The Hammock Papers: Enriched.

24 January 2024

Enriched.

A 24-hour marathon reading of Moby-Dick at the New Bedford Whaling Museum ...

“The marathon is a way to read the book with more structure and purpose,” said Dotson, who was taking the opportunity to explore Moby-Dick for the first time since he left school.
“To really get immersed in it.”

You heard that refrain in every corner of the New Bedford Whaling Museum: Moby-Dick is spectacular, hilarious, misunderstood, sonorous, and psychedelic. You will be enriched as a person by experiencing it, and you must ignore those who gripe about its quirks. This is where I must admit that I, too, have never read Moby-Dick, so I can say with confidence that if you are the least bit curious about the book, and require a gentle push to take the dive, then nothing will convince you more of its majesty than to sit on the deck of the Lagoda—amid a panorama of oceanic bric-a-brac and reclaimed nautical artifacts—watching the Nation of Melville burst into hysterics.

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MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL