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➣ Moby-Dick; or, The Whale Ebook ➩ Author Herman Melville – Iphoneleaks.co.uk
10 thoughts on "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale"
LISA Dad, you can t take revenge on an animal That s the whole point of Moby Dick.HOMER Oh Lisa, the point of Moby Dick is be yourself The Simpsons, Season 15, Episode 5, The Fat and the Furriest Ahoy, Matey Thar be spoilers ahead.There, there Stop your crying You didn t like Herman Melville s Moby Dick You didn t even finish it I m here to tell you, that s okay You re still a good person You will still be invited to Thanksgiving dinner You won t be arrested, incarcerated, or exiled You will not be shunned except by English majors they will shun you Your family and friends will still love you or at least stand you Your dog will still be loyal your cat, though, will remain indifferent Moby Dick can be a humbling experience Even if you get through it, you may be desperately asking yourself things like why didn t I like this or am I totally missing something or how long have I been sleeping See, Moby Dick is the most famous novel in American history It might be the great American novel But in many ways, it s like 3 D movies or Mount Rush it s tough to figure out why it s such a big deal I suppose any discussion about Moby Dick must start with thematic considerations It is, after all, classic literature, and must be experienced on multiple levels, if at all So, what s the point of Moby Dick Is it about obsession The things that drive each of us in our ambitions, whether they be wealth, hate, prejudice or love Is it a deconstruction of Puritan culture in colonial America Is it a Joseph Campbell style hero s journey Is it a good ol yarn of men against the sea Is it all of these things Perhaps.Is it a colossal bore Decidedly Now, I hate to use that word, the b word Boring It means so little It means nothing It is the ultimate grade school criticism subjective vague and expressing annoyance at having been forced to experience the thing at all To say something is boring implies that nothing happens, when in fact, something is always happening Whether or not that happening is exciting is another question Having said all that, I found Moby Dick boring in the purest sense of the word On just about every page, I felt a distinct lack of interest And this is not a response to the subject matter I love sea stories I enjoyed Nathaniel Philbrick s In the Heart of the Sea and Steven Spielberg s adaptation of Jaws Normally, a novel about an obsessed man trying to harpoon a terrifying monster would be right in my wheelhouse What was the problem More specifically, what was my problem Because despite what I say, most people are going to blame me rather than Melville It all comes down to density I ve never actually harpooned a whale or anything, for that matter , but I can only assume that it is slightly easier than finishing this turgid, mammoth work of literature I found it almost impenetrable Like reading Hawthorne, except it doesn t end, ever I tried reading it three different times, and failed In a meta turn of events, the novel became like my white whale, elusive and cagey, an arch opponent I would get through the first few chapters all right The dinner at the Spouter Inn The homo erotically charged night two men share in bed Melville s exquisitely detailed description of his breakfast companions You could plainly tell how long each one had been ashore This young fellow s healthy cheek is like a sun toasted pear in hue, and would seem to smell almost as musky he cannot have been three days landed from his Indian voyage That man next to him looks a few shades lighter you might say a touch of satin wood is in him In the complexion of a third still lingers a tropic yawn, but slightly bleached withal he doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore But who could show a cheek like Queequeg which, barred with various tints, seemed like the Andes western slope, to show forth in one array, contrasting climates, zone by zone Somewhere in the neighborhood of the fortieth page, when Father Mapple starts to give his sermon, I d start to get a little restless A few pages into his fire and brimstone screed, my mind would wander By the end of the chapter, I d realize that instead of paying attention to the text, I d actually started to amuse myself by trying to calculate my income taxes in my head And then I d quit During one of my periodic bouts of self improvement which I regularly intersperse with bouts of day drinking , I decided to finish this damn thing once and for all To do this, I hit upon a plan I brought it to work and forced myself to read twenty pages a day at lunch No surfing the internet or listening to podcasts No chatting with coworkers Until I finished, I would dedicate the hour to 20 pages of Melville As a result I 1 finished the book and 2 grew to hate lunch which is really quite a sad turn of events What did I learn Not too much Moby Dick is about a milquetoast named Ishmael who sets out on a whaling ship called the Pequod Like many literary heroes, he is a bit of an outcast Also, following in the tradition of Charles Dickens tedious first person narrators, he is a bit of a cipher Ishmael doesn t do much, except offer endless exegeses on every aspect of whaling, as well as stultifying digressions on topics too numerous to count don t miss the chapter about how the color white can be evil Ishmael s pedagogic ramblings will soon have you pleading for the whale or a squid or an eel or a berserk seagull to eat him, and eat him quickly but painfully so the book will end The Pequod is commanded by Captain Ahab, the one legged nut who is obsessed with finding the whale that ate his now absent limb He s sort of the 19th century version of the psycho ex boyfriend who just can t seem to let go the past Ahab is an interesting character in the abstract Profoundly, almost suicidally driven The obvious progenitor of Robert Shaw s captivating performance as Quint in Spielberg s Jaws However, in the context of the book s thees and thous and utterly excessive verbiage and arcane sentence structure, the sheen wears off mighty quick It s one of those instances in which I d much prefer someone to tell me about Ahab, rather than read about him myself In other words, I need an interpreter to translate from Ye Olde English to English The challenging language permeates Moby Dick Melville writes in a overly verbose, grandiloquent style His book is packed with symbols and metaphors and allusions and nautical terms There were very few pages in which I didn t have to stop reading and flip to the back of the book, to read the explanatory notes or consult the glossary There are digressions and soliloquies and even, at certain points, stage directions It is also a primer on whaling, in case you wanted to learn The Pequod s whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was hoisted against the ship s side about half way out of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element And there with the strained craft steeply leaning over it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower mast head, and every yard arm on that side projecting like a crane over the waves there, that blood dripping head hung to the Pequod s waist like the giant Holofernes s from the girdle of Judith.Maybe you are familiar with the giant Holfernes and Judith s girdle Maybe you want to be familiar with them If so, by all means, proceed Melville s other notable character is Queequeg, the South Seas cannibal with whom Ishmael shares a bed at the Spouter Inn a scene that has launched a thousand dissertations Ishmael s best friend on the Pequod, Queequeg expresses the duality of man outwardly a tattooed savage, he is also purveyor of what might be termed Christian ethics he gets along with people he turns the other cheek and he s willing to jump into the ocean to save a stranger s life The rest of the cast is too large to get into Besides, they all run together in my mind For example, I can t tell you off the top of my head whether Starbuck or Stubb was the first mate Frankly, I don t really care They all end up in the same place Hint think Jonah Melville really harps on this Biblical allusion, as he harps on everything None of this is to say that Moby Dick lacks any charms There are passages of great beauty For instance, there is a moment when Pip, the black cabin boy court jester, falls out of one of the longboats and is left in the ocean Upon being rescued, Pip is changed The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul Not drowned entirely, though Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes and the miser merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps and among the joyous, heartless, ever juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs He saw God s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it and therefore his shipmate s called him mad I m not going to lie and say I have the slightest idea of what that all means, but it sure is pretty I suppose that was part of the allure that Moby Dick held for me Even though I often wanted to quit, every once in awhile, a passage would jump out at me and smack me across the face with its classicalness Unfortunately, you have to wade through so much, the mind becomes numb Moby Dick is quite simply a slog It is tedious Detail laden Attention demanding Then, after 56 billion pages, the climax comes in an instant, and in a matter of a few pages, everything you learned about the ship, the knots that held the sails, the crewmembers, Ahab everything is for naught, because it s all gone, and the sea rolls on, as it has for a thousand years In a way, it s kind of cool to do it that way I mean, that s life You don t always get a great death scene But on the other hand, what a gyp I realize my tone is preemptively defensive After all, I consider myself a high functioning individual Like you I assume , I don t like being told You just don t get it Oh no, I get it At least, I tried very hard to get it I just didn t like it And I ll admit, I didn t like having to try so hard This complaint is not simply a function of having my brain rotted by soda pop, candy, and first person shooter video games Rather, there is an important argument to be made for clarity Some say Melville s stylized prose is elegant I think it s tortured Some find his allusions illuminating I find them hopelessly outdated Some discover a higher pleasure in unpacking each complex theme I just wanted to push Ishmael over the gunwale or hang him from the yardarm Melville can gussy things up as much as he wants He can toss off references to 19th century prizefighters, Schiller s poetry, and the Bible he can discourse on civilization and savagery, on man and God he can teach you every knot needed to sail a whaler and he can draw out enough metaphors to keep SparksNotes in business for the next hundred years Melville can do all these things, but he can t hide the fact that this is a story about some guys going fishing That s it That simple story is the vessel for Melville s explorations Upon this he heaps his complications Whether Melville s technique is effective or not, or whether Melville has convinced you that it s effective, is an open question Well, not to me I think I ve answered the question In short, I would rather be harpooned, fall off my ship, get eaten by a great white shark, and then have the great white shark swallowed by a whale, then read this book ever again I can t get any clearer than that.
Where the White Whale, yo Ah, my first DBR And possibly my last, as this could be a complete shit show Approaching a review of Moby Dick in a state of sobriety just wasn t cutting it, though So let s raise our glasses to Option B, yeah I fucking love this book It took me eight hundred years to read it, but it was so, so worth it Melville s writing is impeccable The parallels he draws, even when he s seemingly pulling them out of his ass, which I swear to God he s doing, because who can find this many parallels to draw when talking about a whale, are just perfect He can compare any and every aspect of the whale did you know this whole book is about a whale to the human condition And he does so in a way that is humorous and poetic It is pretty remarkable, I tell you.So here s the thing I had zero interest in whales before starting this book But holy hell if I haven t been googling the crap out of them lately I mean, it s the mark of a superior writer isn t it to command one s attention not just to hold it but to carry it forth hither and thither for seven hundred pages of a book about a whale It s impressive, really, when you think about it And yet, this book suffers a severe level of under appreciation on TEH GOODREADS It has an average rating of 3.33, which is extraordinarily dismal by this website s standards and with almost a quarter million ratings so far, it is unlikely to migrate much from that figure So in an attempt to understand what it is people hate about this book, I filtered the community reviews to show 1 star results, and here is what I ve discovered This book would have been great, admits Anulka, if it weren t for that darn tootin whale interfering with the story The language is too much for Gil Michelini, who believes words have their place after all we are not heathens , but they simply do not belong in this novel Marlan s complaint is that there is too great a lack of story here, so much so that it feels crammed in It s like trying to squeeze a cookie into a breadbox Some have experienced extreme aversions to this book It has made Colleen seasick, quite frankly it has totally messed up Edwin s mind and it has made Robert want to light himself on fire Even Liz has acknowledged a preference for drowning if such an option existed as a substitute for reading Moby Dick Tracy Dunning would recommend renting the cartoon version, which far surpasses the actual text in storytelling capability Still others have been befuddled by this novel s ability to hoodwink its readers into thinking they like it when in fact they don t , a bizarre phenomenon Esther Hansen can personally attest to Finally, Keya offers a sobering perspective, which is that people are only reading this book to read it, meaning that if they weren t reading it, then it would simply be a book not being read Truly, Yogi Berra couldn t have put it better himself.But Keya does bring up an interesting point here why doesn t Ahab just get over it and live his life I mean, should that be so hard In some sense, the White Whale is nothing than a stand in for everything that has gone wrong in Ahab s life He mounts this campaign against the stand in but isn t that sort of disingenuous After all, it s not the whale that s responsible for his miserable life Ahab claims to be an instrument of fate, but fate in this case seems nothing than a self fulfilling prophecy.Oh, fuck, my fingers hurt from the backspace.Look, here s the bottom line I was afraid this book would be long and boring And now I wonder how many people hesitate reading it because of its bad rap Well I m here to tell you, Potential Reader, this book might be long but it is by no means boring Therefore, it is long and exciting TWSS I implore you to ignore the negative reviews Melville has a talent for flowing, humorous prose, and there is so much of it here to enjoy.So go find your White Whale P.S Gin rules.
I re read Moby Dick following my research trips to the whaling museums of New Bedford and Nantucket whaling museums The particular edition I read from University of California Press is HIGHLY recommended as the typeface is extremely agreeable to the eyes and the illustrations are subtle and instructive without ever interfering or drawing attention away from the story Perhaps that s where the latent interest grew deep in my soul as regards the whaling museums and since life offered me recently the opportunity to see and enjoy both, I grabbed at the chance and am so glad to have done so This reading of Melville is so much interesting having now a lot background on the various factors social, economic, and physical that informed the writing and structure of the story.Many modern readers have been turned off of the unabridged Moby Dick due to the many chapters of background information that Ishmael feels compelled to pass us about whales and whaling I can understand that some folks want to get on with the story and don t want to have all this detail Personally, the whole book seems so much real to me now When I try to imagine the life of the 21 28 people on a 3 5 year whaling mission with a back breaking job punctuated with long periods of boredom and intense periods of turmoil whether from ocean storms or from the hunt and ensuing processing of blubber , I can appreciate how the story moves at its own pace and during those long hours at sea while the sailors are working on their scrimshaw or scanning the horizon for spouts, that Ishmael is in his cabin writing all this detail down about this job that he is so incredibly proud of If you remove this description, it removes much of the texture of the book and reduces it to an adventure story rather than a universal chez d oeuvre.Several moments merit mention Father Mapples sermon on Jonah Chapter 9 which sets the tone for most of the book, the speech of Ahab in recruiting his crew into his diabolical mission against Moby Dick Chapter 36 and the heart breaking acquiescence of Starbuck, and my favorite part so far, The Grand Armada Chapter 89 The description of the whale nursery with the mothers and children looking up through the water at their hunters was spectacular writing and makes one dream of being out there in one of those flimsy boats to see it.The writing is by turns ironic, serious, violent, and tender On one hand is the famous Shark Massacre Chapter 66 where Melville weaves in an image of the sharks actually eating themselves in their frenzy amazing realism and exceedingly violent On the other hand, the cleverness of Stubb as he manages to steal the sick whale with the ambergris away from the hapless French captain of the Rose Bud Chapter 91 was hilarious and I laughed out loud Even the seemingly dry description chapters often have some high degree of tongue in cheek such as the suggestion that the Kings and Queens were all coronated in whale oil Chapter 25 All of these add a certain unique texture to Moby Dick and seem to me indispensable to the overall majesty of the book.It was a breathless ending as one would expect, but there was also a feeling of anti climax I think that despite the excitement of the chase and the apocalyptic ending, I enjoyed the build up of the suspense all during the book to the end There was a bit of sentimentality towards the end that was not really present during the rest of the textalmost as if Melville was impatient to get to the end, to get the end of Ahab out of his system or something And the whirlpool that swallows everything but Ishmael is a bit supernatural which shocks after having such vivid realism for the previous 550 pages It was also strange that after occupying such a central and tender role for Ishmael through the first 100 200 pages of the book, Queequeg just disappears from the action And how is it that, as a green hand, Ishmael suddenly replaces Fedallah in Ahab s boat That seems like a bit of a stretch to me But then, I am nit picking on one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time and that probably sounds ridiculous and pretentious perhaps.What I loved about this book the atmosphere, the excruciating detail, the variety of dialogsyou feel like you are also on the deck of the Pequod when Starbuck and Ahab converseok that reminds me of another thing I found annoying Albeit, the last soliloquy of Ahab is one of the best in Moby Dick, it seems almost out of character for him the whole book he is this dark, moody almost one dimensional character and suddenly we seem him shedding a tear and opening his heart to the one that nearly shot him, the First Mate Starbuck Perhaps I am too influenced by television but it seems a bit incongruent this time around.One aspect that just stuck out for me this time around was the latent homosexuality of the narrator, Ishmael Besides the obvious coziness between him and Queequeg, the description of his hands deep in spermaceti squeezing pieces of oil but also friends of other sailors performing the same task seemed highly sexualized to me I really hadn t thought about this aspect of Melville at all and upon doing a bit of research learned that he and Nathaniel Hawthorne of Scarlet Letter fame and to whom Moby Dick is dedicated may have been lovers Here is a letter from Melville to Hawthorne It doesn t actually change my perception or understanding of the book, it is just a curious aspect that added a certain depth or texture to some of the passages such as the one I cited.There is definitely something universal about this story where Ahab clearly feels above morality and is brutally crushed by his pride The sad thing is that the entire crew pays the ultimate price for their adherence to his obsession The last two encounters that are described with other boats are masterful the contrast with the wild abandon of the Bachelor and the rejection of the forlorn Rachel were both perfect set up for the final acts of this tragedy.I ll put this aside for now and come back to it in a few years If this inspired you to reread this masterpiece, please let me know in the commentsand if I have any further thoughts, I ll be sure to share them here my mateys This is still one of my favorite books but I also read Bartleby the Scrivener, The Confidence Man, and Billy Budd from Melville which were so great Need to re read this one yet again And please don t bother with the unabridged version go for the whole whale Need to reread this again..
So, Herman Melville s Moby Dick is supposed by many to be the greatest Engligh language novel ever written, especially among those written in the Romantic tradition Meh.It s not that I don t get that there s a TON of complexity, subtlety, and depth to this book about a mad captain s quest for revenge against a great white whale And on the surface it s even a pretty darn good adventure story And, honestly, Melville s prose is flowing, elegant, and as beautiful as any writing can possibly be It s magnificent, actually.It s just that any enjoyment or satisfaction I got out of the book was overshadowed by the tedious, largely pointless stretches of encylopedic descriptions about the whaling industry Melville strikes me as one of those people who would corner you at a party and talk incessantly about whaling, whaling ships, whales, whale diet, whale etymology, whale zoology, whale blubber, whale delacies, whale migration, whale oil, whale biology, whale ecology, whale meat, whale skinning, and every other possible topic about whales so that you d finally have to pretend to have to go to the bathroom just to get away from the crazy old man Only he d FOLLOW YOU INTO THE BATHROOM and keep talking to you about whales while peering over the side of the stall and trying to make eye contact with you the whole time.Look, it s not that I don t get it Or at least some of it I get, for example, that Ishmael s description of the absurdities of whale classification systems provide a backdrop against which to project the recurring theme of mankind s doomed quest for complete understanding of truths that are ineffable and forever hidden sometimes literally under the surface I get that I just wish the guy didn t feel like he had to take it to such absurd lengths I do not need twenty pages about how to properly coil a harpoon line I can see why most people don t make it through this book without judicious skimming.Still, I feel like I accomplished something and that I can now nod sagely the next time someone makes an oblique reference to Captain Ahab, mentions the Pequod, or refers to something as that person s Great White _______ And chances are they skimmed than I did, anyway.
i tried.Both ends of the line are exposed the lower end terminating in an eye splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts First In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the harpoon In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort Second This arrangement is indispensible for common safety s sake for were the lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea and in that case no town crier would ever find her again Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man s oar, so that it jogs against his wrist in rowing and also passing between the men, as they alternately sit at the opposing gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a common quill, prevents it from slipping out From the chocks it hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again and some ten or twenty fathoms called box line being coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a little further aft, and is then attached to the short warp the rope which is immediately connected with the harpoon but previous to that connexion, the short warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious to detail.i tried but any book with that passage, and thousands of passages just like it, can never get five stars from me and probably not even four not because i think it is shitty writing, but because when i was growing up, i was told that girls just wanna have fun, and that was not giving me any fun at all everyone said, nooo, karen, you were eighteen when you read this the first time, and you just didn t give it your all you are bound to love it now, with your years of accumulated knowledge and experience and that sounded valid to me, and it s like when i turned thirty, and i decided to try all the foods i had thought were from the devil and see if i liked them now that i was old i thought that revisiting this book might have the same results and discoveries but this book remains like olives to me, and not like rice pudding, which, have you tried it is quite good.but no turns out that when i was eighteen, i was already fully formed.and it s not that i don t understand it i get the biblical allusions, i understand the bitter humor of fast fish loose fish, i am aware of the foreshadowing and symbolism i went to school, i learned my theory and my close reading, but there are passages, like the one above, that i could not see the glory in all i could see was the dull.and the bitch of it is that it started out fine good, even i was really getting into the description of the docks and the nantuckters, and it was giving me good new england y feelings and then came that first chapter about whale anatomy, and i was laughing, remembering encountering it during my first reading and being really angry that this chapter was jaggedly cutting in on the action and, honestly, it was really good at the end, too but the whole middle of this book is pretty much a wash a sea of boredom with occasionally interesting icebergs.at the beginning, he claims that no one has ever written the definitive book about whales and whaling, so kudos on that, because this is pretty damn definitive it s just no fun maybe i would like it better if it had been about sharks i like sharks.i know you wouldn t know it to look at me, but i don t have a problem with challenging books i prefer a well told story, sure, and i am mostly just a pleasure reader, not one that needs to be all snooty pants about everything i read, but i ve done the proust thing, and while he can be wordy at times hahaahah his words will, eventually, move me, i understand them, and i appreciate being submerged into his character s thought soup viginia woolf dense writing, but it is gorgeous writing that shines a light into the corners of human experience and is astonishing, breathtaking thomas hardy has pages and pages of descriptive nature writing, but manages to make it matter i just wasn t feeling that here the chapter on the way we perceive white animals, the whale through various artistic representations, rigging, four different chapters on whale anatomy it s just too much description, not enough story it seemed all digressive interlude.and you would think that a book so full of semen and dick and men holding hands while squeezing sperm and grinning at each other would have been enough, but i remain unconverted, and sad of it.maybe if i had read this one, it would have been different oh, no, i have opened the GIS door i am only including this one because i totally have that shark stuffie maybe i am just a frivolous person, unable to appreciate the descriptive bludgeoning of one man s quest to detail every inch of the giant whale or maybe all y all are wrong and deluded.heh dick.come to my blog
I hate this book so much It is impossible to ignore the literary merit of this work though it is, after all, a piece of innovative literature Melville broke narrative expectations when he shed the narrator Ishmael and burst through with his infinite knowledge of all things whale It was most creative, but then he pounded the reader with his knowledge of the whaling industry that could, quite literally, fill several textbooks This made the book so incredibly dull I m not being na ve towards this book s place in the literary cannon, but I am sharing my agony for a book that bored me half to death with its singularity of purpose and expression it s obsession with whales I m just sick of themI understand that this is the main motif of the book Ahab becomes fuelled with his need to slay the leviathan, but it wasn t Ahab who droned on for three hundred pages about the properties of whales Despite the allegorical interpretation between the relationship, and the comparisons between man and fish, the book is unnecessarily packed out There are passages and passages that add nothing to the meaning or merit of the work Melville explains every aspect of the whaling industry in dry, monotone, manner There are entire chapters devoted to describing different whale types, and even one even discussing the superiority of the sperm whale s head Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale s there It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death But mark the other head s expression See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel s side, as as firmly to embrace the jaw Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.It is just so agonising to read This is quite possibly the most painful book I ve ever read in my life I ve never hated a book than I hate this behemoth I just felt there was no purpose to so many of the chapters they didn t add to the narrative or increase Ahab s obsession Also, at times it wasn t entirely clear who the narrator was There would be the occasional glimpse of Ishmael, and his aspect of the story, and then this all knowing entity with an unfathomable depth of whaling knowledge would begin up again Tedium defined The writing gives new breath to the definition of mundane, monotonous and tedious It is repetitive, expressionless and soul destroying I became and annoyed the further I got into this book, as soon as some semblance of plot would come through, and some small degree of progress, I would be hit with another fifty pages or so describing the properties of whale bubbler, and even on one occasion a chapter devoted to rope How fun I began to hate this book with a passion that made me almost scream every time the word whale came up Now, this was some tough reading Moreover, I could never understand how Melville could consider whaling such a noble profession There is nothing noble about it, it may have once been a necessity, but it has always been cruel and brutal It may have been a means for communities to survive and people to eat, but there is no honour in it How can shoving a pole through a whale, cutting its head off, slicing away its blubber and desecrating its body be considered in any way praiseworthy It s an aspect of life that is comparable to man today slaughtering a cow There is simply no glamour to be had in the deed You d think Melville was describing the life of a group of chivalrous knights they were whalers not heroes This book is awful in every sense of the word It has achieved literary fame, but I still personally hate it I found everything about it completely, and utterly, detestable Never again will I go within five feet of anything written by Herman Melville I think a part of me died whilst reading this book it was just that disagreeable to me.
There once was a grouchy alpha whale named Moby Dick who rather than being agreeably shorn of his blubber and having lumpy sperm scooped out of his cranium like cottage cheese chose life Unlike so many shiftless, layabout sea mammals of his generation, Moby Dick did not go gentle into that good night This whale, in short, was not a back of the bus rider He assailed a shallow, consumerist society, which objectified him only as lamp oil or corset ribbing, with the persuasive argument of his thrashing tail, gaping maw, and herculean bulk In his seminal in ways than one animal rights saga, Herman Melville conjures an aquatic, rascally Norma Rae out of an elephantine albino whale Reasonably enough, Moby Dick hereafter M.D., despite possible confusions with the profession is irritable when people are chasing him, stabbing him with harpoons, and trying to kill him Thus, in an act which would be protected by law as self defense in most enlightened nations, M.D bites off part of the leg of one of his many hunters, the humorless Captain Ahab Gall alert Gall alert Ahab has the nerve to hold a fucking grudge against the whale for this entirely ethical dismemberment He also holds a grudge for some incidental damage incurred to Lil Ahab as a very weak corollary of his lost limb, but I m not even getting into that Judge Wapner would ve never stomached that half baked reasoning, so neither will I Now mind you, M.D doesn t, like, come ashore in Nantucket, rent a lowrider horse drawn carriage, and try to put a cap in the ass of that one legged old bitch ass captain who wanted to decapitate him So, I mean, who s really the petty one in this equation The novel Moby Dick eschews a first person whale narrator in favor of Ishmael, a bit of a rube who shows up in New Bedford with big dreams of a whaling career Whaling was the Hollywood of that era He meets this reformed cannibal harpooner named Queequeg who hails from the South Seas, has lots of tattoos, and moonlights as a decapitated human head salesman So basically he s rough trade Ishmael and Queequeg become fast friends and do all kinds of jovial homoerotic things together, like cuddle in bed and curiously espy each other undressing despite their pronounced cultural differences I think Ishmael acts as a keen ethnographer when he highlights the variances Queequeg, the savage, idol worshipping, hell condemned, unenlightened, oogah boogah heathen, and Ishmael, the white guy Yet their love endures It s as if all the sexual currents in Neil Simon s Odd Couple were suddenly foregrounded Ishmael and Queequeg find employment on the whaler Pequod, helmed by none other than the killjoy Captain Ahab himself he of prosthetic whalebone leg, abbreviated schlong, and legendary grudge holding So the Pequod embarks upon a three or four year whaling adventure around the globe, ostensibly in search of valuable whale oil, but in fact as we later learn to bring about Ahab s vengeance against the Marxist whale M.D., who refuses to be expropriated by the Man Interestingly enough, as the journey goes on, Ishmael s character seems to evaporate In other words, he gradually shifts from a compartmentalized first person narrator to an omniscient third person narrator He seems almost to have rescinded his identity or he only rarely invokes it in the latter part of the novel, as if while we have been distracted by gloppy whale sperm and passing ships he morphed into the Star Child This transformation is, of course, intentional and creates a sense of broadening perspective throughout the novel of transcending the menial and specific to embrace a grand, universal tragedy Here s the bottom line Moby Dick is an American classic that sounds as though it would be absolutely torturous to read A six hundred page nineteenth century novel about the pursuit of a whale You ve got to be kidding Did I mention that there are chapters after chapters that merely detail the processes and often gory procedures of whaling I know Try to control yourself before you run out to the bookstore or library, right Wrong Wrong Wrong This novel is magnificent It proves what I have held true ever since I started writing myself that any subject at all, from whittling to colonoscopies to Riverdance to bagpipe playing, can be enthralling in the hands of a competent writer a writer like Melville, who simultaneously locates the universal in this seemingly very particular narrative and makes even the occasionally perplexing rituals of whaling seem fascinating Also, it s a captivating historical document chronicling M.D s groundbreaking role in the nascent Whale Power movement Eat tailfin, honkies
Y si Ahab abandona de s bito la b squeda Es probable que la pierna inexistente le duela para toda la vida Moby Dick fue, es y ser mi libro preferido de toda la vida Esta es en realidad la tercera vez que lo leo dado que la magia que se desprende de sus p ginas me hechiza sin soltarme M s all de que en la cima de mis escritores preferidos se yergue solitariamente y sin competencia mi admirad simo Franz Kafka y que le sigue muy de cerca Fi dor Dostoievski, quien me ense o muchas maneras de ver la inmensidad de la vida, es Herman Melville tambi n uno de mis autores predilectos y siempre recurro a sus libros para leerlos constantemente Es mi manera de sostener mis horizontes literarios en un est ndar alto.Este gran autor fue parte fundamental del incipiente despegue literario de los Estados Unidos a principios del siglo XIX junto con Nathaniel Hawthorne o Edgar Allan Poe, por nombrar algunos, y aunque ya ten a varios libros publicados en su haber como Taip , Om , Mardi o Redburn , todos ellos muestra fiel de su pasado como tripulante de barcos balleneros en los que hasta lleg a convivir entre can bales , es a partir de este libro en el que adquiere el desarrollo total de sus facultades narrativas para plasmarlas en un libro pico, nico e inolvidable Cuando termin de escribirlo, dentro de una de las tantas cartas que le escrib a a su fiel amigo Hawthorne a quien le dedica Moby Dick , le expresa He escrito un libro perverso, pero yo me siento tan inocente como un corderito. Evidentemente, Melville sab a que hab a tocado la cuerda justa de su genialidad y que s lo era cuesti n de tiempo para que su libro fuera recordado por siempre.Tambi n sostuvo una idea durante el proceso de escritura de Moby Dick en la que afirmaba que Para escribir un libro de proporciones importantes hay que elegir un tema de proporciones importantes y no se equivoc Lo que comenz como el esbozo de una novela corta fue transform ndose en un volumen poderoso y extenso Se le fue de las manos hasta transformarse en una mole equivalente a la Ballena Blanca que surca los mares en los que el Pequod de Ahab la persigue.En cierta forma, este libro es de esos que yo denomino universales , puesto que son tantos los temas que trata acerca de todo aquello lo que nos define como seres humanos y estas caracter sticas nos son mostradas desde mil ngulos distintos Moby Dick es una novela polif nica y con esto me refiero a ese estilo de novelas que invent el gran Fi dor Dostoievski en donde cada personaje funciona como un ente independiente con su voz y sus ideas dentro de la novela, pero que a la vez, unido a los dem s hacen funcionar el argumento de la novela de manera conjunta mientras el autor por momentos los deja actuar, qued ndose en un costado.Como toda novela de esta naturaleza genera adhesiones y rechazo en el lector Ya en su momento 1851 cuando fue publicada, Moby Dick naufrag en el olvido casi instant neamente empujando a Melville a un auto exilio del que nunca se recuperar a Al a o siguiente publicar a Pierre, o las ambig edades , que hace fiel eco de su nombre por lo inclasificable y de manera post mortem se publica Billy Budd, marinero , esta s muy bien recibida por la cr tica Para ese entonces, Melville, que pr cticamente estaba fuera de la literatura, se dedic a escribir poes a mientras trabajaba como un siempre empleado administrativo casi bartlebiano en la Aduana de Nueva York.Si uno eliminara los cap tulos a los que podr amos llamar descartables , nos quedar amos con una novela de menos de trescientas p ginas en vez del ladrillo de m s de setecientas treinta que uno tiene que leer Melville se toma gran parte del libro para contarnos acerca de todo lo que rodea al mundo de los barcos balleneros y es esto lo que hace que muchos lectores lo abandonen Los cap tulos como Cetalog a , en donde Melville hace un detalle de todas las ballenas que exist an en esa poca, parecen interminables como tambi n en, De las ballenas pintadas , La ballena como plato , La cabeza de cachalote estudio comparativo , El gran tonel de Heidelberg , Cisternas y baldes , La cabeza del cachalote estudio comparativo , que son algunos que enumero, aunque estimo que deben ser m s de veinte En cierto modo es una l stima, dado que la historia narrada es maravillosa y estos apartados distraen o aburren al lector que no est al tanto de la obra melviana.Yendo precisamente al libro, lo m s importante de l son sus personajes, y a mi modo de ver, junto con Moby Dick es fundamentalmente Ahab el motor de la historia Es el personaje m s logrado de Herman Melville e iguala a otros grandes de la historia literaria Ahab, es un personaje forjado por Melville con todo el andamiaje tr gico de Shakespeare y la profundizaci n psicol gica de Dostoievski De hecho es que fuera de Dostoievski el personaje m s dostoievskiano de los que me he encontrado.De todos modos, el nombre de Ahab ha sido escrito en la literatura con letras de oro Este poderoso personaje tarda bastante en aparecer en la novela m s precisamente en el cap tulo 28 , para mostrarse con intermitencias en la mitad del libro y hacerse omnipresente durante los cap tulos finales en donde se desata la tragedia, dado que en realidad Moby Dick es una novela de fuertes connotaciones tr gicas pero dotadas de muchas capas en las que Melville inteligentemente trabaj para darle un concepto de obra total.Su constante inclusi n de alegor as y simbolismos son incontables y lo m s curioso es que los simbolismos son generados en forma inconsciente por el lector Cuando Ahab descarga con profunda circunspecci n filos fica sus soliloquios existencialistas lo que hace es generar un clima de negros presagios y esperanzas funestas, puesto que ntimamente sabe que si bien Dios dispone las cosas, es el Destino el que sellar su suerte.Dos de los cap tulos m s elevados y filos ficos del libro son un mon logo existencialista maravilloso de Ahab en el cap tulo La sinfon a El otro es La blancura de la ballena , el m s metaf sico de todo el libro, en el que Melville nos ofrece estudio profundo sobre la simbolog a del color blanco.As como Ahab es una de las piezas fundamentales del libro, Ismael, quien es el narrador casi omnisciente, es el que llevar la batuta y el ritmo de la narraci n l abre la historia con esperanza y l la concluye con melancol a y nostalgia y en el medio, desfilan otros tantos personajes maravillosos como los son su fiel amigo Queequeg, ese salvaje tatuado y experto arponero que se transformar en su hermano del alma as tambi n como los tres oficiales principales, el primero Starbuck de quien la gran cadena internacional de caf s fundada en Washington toma su nombre agreg ndose una s , quien es el que m s enfrenta a Ahab, Stubb con su inseparable pipa y Flask, quien tiene toda la pinta de no estar en su sano juicio.Junto con Queequeg conoceremos a los otros dos famosos arponeros del Pequod, Tasthego, un indio de complexi n colosal y Dagoo, un negro enorme dispuesto a enfrentarse a todo y a todos Tambi n en un uno de los cap tulos iniciales, antes de que Ismael se embarque, nos encontraremos con el Padre Mapple, quien da su serm n desde un p lpito transformado en la quilla de un barco y como no puede ser de otra manera, nos hablar del nico personaje b blico que tiene relaci n directa con una ballena, Jon s, del que adem s Melville utilizar un cap tulo para que su par bola sea considerada hist ricamente, o sea que el autor intenta demostrar cu l fue el periplo real de Jon s a partir de su huida.Volviendo al padre Mapple y a Ahab, un dato muy interesante es ver la m s famosa pel cula basada en el libro, dirigida por John Houston en 1954 y para la que el gran autor norteamericano Ray Bradbury escribi el gui n, nos encontraremos con el afamado Orson Wells haciendo el papel del sacerdote.La pel cula cuenta con el mejor Ahab f lmico de toda la historia, me refiero a Gregory Peck con su potente voz y su traje de cu quero Es imposible no asociar esa voz a la del viejo trueno de la novela cuando uno la lee Peck actuar nuevamente en una serie de Moby Dick de 1998 como el Padre Mapple y en donde el actor Patrick Stewart encarna el papel de Ahab.Para no irnos por las ramas, no quiero dejar de mencionar a un extra o y misterioso personaje que se llama Fedallah, un parsi fantasmal que aparece de la nada y que oficia de socio inseparable de Ahab o del negrito Pippen, Pip , el grumete del Pequod que aporta la cuota de frescura e inocencia a tanta tragedia.En muchos cap tulos del libro son constantes las referencias de Melville a personajes b blicos y a la propia Biblia en s Por ejemplo en un contrapunto entre Peleg y Bildad, quienes son los propietarios del Pequod con Ismael le hacen saber a este que Ahab fue un rey b blico muy poderoso.Pero tambi n muy cruel, a punto tal que cuando fue asesinado, los perros no lamieron su sangre Pareciera que este rey influye sobre el capit n Ahab quien por momentos es desp tico, cruel y c nico respondiendo a su obsesi n monoman aca la de cazar y dar muerte a Moby Dick, la temible Ballena Blanca que le arranc una de sus piernas.Para la creaci n de este cachalote asesino, Herman Melville se inspira en suceso real en el que un cachalote tambi n albino hunde al Essex en 1820, frente a las islas de Mocha en Chile Melville fantase con el nombre de Mocha Dick para su libro luego de una cruenta persecuci n.Moby Dick que es la representaci n del mal en esta novela es el partenaire perfecto para Ahab, a quien le arranc la pierna para disparar todo el odio y rencor ilimitado de este capit n que recorrer el mundo con el objetivo de la venganza que enceguece sus d as a bordo del Pequod, cuyo objetivo era la de cazar ballenas para comercializar su esperma, o sea el aceite que se aloja en la cabeza del cachalote y que era el medio para iluminar las casas del siglo XIX, aunque tambi n son muchos los productos que se extra an de las ballenas.De este modo el Pequod zarpar de la ballenera isla de Nantucket en la cual hoy se emplaza un museo ballenero , siguiendo hacia las Islas Azores, las Islas Canarias, Cabo Verde, el R o de la Plata, el Cabo de Buena Esperanza, el Mar meridional de China, la zona ballenera de Jap n, para encontrar su destino final en los Mares del Sur, luego de tres d as de intensa caza a Moby Dick en donde la novela alcanza su punto m s lgido y fatal Moby Dick, o la ballena , esta novela imponente, eterna, inabarcable, enorme, la que Faulkner quiso escribir y nunca pudo, que se desarrolla durante tres tercios del libro a bordo de un barco, que posee la m s bella y rica narrativa que Herman Melville pudo sacar de sus entra as es hoy una recompensa a este autor que cuando la public pas inadvertidamente para ser re descubierta reci n 73 a os despu s de su publicaci n, quedar para siempre entre los mejores cl sicos de la historia.Herman Melville, que escribi casi siempre libros sobre historias de barcos, como sus colegas Robert Louis Stevenson y Joseph Conrad tiene hoy el sitial que se merece en la historia de la literatura.Dijo una vez Jorge Luis Borges sobre Moby Dick En el invierno de 1851, Melville public Moby Dick, la novela infinita que ha determinado su gloria P gina por p gina, el relato se agranda hasta usurpar el tama o del cosmos al principio el lector puede suponer que su tema es la vida miserable de los arponeros de ballenas luego el tema es la locura del capit n Ahab, vido de acosar y destruir la ballena blanca luego, que la Ballena y Ahab y la persecuci n que fatiga los oc anos del planeta son s mbolos del Universo.Supo reconocer su gran amigo Nathaniel Hawthorne Es una obra pica digna de Homero Ser una epopeya americana Me quedo con esta ltima frase Creo que resume notablemente lo que Herman Melville y Moby Dick significan para la literatura mundial La profec a de Hawthorne se hizo realidad y es por todo ello que siempre ser mi libro preferido.
I was that precocious brat who first read the whale esque sized Moby Dick at the age of nine Why I had my reasons, and they were twofold 1 I was in the middle of my I love Jacques Cousteau phase, and this book had a picture of a whale on the cover 2 It was on the bookshelf juuuuust above my reach, and so obviously it was good because it was clearly meant to be not for little kids , and that made my little but bloated ego very happy So, in retrospect, were War and Peace and Le P re Goriot and The Great Gatsby In retrospect, there may have been an underlying pattern behind my childhood reading choices From what I remember, I read this book as a sort of encyclopedia, a bunch of short articles about whaling and whale taxonomy and many ways to skin a whale and occasional interruptions from little bits of what as I now see it was the plot It was confusing and yet informative like life itself is to nine year olds.What do I think about it now, having aged a couple of decades Well, now I bow my head to the brilliance of it, the unexpectedly beautiful language, the captivating and apt metaphors, the strangely progressive for its time views, the occasional wistfulness interrupted by cheek The first third of it left me spellbound, flying through the pages, eager for Just look at this bit, this unbelievable prose that almost makes me weep yes, I m a dork who can get weepy over literature I blame it on my literature teacher mother So there 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, 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 This is my substitute for pistol and ball With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword I quietly take to the ship Bits like this is what made me stay up at night, pouring over the pages I could finally see what my nine year old past self did not care about and appropriately so, in the light of literal mindedness and straightforwardness that children possess Melville s constant, persistent comparison of whaling to life itself, using bits and pieces of whaling beliefs and rituals to illuminate the dark nooks and crannies of human souls, to show that deep down inside, regardless of our differences, we all run on the same desires and motives and undercurrents of spirit Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form The elusive White Whale is what we are all chasing, in one form or another, different for all of us, different in how we see it and approach it and deal with it It s what we all pursue the difference is how Melville gives us one of the extremes, the views of a single minded fanatic, of one who puts everything aside, sacrifices everything and everyone else for the sake of a dream, of a desire, of a goal the person who is capable of leading others unified in his focused, narrow, overwhelmingly alluring vision We can call Ahab a madman We can also call him a great leader, a visionary of sorts had he only used the charisma and the drive and the single minded obsession to reach a goal less absurd, less suicidal less selfish Had he with this monomaniac single mindedness led a crusade for something we think is worthwhile, would we still call him a madman, or would we wordlessly admire his never altering determination Isn t the true tragedy here in Ahab focusing his will on destruction and blind revenge, leading those he s responsible for to destruction in the name of folly and pride Is that where the madness lies For there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men Moby Dick, the elusive and largely symbolic whale until, that is, the last haunting three chapters where the chased id e fixe becomes terrifyingly real and refuses to humor Ahab s life goal is a force of nature so beautiful, so majestic and breathtaking, so lovingly described by Melville over pages and pages even though, in all honesty, he breaks up the fascination but trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade the reader that the amazing whale is just a fish Really, the idea of a mere human considering it his right, his goal to stand up to the majestic nature force, armed with a destructive deadly weapon, and bring it to the end after a long chase in the ultimate gesture of triumph that idea is chilling in its unremarkability Humans taming and conquering nature, bending it to our will and desires, the world being our oyster all that stuff It is not new It is what helped drive the industrial expansion of the modern society It is what makes us feel that we are masters of our world, that our planet is ours to do whatever we, humans, please But Moby Dick, finally abandoning his run from Ahab and standing up to him with such brutal ease is a reminder of the folly of such thinking and the reminder that there are forces we need to reckon with, no matter how full of ourselves we may get Why only three stars, you ask, when clearly I appreciate the greatness of the classic Because the metaphors and parallels and meandering narration at times would get to be too much, because I quite often found my mind and attention easily wandering away in the last two thirds of the book, needing a gargantuan effort to refocus This what took of a star and a half, resulting in 3.5 sea stars grudgingly but yet willingly given to this classic of American Romanticism Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths the savage sea hawks sailed with sheathed beaks On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last It was the devious cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan


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This made me think of behavioral psychology. Behavioral interventions are often used where people have chronic illnesses that can be managed, such as heart disease or diabetes. In this case it's potential fatal traffic accidents that might be prevented. Courtesy of Ken Pope's listserv:
This morning's *Boston Globe* includes an Associated Press article:
"Distracted driving among young is rampant."
The article notes that the "US Department of Transportation and Consumer Reports magazine have released a poll that….said that 63 percent of people under 30 acknowledged driving while using a handheld phone and 30 percent said they have sent text messages while behind the wheel. The
Department of Transportation said nearly 5,500 people in the United States were killed in distracted driving accidents in 2009."
The article is online at

subset: commoncrawl


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Do you know how much time I spend defending the BBC? Loads, that's how much. I live with a man who frequently dislocates vital vertebrae shouting at Newsnight and assorted other stalwarts and fondly imagines a world in which the Corporation, along with the NHS, is stripped and sold for parts to the highest bidders. Every day I argue for the cause. And then along it comes and craps all over my hard work by giving us – yes, on BBC3, but that's still technically a channel, technically watched by people and most assuredly in receipt of a proportion of the licence fee – Hotter Than My Daughter.
In case the last shreds of hope for humanity are still clinging to you even at this late stage in our collective history, and you are gamely insisting to yourself that this title must portend a crassly named but ultimately well-intentioned and perhaps even occasionally informative documentary about the menopause and its attendant symptoms, I'm afraid I must divest you of those last ragged vestiges of optimism now.
It is, in fact, as the darker reaches of your soul will already have intimated, a series devoted to mother-daughter pairings in which the former professes/claims/loudly and desperately insists that she is more physically and sexually attractive than her daughter. You will see, instantly I suspect, that there is no possible way this can end well. Either it is true, and the daughter spends the programme gazing at presenter Liz McClarnon with anguished, pain-filled eyes, mutely begging her to allow the makeover team to restore the natural balance of the universe, or it is false, and the mother must face the judgment of whatever morons have been enticed in off the street by the promise of a tenner, 20 minutes in a warm studio and the chance to tell her what a vision of raddled haggery she actually presents to the world.
Way, waaaay back in the day, the BBC proudly proclaimed that it had "a mission to explain". OK then. Explain this. Explain Hotter Than My Daughter. Go on. Do it now.


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© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
With so much of the late, great tenor saxophonist Stan Getz's recorded music available, it is understandable that his 1986 recording Voyage on the Blackhawk Records label [BKH 51101-1-D] has gone largely unrecognized.
But while this oversight is comprehensible, it is unacceptable, at least from my perspective, as I consider it to be one of the best recordings that Stan ever made.
Mercifully, it is still available both as a CD and on vinyl so if you haven't added it to your Getz collection, you should give serious consideration to doing so.
A subsidiary of Aspen Records based in San Francisco, CA, Blackhawk Records issued a number of superb recordings by Phil Woods, Jessica Williams, Kenny Barron, the Elvin Jones - McCoy Tyner Quintet, Steve Kuhn the Gil Evans Orchestra, Sonny Stitt with the Hank Jones Trio, Roland Hanna, Hal Galper, Eddie Gomez, John Scofield, Chico Freeman, Maynard Ferguson, Shelia Jordan, Jimmy Knepper, Dizzy Gillespie and The Mitchell-Ruff Duo and Abdullah Ibrahim before doing the typical here-today-gone-tomorrow small Jazz recording company fade at the end of the decade of the 1980s.
Voyage is largely an outgrowth of the time that Stan and his then quartet consisting of pianist Kenny Barron, bassist George Mraz and drummer Victor Lewis spent as part of the Artist in Residence Program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Ca [about 30 miles south of San Francisco, CA].
The recording was made at the Music Annex Recording Studio in nearby Menlo Park, CA and features Stan and the band in peak performance after playing the six tunes that comprise the LP on an almost regular basis throughout the period of the Stanford Jazz Program residency.
The distinguished Jazz author and scholar, Dr. Herb Wong had an ownership position in Blackhawk and wrote the following insert notes which explain the significance of Voyage at this point in Stan's career as well as its place in the Getz discography.
"A gap of four long years has separated Stan Getz last quartet recording and this latest voyage. As one of the first magnitude stars of the pantheon of jazz. Stan carries special significance to every one of his performances, regardless of the context. The quartet, however, is admittedly his favorite environment. Logically, a new Getz quartet recording promptly generates eventful interest.
It has quickly stimulated vigorous applause from those who have had the opportunity to preview it. After recording on literally several hundred albums, reams of copy and a trail of awards, you'd think he might have reached a complacent comfort zone.
Au contraire. Stan persists in his dynamic process of improvised inventiveness, shaping the bed of creativity through his enchantingly lyrical and virile personal sound and style. It's a style on the tenor saxophone that spurs and triggers a listener's imagination to roam and to discover aural images.
Apprehension of how original ideas pop up at a given moment from the unconscious is difficult to explain. Stan's genius is perceivable as a pathway to truth and ecstatic beauty. Noted psychoanalyst Rollo May in his scholarly discourse on the nature of creativity, insists that ecstasy is the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act... involving the total person. "It brings intellectual, volitional, and emotional functions into play all together." Under Dr. May's framework. Stan Getz' music, in my opinion, expresses a union of form and passion with order and vitality.
Recently I asked pianist Kenny Barron about the specialness he experienced in playing with Stan, and Kenny was quick to say. "His attitude is open to growth. Stan welcomes ideas of younger players, including new tunes." And. indeed, there is fresh literature on this album—the opener. "I Wanted to Say" is contributed by drummer Victor Lewis and there is an infectious pair by Kenny—"Dreams" and the title selection. "Voyage." Pianist Victor Feldman. who has played with Stan on a number of stints through the years, composed the lovely "Falling in Love." a perfect vehicle for the warm romanticism of Stan and his group.
Balancing original pieces are the 1939 evergreen ballad penned by Jimmy Van Heusen. "I Thought About You." and the Jerome Kern diamond. "Yesterdays." recut by Stan with some surprises that just sparkle. (Dig how Kenny Barren picks up on Stan's solo! It's like an orchestrated thing, and it just happened at the moment; Kenny plays the Milt Buckner-inspired block chords, and they are a beautiful fit I was. as well as everyone else, knocked out by the unexpected gem.)
Speaking admirably about Kenny, bassist George Mraz and Victor Lewis, Stan asserts that "they are the kind of musicians who almost sound as if they are classically trained because everything they touch is correct. Even though they have the drive of a jazz band, they have the touch of pure classicists.
"The band is like a classical string quartet. If I had another horn, it would get in my way and it would almost be like playing arrangements. In a quartet, I'm able to phrase differently every night. I'm up there and I can freely do whatever I wish to do. And a quartet is small enough for everyone to solo; I like to hear everyone in the band solo. It's essentially a classical-jazz approach to music."
In reality, the band on this album is Stan's working band. It's plain they fit into his paradigm of empathic values. All three rhythm section mates play what's needed for each individual tune, giving to the whole. "Kenny, for instance, plays every piece, wanting to give Kenny Barron to the piece, and not make the piece Kenny Barron." notes Stan. "Like George and Victor, too. he's ego-less like the Taoist philosophy of removing all self."
Not incidentally, this quartet has been the official band Stan has been leading during his current Artist-in-Residency at Stanford University-a position from which he has been deriving much pleasure, having invested much time and expertise into the experience.
Besides concertizing on campus, he works with the university big band, a cluster of jazz combos, plus other facets of the jazz education curriculum. Residing in nearby Menlo Park, moments from Stanford's campus. Stan finds this peripheral enjoyment a part of the total positive perspective of his living. He is a veritable super folk hero on campus and in the community. As the director of the Stanford jazz ensemble, Joseph Bowen, says: "When Stan walks into class, the students are in awel"
Stan speaks through the eloquence of his horn to illustrate theoretical aspects, always with the fluid, emotional heat he brings. "My area of the curriculum is feelings. When I was asked about my reaction regarding modes in a jazz theory class. I said: 'I don't care much for modes. It's not the mode that counts, it's the mood!" Man, that is succinctness
Here. then, are four brilliant magician/musicians sharing their spiritual and organic soulfulness. delivering their messages. Personally I have had a lifetime love affair with Stan's music and emotional art. and so have countless others
One of these generalized others is Aiko Suzuki of Toronto whose striking art piece adorns the album cover. Her fan letter to Stan includes associative responses illustrating the influence of his music:
"Your artistry is compelling for so many reasons, at many levels... intense serenity ... from out of ancient lonely primeval caves to dazzlingly positive humanism ... rich and at times minimalist —hence spiritual and emotional dynamism ... you dignify our carnal spirit. . no rhetoric, clear, clean ... crystalline ... elegantly romantic and sensuous."
The music on "Voyage" will stick in your memories. It should enjoy an unlimited life span."
—Dr. Herb Wong
You can check out the title track on the following video:


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On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin'
Whao, it's been almost a year since I wrote anything here! Not good, but I've got my reasons. 2009 was one busy year. It was a year in which I met quite a few new nice people, I rediscovered sketching, I listened to 1000's of hours of Bloc Party, Polisiekar, Heuwels Fantasties, The Knife and Crystal Castles, I tried my hand at wood working, I cycled 0km, I swam at least 100km, I took some Holga shots, I hiked the Olifants River Backpack Trail (where I slept in a very thin tent metres away from hippo's) and I entertained myself with more than the recommended annual allowance of mind bending emotional excercises! Despite all this, the reason I didn't write anything since last January is because U2 once again released an album filled to the brim with mediocrity. No, seriously, the main reason was because me and my good friend David were too busy working on a little plan we hatched in March for a website we wanted to build. As we both have day jobs it took us a few months longer than we expected to launch a basic beta version of our idea, but at 4:34 AM on 31 December 2009 we managed to reach our goal and at least launched before 2010 arrived.
Our idea was simple really, we love going hiking around South Africa and we wanted to make a website where we could find all the available hiking trails in Souther Africa in an up-to-date and consistent manner. It seems quite simple and straight forward just saying it like that, but we soon realised that there's a reason why no site has managed to do this yet… hiking trails are complicated things and every trail owner has his or her own way of defining, describing and "quantifying" what their hiking trail is, making it difficult to compare apples with apples, or trails with trails!
So, after many evenings and weekends listening to Bob Dylan, WildAtlas.com, in it's most basic and pure form is alive on the Internet with 102 trails and counting. We haven't quite reached our goal of listing all the trails in Southern Africa yet, but we're well on our way and hope that outdoor enthusiasts will start using the site and find that it is already useful as it is today. Without writing anything more, I think the website should do the talking, go and have a look at WildAtlas.com and please feel free to fill in our suggetion box with any advice or feedback, and if you really want to make me an David happy then write a trail review on one of the hiking trails you've hiked.


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STELLARTON – A 27-year-old man from here was arrested early this morning for possession of drugs after a search warrant was served.
At approximately 3 a.m. today, the Pictou County Integrated Street Crime Enforcement Unit, with the assistance of the Stellarton Police Service, New Glasgow Regional Police Canine and Truro Police Service Canine, executed a search warrant at a residence on MacKay Street. There, police seized a quantity of cocaine, cannabis marijuana, and cannabis resin.
Subsequently, police arrested the accused.
He has been charged with possession of cocaine, possession of cannabis resin, possession for the purpose of trafficking cannabis marijuana, and multiple counts of failing to comply with a judicial recognizance. The accused remains in custody and will appear in court at a later date.


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G+ | Google + Team
In case you missed this list originally, these are the Googlers (Google employees on G+) all the ones I've met have been SUPER nice, smart, and funny! Add them to your circle of Googlers and meet them! Enjoy!
Craig Kanalley originally shared this post:
VPs/Senior VPs
Community Managers
OK, this was fun to put together — love how active the Googlers are on this platform! Please feel free to add anyone I missed and share this. Circle the ones that most interest you based on what they do, or circle them all as I did 🙂
+Sergey Brin
+Larry Page
VPs/Senior VPs
+Vic Gundotra (Engineering)
+Bradley Horowitz (Product Management)
+Jeff Huber (Commerce & Local)
+Marissa Mayer (Local, Maps & Location Services)
Community Managers
+Melissa Daniels (Chrome OS)
+Brian Rose (Google+ Photos)
+Vanessa Schneider (Google Places)
+Toby Stein (Google+)
+Natalie Villalobos (Google+)
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Employment Opportunities
Thank you for your interest in working for Bank of Utica. If you would like to send us your resume or if you have any questions, please use the form below. We will keep your resume on file for future reference.
Bank of Utica is an Equal Opportunity Employer.


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Fragrance family: Woody
Collection: Trade Routes
100 ml
Eau de Toilette
Your review
Stunningly Unique
Like no other scent. Sharp yet smooth, enigmatic yet familiar. A real gem.
Best Find Ever! Thanks Ruthie!
I am absolutely in love with Lothair! Every time I wear it, people comment on it and always ask me where I got it. I am always tempted to not tell them my secret find lol. To me it has a slight sweet and spice smell. Not too strong.
Magic Every Time
It started with a whiff outside Penhaligon's shop in Paris - Lothair sprayed on a ribbon. It instantly caught me, the scent sending me off to far away places in another time. With a bottle at home and a spare in my travel kit, I now enjoy the magic of Lothair every day, every time.
I love this scent, it's very well balanced and another outstanding creation from Bertrand and Penhaligons. Well done!
I discovered this magnificent perfume after I entered the Rue Saint-Honoré boutique in Paris. The seller was kind enough to make me discover all the fragrances he thought could fit for myself and this one definitely did. The fruitful smell gives you the tonus needed while leaving the house for work and, later, the fig and black tea gives you the serenity and confidence to face every little annoying thing of your day. Since the brand is not that known in France, it gives the feeling of having something precious and unique everytime I wear it. Of course, I certainly recommend it. However, I definitely want to keep it for myself )
Best Sellers
Engrave One's Scentx
Trade Routes
Engrave One's Scentx
PortraitsIt's been a few years since the esteemed Portraits family took permanent residence in Penhaligon's stores around the world. The ever-growing Portraits fragrance collection continues to offer something for everyone.
Lessons On Love1. Londoners are not typically known as the romantics of the world.
William's London: Jermyn Street & St. James's StreetBack in William's day, any self-respecting London dandy could be found bouncing around between Jermyn Street and St. James's Street.
The Joy Of FloralsHave you ever paused to take in the scent of a fresh rose and felt instantly uplifted? This is no mere coincidence.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google disputed U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that the search engine behemoth was displaying only negative news about the president when searching for his name, saying the company does not favor search results for political purposes.
"When users type queries into the Google Search bar, our goal is to make sure they receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds," Google, whose parent company is Alphabet, said in a statement. "Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology. Every year, we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high-quality content in response to users' queries. We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment."
Reporting by Ginger Gibson and David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama


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Tonight, I had a pre- bedtime talk with my oldest sons. And one was pouring out a frustrated heart. He was feeling the pressure of our days and busyness. Busyness can eat away at the beautiful and the good. There is a hecticness at odds with strong, soul-full purposed days. We are feeling some of that and I have been hard pressed to find ways to keep our center and priorities straight at times. In fact, I would say, we haven't been doing too well with that. And it is here that I drink from the cup of grace like a desperate man (woman). And I throw myself wholeheartedly upon the Lord in trust as I have seen Him make a way again and again when I cannot see the way (and O! that is hard for me but O! His amazing faithfulness!!).
But I digress (a bit)… for some of the pent up frustration was coming from a lack of time to write for this particular child. A lack of time to sit and ponder… he told me he had taken to writing in composition books that he could carry with him wherever he was as it can be so challenging to find the time to sit at a computer…but even that routine was being pushed out with a sense of pressure and busyness… not to mention that he was just feeling that he didn't have much time with the full credit load he is carrying plus activities. He is right. He is at his busiest right now and there isn't much time. He is feeling it. He can't hear the writing voice inside of him. There is too much noise.
I looked at that child. And I said(something along these lines)- in the face of his frustration- and yes, fear. Fear for where was that inner place so much a part of him- so muffled now in noise? I said- "To write you need time, and space, and quiet. Time to stretch out and think and listen. And it is natural and normal that you do not have that right now. Wait until after this season and the words will come again. Just because you are busy and cannot hear the stories, doesn't mean that the gift is not in you. The gift is in you." And as the words left my mouth, I startled. And inside I felt a deep inner witness, for I knew in my heart, I was also speaking to myself. I was speaking to myself. And the grace I offered my child, is the grace offered to me.
And of course, my mind went a hundred directions on how could we possibly better organize time to give a routine that would enable him to write. But I didn't offer any of that this night. I didn't offer a solution to the problem or figure out a way to make it work. I just affirmed. The gift is still within him and that hasn't changed because the circumstances of his life are pressing in a different way and we are just figuring out how to get through and stay afloat. No. The gift is his forever because it is a part of who he is.
Romans 11:29
English Standard Version (ESV)
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
So, I now take a little time to capture that moment to my own heart. Try to feel the full weight of its impact. And listen. To write…is to truly live. For me. So I do.


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News at Rudy's
The News-Sentinel, August 9, 2011, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Can wine, cigar club spark renewal at ballpark?
Owners hope it inspires other private investment. - A column by Kevin Leininger
Since the mostly taxpayer-funded Parkview Field opened downtown three seasons ago, the $30 million ballpark has largely failed to attract the hoped-for stream of private investment to the immediate area. But two local businessmen hope to change that — and in the process continue the legacy of a failed experiment that deserved a better fate.
Sometime before the TinCaps' next Opening Day, Rudolph "Rudy" Mahara and Hans Sheridan plan to open a beer, wine and cigar bar in a restored Victorian house at 409 W. Brackenridge St. that might seem unremarkable but for two things:
The two men hope the project, just a block or so southwest of Parkview Field, will inspire others to make similar investments and eventually revive what remains a partially blighted area despite the city's largesse.
The still-unnamed bar will feature many remnants of the Esquire Cigar Club, which for 17 often-tumultuous months operated in a lovingly remodeled 19th-century schoolhouse off Illinois Road until financial and family issues forced owner Dan Hoffman to pull the plug in January.
"There's no way this would have happened if not for Dan," said Mahara, who was among the Esquire's first members but didn't have wine and cigars in mind when he paid about $30,000 for the house on Brackenridge last year.
"I was on the fence about (building) Parkview Field. But the first time I went to a TinCaps game I thought, 'What a jewel.' Then I walked out and looked around the neighborhood," said Mahara, president of Strategic Benefits Consultants North East. What Mahara saw didn't sparkle nearly so brightly, so when he noticed the house for sale some time later, he decided its restoration might inspire others to do the same.
Just one problem: Mahara wasn't sure relocating his financial-services firm to a neighborhood in need of a makeover would be good for business. So he and Sheridan, a fellow cigar enthusiast and director of marketing and client development at Maraha's firm, looked around for Plan B.
Mahara found it in his fond memories of the Esquire, with a little help from his wife, who after some initial trepidation made a suggestion that will help make the business unique.
"We have a beer, wine and tobacco license, and concentrating on Indiana wines was Susan's idea," said Mahara, noting that about 30 percent of Indiana's wineries sell their products commercially.
"The nice thing is that the house was never chopped up (into apartments), and still has many of its original features." Restoration of the exterior, the design of which will be reviewed by city planners later this month, will cost about $40,000, and Sheridan said he hopes to receive a grant of $20,000 from the city's Redevelopment Commission. Sheridan is an ex-Fort Wayne Community Schools administrator who also served as Wayne High School principal.
The Esquire failed in part because its original business model ran afoul of the state Excise Police even before it opened. Because city law prohibits smoking in bars, Hoffman thought he could comply by allowing members to bring in their own liquor. When the state disagreed, membership suffered because — as every aficionado knows — a cigar in one hand is best enjoyed with something wet in the other.
Mahara said his business will comply with the law by offering catered food and beverages inside, with smoking outside, mostly in a "beer garden" on the backyard deck. Some of the furniture and fixtures will be familiar to Esquire patrons, but Mahara hopes the place will develop an identity and following of its own.
"There are 6,000 people a game just a few feet from our front door. Maybe some of them will get tired in the fifth inning (and want a beer and cigar)," said Mahara, who hopes to at least break even on the venture.
"This is mission-driven, a labor of love," he said. "The neighborhood isn't 'there' yet, but we've met a lot of nice people here. The main thing is to fix up the area so that, maybe one day, it's overflowing with shops."
That would be fine with city Redevelopment Director Greg Leatherman. "This is the kind of catalyst project you hope for when you do a project like Harrison Square (which included Parkview Field and other projects)," he said.
By Kevin Leininger of The News-Sentinel
Hans Sheridan, left, and Rudy Mahara hope their plan to fix this house at 409 W. Brackenridge St. into an upscale beer, wine and cigar bar will help spark a renewal around Parkview Field.
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Here's a 3 minutes and 22 seconds What Is The Best Way To Prevent Heartburn Naturally video. See full transcript below.
Each week, 1 out of 5 people experience that painful burning sensation in their chest and throats. This intense pain is known as heart burn and happens when the acids from your stomach refluxes to your esophagus and throat. You can prevent heartburn from happening. Just watch this 3 minute and 27 videos to learn more.
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To find this video on our Youtube Channel, please click the link below:
What Is The Best Way To Prevent Heartburn Naturally
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Phone: (07) 5527 4300
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
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We are open: Monday – Friday 9 AM – 6 PM
If you are ready to get started…


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It has been a while, true. Give me a break, I have been exploring some Greek Islands! But really, that's what I have been up to the past two weekends and now that I am back and sun-kissed, I am ready to share all the strange, beautiful, and unexpected happenings.
First we travel back to last Saturday when I went with three other ladies from the program (Annie, Milica, and Miranda) to the nearby island of Aegina. We arrived with zero plans other than the intent to explore as much as possible. After sampling some of the island's famous pistachio nuts, we rented four-wheelers to cruise around the island. After growing up in Wisconsin, it was pretty crazy that this was my first time driving one! The man giving us directions observed my newness astutely as he stated "No driver, no driver" but nonetheless allowed us to drive away. We caught on quite quickly and soon were making our way across the island.
Our first stop was the Church of Saint Nectarios. This was initially a monastery established by the Saint himself in 1904. As we wandered the outskirts of the Orthodox church I found a lovely nun who pointed us in the right direction of the entrance to the actual chapel. Something you notice after visiting many Orthodox churches is that they spare no extravagance; chandeliers, carved wood, tapestries, painted ceilings, icons, and absolutely stunning apses and tabernacles. Sadly, there was scaffolding taking up the entire middle of the church, a view up the aisle was near impossible.
We set off again to find (literally. because we took a few wrong turns) our way across the island. Through some detours and nature walks, we eventually found ourselves having a little picnic before checking out the Temple. While enjoying our snacks of almonds and apples, a middle-aged woman starting making conversation with us. A friendly local who used to own a shop by the shore and now lives elsewhere on the island. After recommending another location to visit on the island she invited us over for lunch followed by outrageously complicated directions to her home ("back the way you came . . . a left, and then a right, then it goes sort of up a hill, there's a bakery, then a white van, then two bins, that's my street . . . " etc). Greek hospitality, right? Well, we will put a hold on that story for now.
With our student-discount tickets acquired we entered the ancient site to see the Temple of Aphaia. Although this temple was erected around 500 BC this site has evidence of cut activity since the 14th century BC. Not much is actually known about this strong Archaic Temple. it was originally thought that it was to Athena because of her appearance on the pediment reliefs but inscriptions indicated that it was to Aphaia, a fertility goddess. A sweet temple, if I do say so myself, and a pretty spectacular view.
Next was our trip to a monastery per our new friend's recommendation. This was the Monastery of Agios Minas. Saint Minas was an Egyptian martyr in very early 4th century AD. We arrived at the same time as a large tour group so, allowed or not, we followed them in. The courtyard was beautiful and the chapels, of course, were as well. I was reprimanded for attempting to take a picture so I resort to stealing a sneaky photo of Miranda's of the beautifully painted iconic ceiling.
Between the lovely weather, fabulous company, and the gorgeous landscapes we wanted to stay on Aegina forever. It is here that we return to the strange and complicated tale of our friend from the temple. It is quite a saga so here you will receive a very much abridged version. We set off to try and locate this woman's house and through much trial, error, and eventually her happening to pass us on the road, we found it. Long story short (for those of you who know me, making a short story is quite the feat for me), we made a delicious lunch, hung out with her visiting aunt who was awesome and decked out with self-crocheted clothing, talked, ate, then she got strangely and subtlety bossy/controlling, invited us to stay the night, and we left . . . quite quickly.
The best way I can explain it is by providing the analogy of the Land of the Lotus Eaters in the Odyssey "They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return". For some reason while the whole series of events were unfolding it did not seem strange. Only as we were speeding away on our four-wheelers mush like Odysseus' men fleeing on their ships did we realize the craziness of it all.
I am happy to report that we made it safely back to the port. We returned the bikes, and shopped for some of Aegina's famous pistachios. Yum! Then we rested on the port, and watched the sun set over the sea-green water and admired the full moon as we recapped literally the strangest day of my life.
None of us would have guessed that we would have such an adventurous day when we set out at 6:00am to visit our first Greek Island. Aegina will always hold a special (and weird) place in our hearts that only the four of us will truly understand. A valuable lesson was learned that day of walking the line between being open to new experiences and staying logical and prudent in decision-making. I'd like to say I have since mastered this skill, but alas, I am still a work-in-progress.
"Prudence is the footprint of Wisdom." ― Amos Bronson Alcott


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goto Standards / goto Tools
Next to standards and recommendations there is interesting reading material that can help with the implementation of ISO 15926
The main page of a wiki with large body of W3C information. The goal of this wiki is to provide a "first stop" for more information on Semantic Web technologies, in particular on Semantic Web Standards published by the W3C.
Jena Tutorials
The following tutorials take a step-by-step approach to explaining aspects of
RDF and linked-data applications programming in Jena. For a more task-oriented
description, please see the getting started guide.
click here
This page is for references to signed quotes of deployments of large triples stores rather than predictions of what some software might scale to.
How is a UUID / GUID made
HDF4 Specification and Developer's Guide
The Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) was designed to be an easy, straight-forward, and selfdescribing
means of sharing scientific data among people, projects, and types of computers. An
extensible header and carefully crafted internal layers provide a system that can grow as scientific
data-handling needs evolve.
Introduction to HDF5
Hierarchical Data Format is the name of a file format and libraries designed to store and organize large amounts of numerical data. For example time series of measured process values.
Web Authorization Protocol (OAuth)
The OAuth 2.0 authorization framework enables a third-party application to obtain limited access to an HTTP service, either on behalf of a resource owner by orchestrating an approval interaction between the resource owner and the HTTP service, or by allowing the third-party application to obtain access on its own behalf.
Content negotiation with hash URIs
A weblog by Richard Cyganiak
Strategies for Building Semantic Web Applications
A set of strategies for building Semantic Web / Linked Data applications based on criteria such as the application domain and relevant tools plus supporting information such as App Stores where the applications can be sold.
RDF Validation Workshop Report -
Practical Assurances for Quality RDF Data, 10-11 September 2013, Cambridge, MA, USA
The RDF Validation Workshop drew 27 participants from industry, government and academia. There was consensus on the need for:
A 4-Dimensionalist Mereotopology
by John G. Stell and Matthew West
A formal ontology within the four dimensionalist (4D) paradigm, showing how the algebraic description of spatial mereotopology can be enriched to provide a mereotopology in which the entities are spatio-temporal, rather than spatial, regions. With the 4D approachit is natural to identify a period of time with all of space during that time, and thus to model temporal relations by relations between spatio-temporal regions.
Mathematical Background
by John F. Sowa
Brief introductions to:
Sets, Bags, and Sequences | Functions | Lambda Calculus | Graphs | Relations | Representing Relations by Graphs | Lattices | Propositional Logic | Predicate Logic | Axioms and Proofs | Formal Grammars | Game Graphs | Model Theory | References
The Open Logic Text
by the Open Logic Project
An open-source, collaborative textbook of formal metalogic and formal methods, starting at an intermediate level (i.e., after an introductory formal logic course). Though aimed at a non-mathematical audience (in particular, students of philosophy and computer science), it is rigorous.
JORD ISO 15926 RDS ID Requirements & Implementation Specification
Defines fundamental requirements and implementation conventions adopted by JORD for identification of reference data concerned with both its management and its use. As such this specification forms a part of the requirements for the JORD PCA RDS.
Operations and Maintenance Information Needs Survey - Results
Documents results of a survey conducted by the FIATECH Lifecycle Data Management (LCDM) project's task force on Operations and Maintenance Information Needs.
ISO 15926 - Original purpose and possible future
Temporal Parts
Position Paper: Deficiencies of World Wide Web Architecture
The World Wide Web is becoming global communication medium. However it was originally designed as a hyper-media system for static content. The original architecture of World Wide Web exhibits problems when applied to the current dynamic environment.
RDF Needs Annotations
Position Paper: While the current mechanism of reification in RDF is without semantics and widely considered inappropriate and cumbersome, some form of reification – speaking about triples themselves – is needed in RDF for many reasonable applications: in particular, reification allows for enhancing triples with annotations relating to provenance, spatio-temporal validity, degrees of trust, fuzzy values and/or other contextual information.
On RDF Validation
A video by Bob DuCharme that is helpful for people who are new to SPARQL.
Learning SPARQL, 2nd Edition
Querying and Updating with SPARQL 1.1
by Bob DuCharme
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Released: July 2013
Gain hands-on experience with SPARQL, the RDF query language that's bringing new possibilities to semantic web, linked data, and big data projects. This updated and expanded edition shows you how to use SPARQL 1.1 with a variety of tools to retrieve, manipulate, and federate data from the public web as well as from private sources.
Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space
by Tom Heath and Christian Bizer
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
Released: 2011
There is a growing desire for direct access to raw data not currently available on the Web or bound up in hypertext documents. Linked Data provides a publishing paradigm in which not only documents, but also data, can be a first class citizen of the Web, thereby enabling the extension of the Web with a global data space based on open standards - the Web of Data.
This ppt file which is working towards gaining consensus on the P&ID implementation model. The minimum specification required for the graphical content of a P&ID. Submit any thoughts on terminology, structure etc that are not suitable. It is understood that the content of a P&ID system may be larger than its graphical representation but we should be able to agree on the basic framework.


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Molecular Farming of BMPs and Fibronectin
Biobusiness Grant Recipient: James R. Thompson, PhD
Grant Period: 2018-2019
Award Value: $98,210
Site: MNPHARM SBC
Project Summary: The goal of this project is to prove that commercial production of regenerative proteins can be made consistently and with a significant cost reduction. There is a large commercial demand for products manufactured from these proteins if they can be made more cost effectively. MNPHARM's approach is a measurable improvement over current production methods of BMP2 where cost has prohibited the expansion of the medical treatments.


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The seafarer module designed to keep and manage seafarer data which is used in all other specialized crewing modules like planning, contract, payroll, clearing, banking etc. Seafarer data page contains basic data, additional details, bankaccounts, contracts, crew details and documents categorized by categories.
Operator can run reports like "seafarer details", "documents set", "candidate" and many more. All reports are full customizable. Visibilty of available reports can be managed by different conditions like nationality, rank, agency, type of application.
Seafarer data contains documents, which are divided by category. There are predefined following types of categories:
- licences
- courses
- former sea service
- next of kin
- photos
- uniforms
Document categories are managed by administrator. Each category can contains defined custom fields. To see more about custom fields go to customization section.
Checking documents
Quality of managed services by agency or company depend on quality of system data. So very important is to supply checked and verfied seafarer data. To do this, system is equipped with special documents checking engine, which is full customizable. Administrator may define defferent types of checking, depends on requirements of agency customers. Checking process can different for different nationality, rank, age and document property. The result of checking has three levels: ok, warning and failed.
System offer many types of seafarer's searching by standard fields, history fields, documents fields, contracts, crew, and planning. Each type of searching can be stored and combined with other. In this way operator can recieve specific range of particular data.
Operator can store searching results to special list, called flag list. This is temporary list used to veryfing all seafarer's requirements and make decision about next steps of planings, contracts etc.
The basic data are personal data: firstname, lastname, rank, nationality, address etc. Bank accounts are stored as additional list
- seafarer data:
keep personal and special maritime data
- Documents:
store categorized data by history, licences, courses, family, national, contract reports, education, employment, NOK, working uniforms, and many more customized options
- Files and scans:
store scanned documents and files with links to the documents
- Flag lists and filters:
searching seafarer by different conditions and storing results in special lists to analyze
- Lists of different seafarer data:
contracts, crew, history and many more data in filters and result lists
- Checking documents:
define rules for checking data of seafarer