The Whale Pod

An entire podcast episode from just three pages of Moby-Dick? You'd better believe it.

How do you make killing a whale more efficient? Give the labourers the luxury of free time! Melville suggests efficiency improvements for the capitalist machine in a way that Marx himself would probably describe. The inherent conflict, the dialectic, oh my!

Digressions, Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, meta-jokes about meta-jokes, the crotch is a notch.

This episode is the discussion about chapters 62 and 63 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; The Dart and The Crotch.

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The best chapter ever, making ropes, flow state, critical ice, Mazeppa, MARXIST ANALYSIS, false consciousness, Charlie Chaplin, proto-Modernism, Andrew Marvell, the Terror surrounds us, Stubb kills a whale (spoilers), the slow considered surfacing of a whale, repetition, accretion, concept albums versus 7 inch singles, "cool as a cucumber", wetting the line, a horrible wallow, "Red men", the primal savage, body horror, eyeing corpses, penny dreadfuls.

This episode is the discussion about chapters 60 and 61 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; The Line and Stubb Kills a Whale.

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What do whales eat? Brit and squid, of course.

Whales stranding in Northumberland after seeing naked Geordies, brit, seafaring Brits, baleen whales, Melville doing a Melville, dog-fish, Welsh animal names, the greatest long sentence in the book, fact-checking Melville, vengeful God, the carrot and stick of faith, Squid the cat (RIP), spoiler alert, a vast pulpy mass, the sociology of knowledge, folk-science versus science-science, Italo Calvino, semiotics, Norwegians in favour of Krakens and mermaids, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, Anglophiles, phrenology, teuthology, Archie the squid, from unknown horrors to known horrors.

This episode is the discussion about chapters 58 and 59 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; Brit and Squid.

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It's part two of our look at Herman Melville's art history of whales.

Thomas Beale's dwarf whales, Melville Marginalia, the whole internet loves Ambrose Louis Garneray, we regret to inform you Ambrose Louis Garneray is a slaver, prison hulks, the insignificance of harpoons, H. Durand, depictions of whaling, Melville enters the cosmos, famous beggars, the reproduction of reality, Joseph Johnson with a ship on his head, authenticity, Albrecht Dürer, JFK's scrimshaw collection, magnificent desolation, Magic Eye, the constellations, men's mental health, Vishnu as leviathan.

This episode is the discussion about chapters 56 and 57 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes; and Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in the Stars.

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We ended up doing a two-parter on Herman Melville's dive into art history without planning it as a two-parter. This is the first part.

Colourblindness, what's a whale, a whaling cat, Thomas Bewick, Guido Reni, gettin' yer waps out, leviathans, taxidermy, the Horniman walrus, platypus facts, Cuvier's squash, safer xenophobic ground (re: China), feed Pete's fetish, huge naturals, Ian Nairn.

This episode is the discussion about chapter 55 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales.

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GAM. Noun—A social meeting of two (or more) Whale-ships, generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boats' crews: the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other.

Yer mum, gamming, Salisbury Plain, Noah Webster's Arc, captainly dignity, the whaling cinematic universe, forgetting Queequeg's name, postmodern storytelling, universal outcast seaman, Steelkilt, the funniest line in the book, Billy Budd, floggings, White Jacket, Melville's just having fun.

This episode is the discussion about chapters 53 and 54 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; The Gam, and The Town-Ho's Story.

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Charting the course of the Pequod, the mechanics of sailing, Melville's ableist alliteration, Pete's cats, Melville's anxiety dream, the skeleton ship, Pete's cats fight, Ahab's trance, subtext is for cowards, transformation, Ahab becomes a wankpuffin, the great mystery of reading, Melville the sicko, well, well, Welsh.

This episode is the discussion about chapters 51 and 52 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; The Spirit-Spout, and The Pequod Meets the Albatross.

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There's a baby seagull squeaking in the background all the way through this episode, that's how good the microphones we use are these days, and it's not at all irritating, just adds to the nautical vibes.

The great lost recording, "spark 'im oot", a fine joke worthy of music hall, the desperado philosophy, pissing on the Russian sun, breaking a woman's arm, the men's mental maelstrom, Melville's racism rears its ugly head again, Paul Gauguin, Cecil Rhodes, and a big old chat into whether or not one can enjoy racist prose.

This episode is the discussion about chapters 49 and 50 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; The Hyena and Ahab's Boat and Crew - Fedallah.

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A dog-eggs first sentence followed by a Melville masterclass, WHALE CHASE! Racism, WHALE CHASE! Reverie, WHALE CHASE! Plot twist! WHALE CHASE! Oh God, the racism, WHALE CHASE!

This episode is the discussion about chapters 47 and 48 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; The Mat-Maker and The First Lowering.

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Happy birthday Melville, bronze whale bones, the whaling ports of Britain, the believability of The Salt Path, reading Marx, deconstructing fictional narrative, the gravitational mass of Moby-Dick, the whale ship Essex, George Pollard - an unlucky man, Melville's biography being more insane and fantastical than his writing, Captain DeWolf, an under-the-radar three-word Arnie quote, Lionel Wafer's Toast of London-ass name, "In conclusion, Moby-Dick is a book of contrasts...", the tyrant's precariousness, joyriding the ocean and ramraiding a whale, solving the Middle East.

This episode is the discussion about chapters 45 and 46 of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; The Affidavit and Surmises.

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