{"id":2520,"date":"2003-07-30T15:42:38","date_gmt":"2003-07-30T22:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/?p=2520"},"modified":"2003-07-30T15:42:38","modified_gmt":"2003-07-30T22:42:38","slug":"read-moby-dick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/2003\/07\/30\/read-moby-dick\/","title":{"rendered":"Read Moby Dick<\/strike>"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Sedaris says he read Moby Dick<\/i>. The liar. Well, I assume he’s lying, because (a) he’s a humorist (i.e., professional liar) and (b) it’s well known that 71% of all Moby-Dick<\/i>-reading claims are lies. But Sedaris provides a fairly believable account of how he managed to pull it off<\/a>, so, I dunno — maybe he did read it. It’s possible, I guess.<\/p>\n

In any case, even if he tried<\/i> he probably got further into the book than I did. Earlier this year I, too, decided that, at long last, I would tackle Moby Dick<\/I>. So I checked it out from the library, brought it home, and then assiduously ignored it for a few weeks while I read Nero Wolfe<\/i> mysteries and graphic novels. Finally, one evening, I decided to bite the literary bullet. As I lay in bed before turning off the light, I picked up the well-worn volume, turned to Chapter One (“Loomings”), and prepared to fulfill a lifelong goal of mine.<\/p>\n

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago–never mind how long precisely –having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; 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; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wait, what? Driving off the spleen? Whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me?<\/p>\n

Unnerved, I pressed on.<\/p>\n

… whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I put the book back on my bedside table, turned to The Queen, and said “Hey, just FYI: I am not going to read Moby Dick<\/i>. Like, never, in my entire life.”<\/p>\n

The Queen gave me the briefest of glances, shrugged, and went back to reading her own book. This is why I married her.<\/p>\n

I enjoy crossing things off my “To-Do In This Life” list, and I’ve been x-ing out a lot of them in the last couple years. Not accomplishing<\/I> things and then crossing them off, oh no; just attempting (or mentally reevaluating) them and then announcing “Yeah, that’s not happening.” Like, I always wanted to run a marathon. And, point in fact, I’m sure I could do the Seattle Marathon in November if I wanted to. But I recently ran a half marathon and, oh brother, whatta freakin’ drag. By mile 8 I was totally bored. By mile 10 I was wishing I’d brought a magazine. The idea of running 13.1 miles twice<\/i> — hell, if I wanted that kind of excitement I’d buckle down and read Moby Dick<\/i>. Which I could also do. If I wanted to. Which I don’t.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, if you asked me if I had read Ulysses<\/i>, I probably would have just scoffed “of course” or hedged with an “I’ve been too busy reading Milan Kundera” or whatever. Now, at the age of 32, I not only lack the initiative to read boring classics or run marathons, I don’t even feel the urge to lie<\/i> about it any more. “Never read Ulysses<\/i> and never will,” I’m likely to say today. “I got shitfaced in an Irish bar once, and I figure that’s close enough.”<\/p>\n

Some people might say that lowering your standards is no way to meet your life goals. But those people are a bunch of 20-something Moby Dick<\/I> liars, so, seriously: who cares what they think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Sedaris says he read Moby Dick. The liar. Well, I assume he’s lying, because (a) he’s a humorist (i.e., professional liar) and (b) it’s well known that 71% of all Moby-Dick-reading claims are lies. But Sedaris provides a fairly believable account of how he managed to pull it off, so, I dunno — maybe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}