter with the chimney. So he's crawling up the chimney. Um, so uh, and then his stepmother, but then we also get that ambiguity again. So he says, he both says stepmother and mother. Uh, my stepmother, who somehow or other was all the time whipping me or sending me to bed supperless, my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney. And that to me is a very interesting uh image, too. To me, that like is uh evocative of like childbirth almost being like pulled out of this uh almost womb-like thing, in this case by the legs, which uh having just had a baby, you you want to avoid that.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

But like the breach position, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah, I I I think Melville's got some sort of fascination with the chimneys. And I do think Meg, you're right, that this seems like it must have some kind of relation to Melville like himself. If this is such a recurring yeah feature.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

I I have no um way of fact-checking this, but I would put money down that he had some sort of like waking dream and he was like just gonna wait to put this in a story, and then he found the he engineered the perfect place to to put in this uh this crazy insane thing that happened to him.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Um have either of y'all, Johnny or Meg, uh, experienced sleep paralysis before? No, I haven't. No. Uh so I have had uh an instance of sleep paralysis, and I I absolutely so I I I think it is probably likely that uh Melville experienced they I don't think they would have called it sleep paralysis then. Um but the word nightmare actually specifically used to mean like this kind of encounter, like specifically as opposed to like what we now think of as a nightmare. Um but what sleep paralysis is, if you don't know, um there's scientifically, there's actually not that much, it's not like that well understood of a phenomenon. But like kind of what the best guess is is that like when you're asleep, your body is effectively paralyzed, so you don't act out your dreams and like do something like that might hurt you, right? So your body's paralyzed. Now, if you if you your your mind wakes up before your body is like unparalyzed, um, that's what is thought causes this uh sensation. But um, because it I think it's interesting and uh uh I I will relate my experience of sleep paralysis to y'all. So uh I wake up and sp very specifically like I I know I'm awake, right? But my initial feeling is the like the like this presence, right? Like I can just feel to my bones that I'm in the presence of something supernatural and it's like a uh a malevolent presence, right? So like and I'm also uh stuck, right? So like I that's that's my feeling. Uh and I I haven't opened my eyes yet. Um and like I can just like I feel like there's like a demon or like a ghost present, right? The next thing I feel is this intense grabbing and like pulling sensation, as if I'm being like pulled off the bed by my feet. Uh the next thing I feel uh is as if like those same hands instead go up and start like strangling my neck. Uh and then like at that point I start to open my eyes. And what I see uh above me, like that's like the perpetrator of this, I shit you not, looks like the ghost of Richard Nixon. That is not when I thought that was gonna end up.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

That's the scariest thing you could ever see.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Grabbing you getting grabbed by the ankles by Nixon. Yeah, so uh so you published those papers.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Will you Ben? Are you Ben Bradley?

SPEAKER_02 28:18

So specifically, like uh there's a um one second. I'm just gonna like peer over here so I because I forget the author's name off the top of my head, but I got it right here. Uh it's Rick Perlstein. Rick Perlstein is a great author. So I've been reading uh Rick Perlstein's uh uh Nixon Land. So like I and I was very interested. Nixon, I think, is a like fantastic, like uh Shakespearean sort of character. Um I don't know if y'all have ever watched the movie uh oh damn. I I better remember this movie now. Is it Frost Nixon? Frost Nixon with Michael Sheen. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

It's much uh it's uh Is it Dick with Kirsten Dunstan Michelle Williams?

SPEAKER_02 28:57

No, it's not here. I'm gonna go get it. Okay, Secret Honor. That's what it is. Secret Honor. Secret Honor is a fantastic movie. Um I think it originated as a stage play, but it's a it's a one-man uh movie, and it's it's uh Richard Nixon after Watergate, like uh talking to himself. If you haven't seen it, I absolutely highly recommend Secret Honor. But uh at the time I was a little bit obsessed with Nixon as a this like very interesting character character. And I and I think, in a sense, it's kind of uh ironic. I feel like we all in uh the United States are haunted by the ghost of Richard Nixon. Um but specifically what I saw um is like the the darkest blackness I've ever seen, right? So like there's this figure that's like the room I'm in is pitch black, right? But the figure stands out prominently as being darker and blacker, and like as absorbing like no uh like reflecting like no light at all as I've ever experienced. It's kind of a it's not something I've ever experienced anywhere else, like this sort of blackness that I'm talking about. And specifically, there's like these holes in his eyes, but then I can see like very uh specifically like kind of the jowls of Richard Nixon in this ghost. He was a jowl. Yeah. Um, but it was absolutely the scariest thing. I think like one of the scariest things I've ever experienced.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Um is that that's and that but that's the only experience that you've had once. I don't mean you have the Nixon thing every time, but is it have you is it is this a thing that affects people regularly or is it just uh I think it depends.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

It's I've only experienced it once. And specifically, uh so I I woke up, this happens to me like after I wake up, and then I'm still awake, right? And so I know that like I'm not dreaming, right? If that makes sense. It's not like a nightmare that I wake up from. It's I'm I'm awake, this happens, and then like I'm just awake now, and whatever just happened happened. Um there's it's interesting, there's kind of recurring motifs that people sometimes see. Um sometimes people will specifically see an old like like ghoulish lady like by the side of their bed. Or like there's uh Is Nixon a common is it common to see Nixon? I've never heard of anybody else seeing Nixon, but uh that might be unique.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

I have heard um that just knowing that sleep paralysis exists might slightly incline you to have them.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Oh, Tristan, you've got to be.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

If you haven't heard about these and you're just hearing about them for the first time, or you're thinking about it for the rest of the day, this will perhaps who knows.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

So even worse uh than that, um, there's this fascinating paper, sudden death and sleep of Laoxian Hmong Refugees in uh Thailand. So uh there's uh like in Thailand, uh specifically like among this cultural group, they've got these strong like uh cultural associations with sleep paralysis. Um so specifically, like if you don't like provide the relevant sacrifices, or I might be botching that part, but like you know, if you don't do your uh social, like kind of a religious obligation, there's this uh sleep paralysis, like uh woman uh spirit thing that will kill you in your sleep through sleep paralysis. And so there was a big uptick in Hmong refugees uh in the United States who, because they were now in the United States and couldn't do like their traditional rites that they would have they were supposed to do back in the homeland, um, would uh like a like through this refugee community, there was a spate of people of men specifically dying in their sleep. It appears to be like in these sorts of uh sleep paralysis events, but because there's like this uh cultural baggage for them and they there's the expectation that it's something that kills you, they end up having like uh I think heart attacks, like as a part of this uh sleep paralysis event. But it's a fascinating uh paper. Um and yeah, it's a very odd thing that happens to people. I don't recommend you listen. I don't want it. I don't want to.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

You've just you it sounds as if you've just consigned both of us and all of our beloved scrimmchanderers to build we only dream of Bulkington.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Oh, well he's a benign figure, to be sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

We do, yeah. What's the opposite of sleep paralysis? Let's don't don't answer that question. Let's talk about maybe Dick.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

The the upshot of this, I think, is that both of that's really interesting. He he uses this example, but then coming right off of that, he's like, okay, so except for the terror, it was just like that. And we're like, I think the fear is most of that. Are you saying there was something like take away terror? What is left? But he's trying to, I think the point is that it's kind of like it is impossible to describe feelings accurately to another person. We have created sort of social languages of emotions, but in they don't really exist in the mind in that way. It's it's like a social language, and maybe we don't exactly have a word for what it feels like to wake up and Kui Queg's arm is around you. But he's like, okay, stay with me here. It was kind of like this thing that happened to me when I was 12. And that kind of was really scary, but if you take that part away, there's like 13% left, and it was like that. And the point is kind of like it's hard to explain. How do you explain things that are inexplicable? Does this anecdote work? Can I put the book down? Can do you think that you can imagine what it feels like to wake up with Quickwag's arm around you? Has he done a good job? Does this anecdote work? Does it not work? We spent a lot of time, you know, on this thing in this uh, we spent a lot of like lines on this thing in this chapter. Obviously, this project is interesting to the author, and he has made it in turn made it important to Ishmael. So this is yet another, like the painting in the foyer, like the Jonah Whalejaw shot glasses, like a way that he's trying to relate things through other things that may be imperfect, but we understand that it is though it is folly to try to translate feelings to other feelings, even though feelings don't exist as words and words are imperfect, it's honorable in the attempt, but indeed might still always fail.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Absolutely. And Melville, and specifically Melville, not Ishmael, is deliberately thematizing that imperfection of language and that attempt. I mean, that right at the very start of the passage, and we've already quoted the two sentences, my sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. Well, yes, of course, that preludes the description of what could well be the Ishmael's sleep paralysis, but it is also absolutely the keynote of how he's trying to sum up his opinion his his feelings about Quequeg. These are strange sensations. He is having the sensation of being held by a man in a bridegroom clasp, and he has feelings about that, and these feelings do not go away after the end of this chapter. And he kind of has to sit with them. Absolutely, it's it's exactly what you're saying, Megla. It's a completely new sensation, so I'll try and explain it through the medium of this past experience.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah, I'll put a narrative on it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Yeah, I think it's really, really telling that as part of that description of being sent to bed for 16 hours. By the way, we haven't mentioned how horrible that must be, isn't it as a thing to have happened, sent to bed for 16 hours. The sentence we get where where that detail is given is I lay there dismally calculating that 16 entire hours must elapse before I could hope for a resurrection. So my question to you guys, as a reading that really is just coming to me off the back of what we've just been talking about is so he's saying he's using the word resurrection there in the sense of when he is allowed to get up. It's inevitably a religiously coded word as well. Um but uh is he is is that word resurrection also key to actually the kind of queer awakening slash we reawakening that happens in Ishmael in this chapter? And is actually that something that he's try that he's latching on to there? That he's lying there sort of acknowledging the kind of the I won't even say the kind of the the initiation because it seems that it might be something that was actually latent in him beforehand. Um is that a way in which these two things also intersect, these two experiences, and is that part of the reason why the experience with Quequeg is enmeshed with this past experience of awaiting resurrection in bed as a child, but then also having this uh this extraordinary, terrifying experience as as a human.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Yeah, I love that, and to add to that, right? So, like thinking about the anecdote, like adding some more of the details of the anecdote, right? So uh Melville is attracted to this chimney, which we get in both this, and then also in my uh I and my chimney as a phallic image. He's attracted to the chimney, and then specifically his mother slash stepmother. So like it I think this uh this dual use of mother and stepmother specifically is to alienate Ishmael's character from like this uh maternal figure, right? Um to add like that both the leveling of uh the the level of ambiguity, but then also of like alienation uh pulls him away. So like this is uh this uh uh maternal, like this uh female figure pulls him away from being attracted to this phallic image and like punishes him by sending to to bed, right? So and then we get like what like you're saying, we get this this resurrection of like of that Leighton being like basically told you can't you can't do this sort of thing. Uh but now uh we've got kind of the fulfillment of that wish later with Weekweg in bed.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah, that's a really, really interesting read. And it seems that Ishmael himself is possibly even acknowledging overtly or implicitly that that's something that is within his consciousness in this narrated moment, and actually that it endures beyond that. I mean, I'm really, really fascinated by what he says right at the end of the passage, nay, to this very hour I often puzzle myself with it. So this is something that keeps coming back to him uh not only in the moment that's being narrated here to the Ishmael to whom the narrative is happening, but also uh within the mind of the Ishmael to whom the events of the narrative has happened. An experience where he was sent to bed supperless is something that endures in his mind, and having this sleep paralysis experience, endures in his mind even after everything that we know happens. It's it's extraordinary that it's something that should be lodged in his brain so so firmly, to the point where he uh postures that he's actually not sure about even uh what he was doing. I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney and then describes it in really, really specific detail, and then goes on to recall the date. So there's there's all sorts of really fun temporalities are being connected in in really really interesting ways, but uh but so are the the elements of Ishmael's life journey as well, the before, the present, and the after.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

To go like to add on that briefly, um so to and to go a little bit back to the last chapter, right? So uh we've got like three sort of superlatives uh between like the end of last chapter and this chapter, right? So we've got for several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. So uh this it so like the worst thing was being like pulled away from this chimney, right, and sent to bed like for this unendurable length of time. What's what's the last line of our previous chapter? I turned and never slept better in my life, was when he got to sleep in the bed with Quequeg.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

I agree. Yeah, me, me too. I let's go. I would love it. Yeah. We also, I mean, can't forget that basically um Quequeg goes through the same thing of like waking up, kind of being like, where am I? And then seeing uh Ishmael, and then Ishmael in his narration writes his impression of Kuiqueg remembering him. And then the word it says that he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact of me in bed with him. And then we get this really fascinating scene of Ishmael watching Kuiqueg get up and like dress himself as he kind of sits, lies there very still, staring at him. So um, we obviously get the interior sweet just talked about of Ishmael waking up and the weird feelings he had. We can't know Kuiquegs, and Ishmael doesn't try to imagine them. There could be like a phantom version of this chapter where he's like, maybe I was like when he had gone to bed. This other crazy instance, he just says, though a dim consciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over him. I lay quietly, but at last his mind seemed made up, touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact he gets up. So Ishmael grants his bedfellow the same sort of capacity to be having some sort of weird memory about him as he had about him, um, which jumps off this really interesting couple of paragraphs where he starts to like this is of course condescending, but like grant that Kuiqueg has like an interiority that is like him, which is to say that like he has memories and like kind of maybe has to get used to something, or like is generally kind of like a cheerful person, which is um yeah, an interesting jumping off point to kind of like the culturalization of Ishmael in New Bedford, starting with with him waking up in bed with this guy.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yeah, no, we absolutely should uh yeah. I I think like the rest of the chapter bears out what you're talking about with uh um the interiority of Queekweg. Um would y'all permit me uh two further parallels that I think are interesting before we move on from this uh section.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

You can have three if you want them, Tristan.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Okay. One, and I think this is something that like we'll see throughout the book, is that there's these uh central traumas for our characters that the characters have to continually revisit, right? So obviously for Ahab, it's losing his leg to Moby Dick, so he has to hunt for Moby Dick. I would say for Ishmael, it's this experience that he relates from his childhood. And specifically, like we get another parallel uh that I think is interesting. So in the anecdote about his childhood, uh what Ishmael does to like sort of delay like getting into bed is undressing as slowly as possible, which is the same thing we got in the previous chapter, uh, where Ishmael is delaying, like taking, you know, he's thinking the whole time and taking off this article of clothing before getting into bed, and like uh such and such. Another interesting parallel is the specific the specificity in that anecdote that it's the summer solstice, right? So it's the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Um, that we get in I and My Chimney. So we we get this kind of rhyme in I and My Chimney. Specifically, the winter solstice is uh mentioned, and it's that the protagonist in I and My Chimney's wife, who's kind of like this, like constantly like nagging him to like uh demolish the the chimney, right? And what he says about her is that uh she even like uh stays up all night on the winter solstice and is able to like uh like you know think about like all the plans she has for like uh this uh what she's going to build in place of this chimney here, which is kind of like a uh counterposed to uh Ishmael here, who's like uh the idea of like laying awake all night for like the same duration of time, like you know, there's the same like uh equal and opposite duration of time in bed is uh so horrible. And then he said he'd permit me a third parallel, right? And I and Meg touched on it a little bit a little bit earlier too, which is that specifically Ishmael sees out the window from his room on the third floor, all the the like the gay voices and the light, which is exactly what he doesn't think he's able to enter when we are in the carpet bag, right? So it's the same image, it's but from the other side, right? So he's inside, he's seeing outside all the light and the voices, but when he's in like walking around the streets of New Bedford and he sees from the outside into these uh rooms filled with light and gay voices, I can't have that. And so, like, it's this I think it is this is a very important central trauma for Ishmael's character that's like will no one invite him to their party?

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Yes. Well, they probably do, but he just deems the parties too expensive and jolly, and so he doesn't go.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

They probably do, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

You know, you can't win with him.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

No, but that's this is another Salinger beat, I think, where they're like, oh, nobody gets it, and you're like, you were invited to that party. Like you could go. You have friends, it's just that you're self-alienating yourself. Yeah, this is something that you've done to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

But that's really I think they're there. That's a series of really, really wonderful parallels and insights, Tristan. Yeah, and it's wonderful how Melville literalizes that metaphorical movement from the outside in. So from external factors to the more interior landscape. And of course, then that's parceled up with the lack of exterior plot movement in this chapter. Like it's all it's all bound up, not not a great deal happens. I mean, uh that was a wonderfully um elaborate uh chapter summary, Megan, a chapter where where precisely sort of three things happen. Oh, Queequick, actually, sorry, four, queck as a shave.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Yes, okay, we gotta do it.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Oh, it's so cool when he shaves. That's very cool. Can I that's really cool. Yeah, please, please. Um, well, we had spoken when I think in both sections when we did, well, I guess the second one, when he goes and sees Queequick stuff because he's out of the room, he sees a harpoon. We talked for a long time about how intimate that is to him see that tool, and it's his, and like that's the that's the job that he does, self-identification, etc. What can we glean from this tool that might also be a symbol? We don't know this guy yet, so what can we see? So he's like, Oh, is he gonna shave? I watched, I was watching to see where he kept his razor when lo and behold, he takes a harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheaves the head, wets it a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous scraping or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks, I Kuiqueg, this is using Roger's best cutlery with a vengeance.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

Sick.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Like, can you imagine if your roommate was like, Oh, I'll just use my Bowie knife to shave? He'd be like, This dude is on a level I can't even conceive of. But even this is after this passage where he gets dressed from the hat down. Ishmael becomes really um sort of self-conscious, as like the guy who's just staring at him. Whatever we want to, whatever readings you want to put on him, it is at least clear that this is yet another instance of Ishmael feeling very inexperienced and Kuiqueg being like literally like the embodiment of like the wailing life. He is so experienced that his professional life, which is to say his harpoon, has completely subs um like um subsumed his personal life, which is to say shaving. It's all one and the same.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Yeah, and I think specifically your points, uh especially well made, especially uh what we get directly after your quote, right? Where he says, afterwards, I wondered the less at this operation when I came to know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

That's great. I think that's the most breathless sentence we've had so far. He's like, I just didn't know about harpoons yet.

SPEAKER_02 48:48

It's wonderful. I would come to know about I think we'd be remiss not to cover uh the so we've we spent so much time on this anecdote that I think is absolutely crucial to this chapter, but we should talk about uh Ishmael's sort of uh philosophizing about Kuiqueg's level of uh kind of uh civilizedness or uh like where he is like uh between like savagery and civilization, which I do think is kind of fraught, but there's also like it's it's also interesting.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Um before we do that, could I just make one last observation about the sentence that we're talking about? Uh which is I don't think we can overlook the fact that this is the novel's first reference to Roger's best cutlery. No, to to vent to we've it's the first time we get it is no, it's the it's the first time we get the word vengeance used. Oh, and it's it's used, of course, in a very idiomatic way. It's something with a vengeance. In a couple of chapters time, we will get a reference to Quakers with a vengeance, which is just another just wonderful idiomatic use of the phrase. No, indeed. Um, but it it it's just brilliant that it just slips in under the radar. The thematic war.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

And this and and and it just slides in in a reference like that. It's just it's absolutely the the the design of this of this chapter within the context of the of everything that we've kind of been talking about centrifugally uh within the rest of the of the text is just incredible. But yes, we must absolutely talk about uh the uh about the the presentation of Quequegia actually in that middle section of the chapter.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Some of the most interesting sentences we've had so far are about that exact thing. I cannot the caterpillar and the undergraduate, yeah. Oh, it's like he can't stop himself once he comes up with like an interesting sort of metaphor. He's like, and like this, and like this, and like this.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

He has to riff on it. I mean, we might also want to mention that the caterpillar is another it's a it's a metamorphic creature. This is a chapter about rebirth, resurrection, being pulled from chimneys in a kind of breechy kind of way. So even that is a gorgeous choice, you know, of of image. Um the image of Kuiqueg shaking himself all over like a Newfoundland dog. Uh now, on the one hand, I have my issues with presenting a person a person of colour as a dog, uh, and I'm not gonna try and rescue that per se. Um all I would say is that if you are gonna compare any of your fellow human beings to a dog, uh a Newfoundland dog must be about the most wholesome creature ever to roam the earth. Um so I that though I I hold the uh the comparison in a in a degree of contempt, um, the choice of dog I think is um is is is uh about as solid as uh as as could be made.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

Yeah, uh we we've got that. We've got the uh comparison of Quequag to the Newfoundland dog. Uh we also have I would say so like we've we've got like uh uh the noble savage savage uh like uh stereotype or archetype at play, um where we've got when at last his mind seemed made up, touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact, he jumped out upon the floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Quequag, under the circumstances this is a very civilized overture, but the truth is these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will. It is marvelous how essentially polite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Quequeg because he treated me with so much civility and consideration while I was guilty of great rudeness staring at him from the bed and watching all his toilette motions for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breathing.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

Yeah, this is another instance of Ishmael coming to the right conclusion through the most ridiculous meaning. Yeah, exactly. Um yeah, ex he so yes, this is that this is a an overall positive representation of Kuiqueg, but the the the steps that he takes to get to it are bizarre. Yeah, I what what what did I write here in the margin? Thinks I Kuiqueg under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture, yeah, as you read, Tristan. But the truth is these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, and I underlined that and write and wrote, yeah, or maybe people just have this. Like it's nothing to do with the fact that he's a savage, it's to do with the fact that he's a thinking and feeling human.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

Yeah. I think it's interesting. I'm not sure. I think there are sometimes, like Johnny, you were saying earlier, where you can clearly see the present, the storytelling Ishmael versus maybe Ishmael. I'm not sure which one that is right now. I almost wonder if that was the one of the past who was like, you know what I mean? I don't think I don't know if that's right. Um, I think or if it's that Ishmael has never quite learned and it's up to us to go, oh, Ishmael still has not quite gotten to this through his head.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

I'm almost prepared to give Ish Ishmael the writer or the kind of the raconteur of the story the benefit of the doubt in the sense that we start.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

It's what he was thinking in the moment. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

It's framed in that historic present. Thinks I Kuiqueg, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Not to possibly give him too much credit, but it is possible. Absolutely. Well, yes. I also like the end of this paragraph. Nevertheless, a man like Quiqueg, you don't, he's saying, Why was I staring at him? Nevertheless, a man like Quiqueg, you don't see every day, and his ways were well worth unusual regarding. And then we get a paragraph describing him. This reminds me of another great roommate text, which is a study in Scarlet, which is when Watson describes living with Sherlock Holmes for the first time. We get kind of a montage of all of his weird habits. That's another great first-person narrator who's kind of like normal, describing his strange roommate. And you and I try to work together to get to the truth of that man through his the weird things that he does. And Holmes is doing cocaine, Queercrade puts his hat on first. We all have our things. That's what I was gonna do. Everyone would describe you in a strange way.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

Sherlock Holmes is a demonstrably weird character. Queercred is a perfectly normal individual.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

So irrespective of when he puts his hats on.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Right, right, exactly. I was thinking sort of this time when I was reading it, and I want to posit this to you guys. A possible other reading of this is that it's less that, um, and I think this only becomes maybe clear when reading the next few chapters, or sort of in this new Bedford chunk. But maybe it is, we are in the opening stages of less that's that Kuiqueg is starting to conform to Ishmael's idea of civilization. Um, but rather that Ishmael's frame of what the word civilization, quote unquote, means, which is sort of to say the world of his stepmother who doesn't want kids to crawl up chimneys, rather that place is starting to shift from what we might now call middle class to the whaling boat. We are moving towards a place where it is acceptable for, or maybe even expected, that you might have to shave with a harpoon. Over the next few chapters, are we seeing not the Kuiqueg is actually he's just normal all along, but rather my idea of normal is moving from this place to this place. That's as I start to have chowder, as I start to sign up and go look at the other boats, as I start to meet the other guys. I'm learning that it is I who am sort of like green and and commonplace, and actually I learn how to, I don't know, but it's it's it's not Kuiqueg who is changing, but Ishmael. You're so right. Some quite flawed language, of course, that the book never entirely escapes, to say, oh, um I'm the weird one, or if I go on a boat today, I would be really weird and Kuiquag would be normal. So I need to shift sort of my Overton window over to that place.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

You're entirely right. Yeah. I I think it's all of that is speaks to. I mean, I I think one of us uses a variation on this phrase in just about every episode where we say, well, this shows that Moby Dick is about. Um but I'm gonna do it for this episode. I'm gonna I'm gonna take the the ball by the roll every time. We have to do it. Or Nixon will come for us while we do this. And if we do, and if and if we do do it, then then maybe Bulkington will appear. Who knows? Um but it seems to me uh that this that it is a text that is all about the destabilization and the decentralisation of the central consciousness. That's both in the sense of, yeah, recognizing that we are not the centre of the universe, much though we might uh like to think that we are, but that's also in terms of we as the present versions of ourselves are also beholden to past versions of ourselves. That's also, of course, uh serving as a really significant foretaste of actually how Ishmael himself will fade in and out of centrality as a consciousness and as a narrator, as Moby Dick continues to unfold. I hope that I don't think that's too much of a spoiler, really. That's not it's not a plot thing, but um Ishmael uh with in a few chapters' time will sort of become far less of a central player for a big old section of the text, though he is still nominally our narrator.

SPEAKER_03 58:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 58:22

Ping ponging back to something that Meg was talking about, and like kind of getting to the part where like we we we see uh Ishmael talking about uh Kuiqueg as his transitional figure, I think we can also see this as Kuiquag uh you know trying to be polite for Ishmael. Like, I think like so, like specifically when Quequeg like crams himself underneath the bed to boot up his like uh tie his shoes, right? What do we make about uh Kuiqueg uh climbing underneath the bed?

SPEAKER_01 58:51

I don't think it's any stranger than a child role-playing as a chimney sweep and uh trying to escape into a different kind of enclosed space.

SPEAKER_00 59:02

Um sorry, I'm texting my old landlord Mike Gas account number. Don't forget what you guys are saying. I don't know how pressing this is, so I want to get that done.

SPEAKER_02 59:13

Oh yeah, you're totally fine. Okay. You'd be able to skip that step if you had a good chimney.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

God knows that's true. Um I think this is kind of akin to, yeah, like maybe stepping into the closet to get or like into the bathroom to get changed, so that no one has to actually. I think there's something to maybe kind of like a middle class um um uncomfortability with watching the process of getting dressed, of if that's the thing that's more rude than like a state of nakedness versus a state of getting clothed. Like that might be something Melville is betraying in his own mind rather than necessarily something that like Kuiqueg as like a real person is thinking about. Um but yeah, I think that's that seems to reveal something. I'm not sure what it is, but it might be just that Melville is like, and people don't like watching other people get dressed. Melville is all over this place, all over this chapter.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

That's so, so interesting, Meg. And again, I'm I I'm not really sure what any of this means, but of course, but we actually have a little serial of characters getting dressed and undressed in uh in in this section and going back to the spouter in. Yes. Of course, we get the description of uh of Ishmael himself getting undressed and then Kuique getting undressed in the evening. We then have a lot of time. Yeah, and we we then have a reference to young Ishmael getting up out of bed, getting dressed, and uh softly going down in my stocking feet. Well, who knows? Who knows? Um, so yeah, I to echo what you said, Meg, I don't know what any of that means, but my goodness, you know, he's very insistent on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:41

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that beat seems important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

So yes, the rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of the room wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket and sporting his harpoon like a marshal's baton.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

Nice. What an outfit. The monkey jacket, just in case anyone doesn't want to look it up, is that if you picture like an 1800s sailor guy on a boat, that jacket that you're thinking of is a monkey jacket. It's got those lines of like gold buttons. It's that one. So it's not a weird jacket, it's like a standard issue naval, this is what you wear on the boat. So again, he has been to sea. He is up and down in the costume of like a guy who has personalized the uniform of an experienced sailor.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

Yeah, contrary to uh Google search images, it's not a jacket with a monkey on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

No, I think the little organ grinding monkeys wore them, which is why it's called a monkey jacket. It's not a regular jacket. That's not a weird phrase. Yeah, that would be that would be a normal thing for that dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

Gosh, well, steel, steal that look is is is all I can think.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

Yes. The beaver hat, the harpoon.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:51

Hit the Patreon. If we get high enough, maybe we'll start uh uh selling uh Pequad Pod monkey jackets.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

Well, I well I I get the listeners can't the listeners don't know this, but we've we've been wearing ours for for the for the duration of this recording, and it's a we've got a a tremendous heat wave in the UK at the minute.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

It's very warm. Real labor of love.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:13

Well, that's great. Um so some things to look forward to. Uh is there anything else anybody wanted to? I I think we've this is a a great chapter. I I love this chapter. I don't know if I don't know if we've talked this long about any of the chapters so far besides the spatter and broken up the two.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

The most to say about maybe the shortest one that we've had so far.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:31

Yeah, relative.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

That's gonna be the rhythm of the thing as a whole, so get used to that.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

Yeah. But we've got some good things to look out for. So, Meg, you just did your Nathaniel Hawthorne interview. That's going to be coming soon. That's very exciting.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

That's actually gonna be the most words per least amount of words.

unknown 1:02:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:49

To the dedication, yeah. Gay mode.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

Dedication to absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:53

We're we're definitely we're pushing forward with Front Matter, the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

Yeah. Soon it's just gonna be the title Moby Dick. There's a hyphen in the title, but not in the name of the character. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:04

Yeah, so we've got that coming up. And also look out for it. Uh in August, we're going to have our very first Melville at the Movies Patreon exclusive episode where we're going to be reviewing the Gregory Peck Moby Dick film. Uh, but that's only for our patrons. Definitely check that out. Um, hit the the patreon.com forward slash pequodpod. You've said this a number of times. What is it? Patreon.com forward slash pequod pod. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

Immaculately done, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:35

But we've got uh we're we're all very excited for those. The the first we've got it set up. The very first three of these bonus uh episodes. 1956, Moby Dick with Gregory Peck, uh In the Heart of the Sea with Chris Hemsworth, and Pokemon 2000.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Many of our sparkling stars, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

And and Johnny's pick for Melville at the movies, Pokemon 2000, which he'll explain to us, I'm sure. I'm sure we'll all get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

I don't think any of our listeners require any level of explanation on that. I'm sure it's breathtakingly clear to all of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

That this is a uh yeah, uh this Pokemon movie is uh it's very Melvalian. It's very Moby Dick. Certainly. It's very Ahab-esque. Well, uh, this has been fun. We'll see you all next week, uh, where you'll get to listen to Meg talk about Nathaniel Hawthorne with uh you'll remind us who our special guest is, Meg?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:26

The Dr. Mark Noble.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

Love it. Alright, we'll see, we'll catch you then.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

By Roger's Best Cutlery. You've been listening to the Pequod Pot with Tristan Bavel Marquise, Meg Fansher, and Johnny Wiles. Our music is by Lost in the Loop with sound engineering by Lauren Ayton. The show's artwork is by Delaney Garrett, and Tristan is on The Synths. We want to say a big thank you to all of our supporters on Patreon. You can join them over at patreon.com forward slash pequag pod for bonus content and for opportunities to help us keep the show running in ship-shaped condition. Ratings and reviews also really help us out, so if you enjoy the show, please do express your thoughts and metaphysical yearnings in the review section wherever you're listening to the show. Tell your friends, tell your foes, tell the white whale on whom you're monomaniacally urged to be revenged. It all helps.