#higgledy piggledy whale statements

[charaznablunt]

Baffled by the Town-Ho's story? Try my podcast!

Hello again, Whale Weekly! I bring you an episode of Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements entirely focused on today's chapter. I think we did a pretty good job discussing what it means, so I hope people will find it helpful. Please enjoy!

[appendingfic]

“Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.”

This should be printed on Moby Dick right under the title

[pineapple-split]

It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.

lmaoooooooooooo I love this. Hard to see this as anything but Melville himself subtweeting “don’t @ me about the incorrect whale facts ye assholes”. Amazing.

[ashleybenlove]

“Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.”

I love that the Sub-Sub Librarian is like “don’t assume this is true/correct” lollll.

[dodger-chan]

Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.

Certainly not in this book.

[levlies889]

Actually I think i will be taking the higgledy-piggledy whale statements for veritable gospel cetology, thank you very much

[merit-rose]

Are the people who hosted the Higgledy Piggledy Whale Statements podcast on here? Because I would like to give them each a tender kiss on the forehead (or something of equal value).

[ghostwriterofthemachine]

ARE YOU TELLING ME that all the stupid meme posts were serious and Moby Dick literally begins with a bunch of dictionary definitions of the word “whale,” the word “whale” listed in 13 different languages, and then a truly ungodly number of random quotes from various texts that are either about, or just vaguely mention, whales as a concept?

Fantastic, this is already batshit bonkers and I haven’t even hit The Famous First Line yet, let’s fucking go.

The narrator of the “Extracts” section snarking at this sub-sub librarian and their totally inane collection of quotes speaks to me deeply. This is a genuinely hilarious sentence:

“It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane.”      

Also, “higgledy-piggledy whale statements,” oh my fucking god

(on a Serious Academic Note, this is a for-sure an effective way to set up how important whales and whaling is to western culture, and also establish how fucking unhinged this book is going to be about A) whales, and B) everything else, I suspect.)

[garden-ghoul]

AS PROMISED, PLINY, I am listening to Moby Dick. I’m SO sad I can’t tag this “dick blog” because tumblr would probably decide it’s Unsafe. Anyway I’ll be commenting on some of my favorite extracts.

It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.

HIGGLEDY-PIGGLEDY WHALE STATEMENTS. spurious fish documents. I do have to say, though, that “multilingual dictionary containing only the word whale + random unrelated quotations about whales” is like the worst possible way to start a book if you want anyone to read it. If I had to read this with my eyes I’d be mad, but listening to it, it’s starting to feel like... a collage. I am in fact a huge fan of collage so I support him. I want someone to make a corkboard containing all of these quotes.

That was absolutely an entire half hour of unconnected whale quotes though.

okay time for CHAPTER ONE

...whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet...

Hey this is very goth of you, Ishmael. I approve.

Oh he’s talking about how if you just set someone walking they’ll walk to water. He doesn’t seem to realize that this is because people prefer to walk downhill, and so does water. That said, this is the Only way I navigate anywhere. “I abominate ALL honorable respectable toil,” he says. Oh. This is also goth.

Hey this long section where he explains that he prefers to get money over giving other people money... is this some kind of... satire? He’s like, pretending that the reader has never considered that getting money is good?

CHAPTER TWO

Ishmael also owns some book about something that is the only extant copy. Hey, what’s that about. I know! He’s just a total weirdo! I like how utterly bizarre this person is! I hope we get some backstory on how he has educated himself.

Kay, that’s been about an hour. Chapter 3 later, maybe when I am once again too sleepy to stand or do anything.

[abzilp]

nose firmly pressed up against the sweetshop window The orc sat on the iron grill and inspected the ripples. coagulatory not slick Nameless Book

m john harrison's Viriconium book + blanchitsu + At Swim-Two-Birds + b. catling's mini egg tempera cyclopses and fantasy trilogy + higgledy-piggledy whale statements

[charaznablunt]

WHAT TUNE IS IT YE PULL TO, MEN???

A DEAD WHALE OR A STOVE BOAT!!!!!!

Whale Weekly-ers, welcome to the good shit. I mean, it's all been good, but now ... now you've met Old Thunder, and it's time for a podcast about it. Check out episode 11 of Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements for, among other things, a dramatic reading of some of Ahab's dialogue backed by sick metal guitars (specifically, Blood and Thunder by Mastodon). There's so much to delve into in these chapters - the religious/philosophical themes, the characterization, the language itself - it's no wonder this episode came out 40 minutes longer than any previous one. Please enjoy!

[charaznablunt]

Ahhh, The Whiteness of the Whale. My favorite chapter! There's so much here that undergirds the entire book, so much that communicates the incommunicable - or at least tries. Ben and I got into a lively debate this episode of Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements! Please enjoy my podcast, Whale Weekly!

[charaznablunt]

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements returns to Whale Weekly!

Hello again, Whale Weekly! It's been a while since I said hi and Ishmael sure has been through a lot. I'm one half of a Moby Dick podcast called Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements! We read the entire book and discussed it chapter by chapter, and I've been posting each episode here as Whale Weekly catches up to it. … Except I forgot last time. So this time I have two episodes for you!

First of all, episode 9, our Cetology episode. Remember a month ago, when Cetology hit you like a fish to the face? Well, it hit us hard too, hard enough that we talked about it for an hour and a half straight.

And second, episode 10, which covers everything from then to now, chapters 33-35. Get our in-depth take on the hierarchy of the Pequod's officers (down to our poor butterless man) and Ishmael's mast-head philosophizing.

I hope you enjoy!

[charaznablunt]

New podcast from the Whale Statements team!

Exciting news: Ben and I have started a new podcast! It's called Starboard Vineyard Tours and it's about science fiction studies. Every month we'll be reading and discussing a piece of nonfiction writing on science fiction. Our first episode is on Samuel R. Delany's foundational essay "About 5,750 Words". If you've ever wondered: "what's actually happening when I read?" or "what makes science fiction different from other genres?" or "what does the word 'the' look like", you can listen to our first episode to find out!

[charaznablunt]

I found the whale images!

Hi, Whale Weekly! Today I bring you another episode of Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements, covering the last three chapters: all the Images of Whales. In addition to our lively discussion of the themes of these chapters, we located online copies of most of the specific whale images Ishmael mentions, and live-reacted to them on the podcast! So whether you want to hear about what a couple of obsessive nerds think our favorite obsessive nerd is revealing about himself with all this whale-image talk, or you want to check out the whale images for yourself, you should definitely follow this link for an image collection and a podcast episode!

[charaznablunt]

Hello again, Whale Weekly! I'm back with another episode of Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements, this one covering chapters 43-46. There's a lot of good stuff packed in there, but I think my favorite parts of this episode are the discussions of Ahab's character, his thoughts and actions. In particular, do you all remember that WILD shit that was happening in 44 (which you read back in mid-March, for chronology reasons)? Ahab's metaphysically complicated night terrors, what the hell was going on with that? We discussed it extensively in terms of the Gnostic themes of the book and the ultimate implications are fascinating. Please give it a listen!