Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements

A quick update about Detect or Die, a new TTRPG Ben wrote and Mark edited, that’s going to be available on Ben’s Itch Page HERE , and then the project page HERE starting August 25th ! Also, if you are interested, August 25th is Itch.io Creator Day, so Ben would certainly appreciate first-day downloads! There’s an example of play HERE , and in this audio update, Ben explains how SF studies influenc...

No appendix today, but we have something else for you. We’ve started a new podcast, called Starboard Vineyard Tours! It's the same two overthinking goofballs talking about literature, but this time we'll be reading academic works of science fiction studies, which is a field with a lot of depth and some surprising relevance to Moby Dick. Our first episode, on Samuel R. Delany's essay "About 5,750 W...

This time around, we delve into one of the least rigorously defined musical genres, whalecore. From the classic of the genre, Mastodon’s Leviathan, to a period-accurate sea shanty collection, your hosts Mark and Ben discuss a wide variety of Moby Dick inspired, nautical, or simply whale-flavored music. In all, we talk about: Leviathan (Mastodon), The Call of the Wretched Sea (AHAB), Of Sailors and...

This episode is a real roller coaster ride, and by that, we mean that in it we experience (virtually) a literal roller coaster! We’re joined by Hannah Yoleau to discuss Hakugei, a Moby Dick-themed roller coaster at Nagashima Spa Land in Kuwana, Japan, and its history as White Cyclone. We live react to POV videos of the two roller coasters! It’s a fun time, and we discuss what it means for a roller...

Here it is: The last episode of our coverage of Dave Malloy’s Moby Dick: A Musical Reckoning (2019). Due to technical issues, we actually had to re-record this whole thing, which only adds to the list of Malloy’s crimes against us specifically. That ‘us’ once again includes our wonderful guests Clay ( @ClayDanteT ) and Danny ( @BerserkerDanDan ), who stuck it out until the bitter end of this music...

We’re back for round three of our review of Dave Malloy’s Moby Dick: A Musical Reckoning (2019). This time, your hosts (including eminent guests and friends of the podcast Danny ( @BerserkerDanDan ) and Clay ( @ClayDanteT ) reach the point of no return, after cleaning up the end of Part II. Part III: The Ballad of Pip. It’s where Malloy started, and it’s almost where we finished, because it’s a ha...

We may have bitten off more blubber than we can chew here, but the crew of Whale Statements forges on with our review, and extensive discussion, of Dave Malloy’s Moby Dick: A Musical Reckoning (2019). That crew also continues to include Danny ( @BerserkerDanDan ) and Clay ( @ClayDanteT ), our guests, who are as baffled as we are by the musical being perpetrated here. Having chewed through the intr...

We have returned from a long journey. Our skin is weathered by salt spray, our hair shaggy, our spirits subdued, but we bring an oily bounty to you, our listeners. We have drawn out Dave Malloy's 2019 musical version of Moby Dick with a fish-hook, taken it alongside for butchery, and now come to you with the first of four episodes rendered and stored for your consumption. The sea-beast was simply...

90s-est things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this podcast episode is the stoneless grave of Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick. In this episode, we’re joined by special guest Rick (@combattlerRickV) to attempt to make sense of the utterly singular Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick, a 26-episode anime that is in theory an adaptation of Moby Dick set in space, in the 47th...

In this episode we cover Orson Welles’ various efforts to produce, direct, and star in Moby Dick, covering a radio play (1946), a metafictional theater production, Moby Dick - Rehearsed (1955), and fragments of an incomplete film version (1971). Welles is clearly having a great time, and so are we, as he plays Ahab, Ahab, Father Mapple, and also Ahab. He also expresses, both in Moby Dick - Rehears...

In this episode, we take a break from the talkies, with the 1926 silent film The Sea Beast . This adaptation of Moby Dick , starring John Barrymore, takes it to strangely conventional new places with love-lorn hero Ahab Ceeley seeking the hand of his sweetheart in competition with his half-brother Derek. The ending may surprise you! So may a lot of things, including the occasional eruption of fide...

This week, we watched The Whale God (1962), a gothic, black and white kaiju drama adaptation of a novel by the same name that adapted Moby Dick to the world of Japanese whaling in (we think) the later 19th century. It's an intense story of a village's reigning madness of revenge after generations of terror at the hands of a monstrous and unstoppable whale - the majority of the cast are Ahabs, whic...

And now, Moby Dick - in living color! We regret to inform you the whale is still white. For the first Whale Statements Appendix, we watched Moby Dick (1956), starring Gregory Peck, directed by John Huston, and with a screenplay by John Huston and Ray Bradbury. Yes, that Ray Bradbury, and you'll hear plenty more about him from Ben if you listen to this episode. Join us as we discuss the changes mad...

Cleaning up loose ends, we rank our favorite chapters with an infallible device, discuss the various characters, and talk a bit about the structure of the thing. Then, most importantly, we answer your questions! Including some thematic, some specific, and a few impish. Also, a bunch of theoretical rambling about science fiction, for some reason. Next episode: we watch Moby Dick (1956), in the firs...

A dead whale or a stove boat. Next episode: We look back over the book, respond to listener questions, and generally clean up our loose ends. Please send your questions to whalestatements@gmail.com !

The chase enters the second day, and Ahab will not swerve. Next episode: Chapter 135, and the Epilogue. The whole act’s immutably decreed.

Omens and misgiving abound, and even Ahab almost turns aside... but too late. The White Whale is sighted, the doubloon is earned, and the chase has begun. Next episode: Chapter 134, The Chase – Second Day.

Update your logbooks, everyone. This week, we have the last episode of relatively normal chapters before the chase begins. But ‘relatively’ doesn’t mean much: Ahab’s intensity has reached fever pitch, and everyone on board has to deal with it. The carpenter shows up and Ben does hand gestures on a podcast again, Pip and Ahab have a series of moments, and we meet the saddest damn ship in the Pacifi...

The Typhoon has arrived, and we now see Ahab in all his fatal pride. Next episode: We read chapters 125 through 130, through the intensity and omens of The Hat.

The Pequod has entered the Pacific, and Ishmael is delighted by the mild sea. Ahab’s deep and tempestuous thoughts, however, take up most of these chapters. We meet the blacksmith, who would be singularly unhappy if Ahab wasn’t right there, and witness the creation of a lance to slay God. From there, we dwell on the beauty of the ocean’s surface, and Stubb swears oaths, before crossing wakes with...

In this episode, the material world of the Pequod looms large, as does its materials. Instead of getting a new friend, Ahab gets a new leg, and we meet the carpenter. He gets a whole chapter to himself, describing him more or less schematically. After that, we try something a bit different: Since Chapter 108 is entirely a dialogue between Ahab and the carpenter, your hosts read the whole thing, af...

This week, we delve deep into the prehistory of whales, and from there, consider their most remote future. But first, an extended examination of Dutch and English whaleship supplies in a chapter Ben grades ‘passable.’ There’s 135 of them, they can’t all be winners. But after that, the whale’s skeleton beckons us through elaborate Gnostic imagery to the headwaters of infinity, as Ishmael more or le...

This week, we have some excellent Ahab content. First, in “The Doubloon,” we discuss the hermeneutics by which the crew of the Pequod interpret the markings on Ahab’s golden prize, promised to whoever sights Moby Dick. Ishmael presents us with interpretations ranging from the conventional to the indecipherable, and we discover that this is a coin that actually existed, and is now called the ‘Moby...

Well, here it is, what Mark’s called ‘the orgy chapter.’ It’s part of the elaborate processing of the whale for oil, which (in a somewhat chronologically weird way) we’re finishing up this episode. Ishmael experiences a deep and squishy benevolence for all mankind; some weird parts of the whale are discussed; eventually, everything is cleared up and put away. However, before that can happen, we re...

After some development on the theme of ‘royal authority is kind of unjust, huh,’ in connection with fast-fish and loose-fish, we move on to another meeting with another whale-ship (no gam). And, in the Pequod’s meeting with the less than fragrant Rose-Bud, the love of grey gold leads men to do terrible things. Or at least Stubb commits some obnoxious, fraudulent, and self-interested acts in pursui...