it survived a similar hunt -- more than a century ago.
GOTCHA SUCKA! Thought you'd make it the 2d time, didn't ya? DIDN'T YA???
exploding lances, eh?
sucks to be a whale.
"Exploding lance" is the translation of "Monongahela."
Remember, you learned it on Unfogged.
Not Easily Bored
Why do you think they're moaning all the damn time?
A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt -- more than a century ago.
The miracle of nature! Thank god we finally killed it!
Listen guys, it's all part of the great circle of life ok. im in ur oshun harpoonin yr walz.
"Circle of death" always seemed more to the point to me, but the Disney people wouldn't use *my* title.
It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade, the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured whales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence of any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have been some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron, the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And when? It might have been darted by some Nor' West Indian long before America was discovered.
9: Boring! Post the parts with Ahab and the devil, or the parts where Ishmael is totally gay for Queequeg.
Actually, 9 is fascinating. Less gay sex and violence, more natural history!
Natural history, my ass. Melville devotes several pages to explaining why, contrary to these "scientists" who'll say all sorts of nonsense, the whale is a fish, not a mammal. After all, it has fins and swims in the water!
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, --Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!
Apparently Melville's subtle irony went right over your head, stras.
13 is one of my favorite parts of the book.
If you want natural history, read Moby Dick. Seriously. It *is* fascinating, all these long descriptions of whales and whaling and stuff.
Oh, and. Part of that sperm passage in 13 was on the subject GED, which I took before I read Moby Dick. Like an idiot, I decided it couldn't *possibly* actually be from MD, because that would be too obvious, and I chose some other answer.
To this day, obviously, I'm kicking myself.
Don't kick yourself, Song of the Loon was also a good guess.
I call bullshit on the claim that whales can live to be well over 100 years old. All the sites I've checked show them topping out at 80-90 years, max. That harpoon must have been fired more recently.
If Ogged's claim is true, that means Moby Dick might still be out there.
Let me pimp George Klauba here. Genius Melville paintings.
If you call that living.
"Dyin ain't much of a livin, moby."
--The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Shorter 20: The internet never lies!
i swear i wrote "Wales" as "Whales". curses.
and now you've all missed my fantastic pun.
Longer 20: A consensus of reputable websites focused on a particular subject is unlikely to be jointly perpetuating the same lie, and is more likely to be accurate than a single report from a journalist who may not have a background in the subject.
Gaijin Biker, might I suggest you do a google search for "Bowhead Whale Age" and read the first five-ish results?
I feel beholden, nay pressed, nay squeezed, to add the strand of my opinion to this thin rope of a thread. Cast the iron shaft-head aside, says I - find me the whale with the foot in it!
#26: Wow, that's amazing. Previously I had googled for whales in general, with the upper figure coming in at 80-90 for the larger species. But I guess Bowheads are special.
Now that my namesake's persona has been subdued a little (sorry about the outburst), I must say I quite like the Klauba image linked above. I'm not sure I'd rate it as genius, but it's goodness surprises me a little.
The handsome Barry Moser-designed Moby Dick is not only a modern masterpiece of the book arts, it also includes a woodcut of a whale penis. Official Unfogged edition!
The handsome Barry Moser-designed Moby Dick
WANT
I have read the handsome Barry Moser-designed Moby Dick. It is about a whale.
woodcut of a whale penis
I don't really have that serious a whale fetish.
WANT
Thanks to this thread, I'm leafing through it right now. It's exquisite -- and if you look on bookfinder.com, you can find it used in harcover for under $20. Or if you have 25 grand to spare, you can pick up 100 signed original engravings from the Arion Press edition.
stras: also, remember, Melville was writing pre-1857. If you don't have a theory of common descent, there's no reason to say that one classification is more "right" than any other. Why should we privilege air-breathing and homeothermy, and put shrews and whales into the same class, rather than privileging swimming and fins, which puts whales in with the whale sharks?
Richard Dawkins makes this point in "The Blind Watchmaker".
woodcut of a whale penis
Some of us see it every day & have no need for a woodcut.
Melville was being funny and using the fisheries typology. According to the grocery typology, rabbits are poultry. So it goes.
29:
As you learn when you spend enough time hanging out with people still stubborn and stupid enough to be painters in this day and age: Not designed to be viewed on the internet.
I've never been that crazy about Barry Moser (though he has his moments). There is supposed to be a Klauba edition coming out at some point.
Sandow Birk's Divine Comedy seems like the proper art book for unfogged.
Not only did Melville argue that a whale is a fish, but Weekly World News columnist Ed Anger pretty much cribbed the chapter some 20 years ago in a column.
Actually, Melville's account of why a whale is a fish was highly satirical, and, considering the modern "debates" on subjects such as "intelligent design", his satire has not aged one day.