It is actually funny--A multimedia EXTRAVAGANZA
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Who's on first?
Yes, it's magic lantern day today, and, if you are moving in a linear fashion from top to bottom, you have watched two scenes which most people find humorous. First, you see John Candy and Steve Martin spooning. Then, a famous comedy routine about the confusion which can be caused by homonyms and interrogative pronouns. Do you not see similarities between these scenes and scenes in your novel?
Peter Coffin is an elaborate jokester. (I like to think he had PLENTY of room in his inn and really was just waiting and waiting and waiting to hear that greenhorn who calls himself "Ishmael" start howling and whimpering and that head-peddling rascal start bellowing--oh, such sport!) He sets the whole thing up. He tells a poop joke (page 32, footnote 5 should be crossed out and replaced with the words "poop joke" or just "poop," for those who are into the whole brevity thing). He whittles toothpicks. It's cold in New Bedford in winter and I'd imagine that there are few opportunities for such hilarities. I kind of dig this guy. In the end, he gets his laugh and, as a consequence, Ishmael gets a friend, and wakes up quite comically.
I would say "visualize it." But you just watched John Candy and Steve Martin.
I would say "try to hear Ishmael ramp up about 'selling heads' while Coffin remains calm and maintains a level of purposeful misunderstanding," but you just watched Abbot and Costello.
The book is funny. It's hilarious, really. Just the way Melville phrases things and goes on flights of fancy is astoundingly hilarious, but I'll give a few more examples, for which I couldn't find a youtube video.
There is a scene in the old tv show The Honeymooners in which two main characters (Ralph and Norton) are trying to move a dresser. They can't budge it. Then, Norton says, "Let's take the drawers out." They do. And place them ON TOP OF THE DRESSER. Then, they move it.
Compare to "The Wheelbarrow" (Chapter 13/ page 61) in which Queequeg is loaned a wheelbarrow to help him move his sea chest. Also, a sea captain is ignorant as to the purposes of a tropical punch bowl and the way in which others bless their meals. These oddities, these behaviors which make no sense, are humorous. They are "fish out of water" displays of ignorance which we find odd. For Melville, I think, in this context, this humor highlights (as do SOME of his expressions about organized religion) his theme of cultural relativity. We think Queequeg is odd? Well, Queequeg thinks WE are odd, too. It's all relative to our position in the world and background.
But this image is odd and hilarious to ANYONE ANYWHERE:
There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen’s boats, I saw Hosea’s brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod’s decapitated head, looking very slip-shod, I assure ye. (chapter 15/ page 68)
It's the kind of thing we could easily gloss over as we read the way we read nowadays--seeing a few words as we march through, trying desperately to get somewhere else, like we're driving 85 through West Texas, "Fish......cow.....assure," getting nothing.
But read like you're driving Highway 1 through Big Sur.
Go to page 68. Slow down. Visualize. All senses are engaged. Your milk tastes like fish. It SMELLS like fish. The waves lap up against the beach, beach rock smooth and tumbly under your boot soles, the cow moos, and you see it. A cow seeming to be wearing fish heads on each of her four hooves.
Now that's entertainment. "Slip-shod"? Ha!
Who's on first?
Yes, it's magic lantern day today, and, if you are moving in a linear fashion from top to bottom, you have watched two scenes which most people find humorous. First, you see John Candy and Steve Martin spooning. Then, a famous comedy routine about the confusion which can be caused by homonyms and interrogative pronouns. Do you not see similarities between these scenes and scenes in your novel?
Peter Coffin is an elaborate jokester. (I like to think he had PLENTY of room in his inn and really was just waiting and waiting and waiting to hear that greenhorn who calls himself "Ishmael" start howling and whimpering and that head-peddling rascal start bellowing--oh, such sport!) He sets the whole thing up. He tells a poop joke (page 32, footnote 5 should be crossed out and replaced with the words "poop joke" or just "poop," for those who are into the whole brevity thing). He whittles toothpicks. It's cold in New Bedford in winter and I'd imagine that there are few opportunities for such hilarities. I kind of dig this guy. In the end, he gets his laugh and, as a consequence, Ishmael gets a friend, and wakes up quite comically.
I would say "visualize it." But you just watched John Candy and Steve Martin.
I would say "try to hear Ishmael ramp up about 'selling heads' while Coffin remains calm and maintains a level of purposeful misunderstanding," but you just watched Abbot and Costello.
The book is funny. It's hilarious, really. Just the way Melville phrases things and goes on flights of fancy is astoundingly hilarious, but I'll give a few more examples, for which I couldn't find a youtube video.
There is a scene in the old tv show The Honeymooners in which two main characters (Ralph and Norton) are trying to move a dresser. They can't budge it. Then, Norton says, "Let's take the drawers out." They do. And place them ON TOP OF THE DRESSER. Then, they move it.
Compare to "The Wheelbarrow" (Chapter 13/ page 61) in which Queequeg is loaned a wheelbarrow to help him move his sea chest. Also, a sea captain is ignorant as to the purposes of a tropical punch bowl and the way in which others bless their meals. These oddities, these behaviors which make no sense, are humorous. They are "fish out of water" displays of ignorance which we find odd. For Melville, I think, in this context, this humor highlights (as do SOME of his expressions about organized religion) his theme of cultural relativity. We think Queequeg is odd? Well, Queequeg thinks WE are odd, too. It's all relative to our position in the world and background.
But this image is odd and hilarious to ANYONE ANYWHERE:
There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen’s boats, I saw Hosea’s brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod’s decapitated head, looking very slip-shod, I assure ye. (chapter 15/ page 68)
It's the kind of thing we could easily gloss over as we read the way we read nowadays--seeing a few words as we march through, trying desperately to get somewhere else, like we're driving 85 through West Texas, "Fish......cow.....assure," getting nothing.
But read like you're driving Highway 1 through Big Sur.
Go to page 68. Slow down. Visualize. All senses are engaged. Your milk tastes like fish. It SMELLS like fish. The waves lap up against the beach, beach rock smooth and tumbly under your boot soles, the cow moos, and you see it. A cow seeming to be wearing fish heads on each of her four hooves.
Now that's entertainment. "Slip-shod"? Ha!
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