The white whale

Well, I did it. I finally finished "Moby Dick".



It wasn't easy but I'm glad I stuck with it. The more I think about it, I think the white whale is a symbol for the book itself: a massive thing to conquer, you have to possess the monomania of Ahab to get through this dense, difficult, and let's call it, boring book, one where the ideas of it are much better than the actual experience.
So now I can put it back on the shelf and know that I accomplished the task.
Call me, Ish-hausted.

The Crass(?) Menagerie

I realized the other day that I've decorated this house with a lot of animals. Not just a few, but A LOT.
And I'm not even that big of an animal lover! Maybe it's because it's a quasi country cottage I've felt an animal motif sits well with the decor.
In any event I thought I'd catalogue the whole zoo in this post. The genesis of some of these pieces has been described in previous posts; this is just fun viewing of the collection.

There are 3 DEER:







A SHARK:



Some STRIPED BASS:



A ROOSTER:



4 RACCOONS (my spirit animal):









A SQUIRREL:



A CROW:



A BEE:



3 WHALES:







A MOOSE:



A STARFISH:



A PARAKEET:



A BLUEJAY:



A PIG:



A HORSE:



And a COCKER SPANIEL:

The branding iron candlestick

A few years ago my mom found an old branding iron in a thrift shop. She sent it to me as a gift because it contained two of my initials and she thought it would look good in the house. The handle had an open end and it turned out to be a good candle holder. I ended up keeping it on the coffee table.



Cut to the other day when I was throwing out cardboard boxes in the basement. In the box that she sent me the iron was a wooden base still wrapped in newspaper. I had overlooked finding it when I initially got the package. I decided to paint it and age it a bit with sandpaper to give it that worn look. The iron sits perfectly on the base with grooves where the initials sit. Very cool.

A whale of a cutting board

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm reading "Moby Dick". Well, just like Captain Ahab, I've had whales on the brain. I got the notion that a whale shape would make a good cutting board shape. I've made one before in this shape but it was quite large and long. My new idea was to do a more condensed cartoon-y shaped one in a more square-ish shape. I Googled "whale cutting board" and got some ideas, but none of these were quite what I wanted.



The tail wasn't right and I wanted a more graphic boxy shape.
I did a sketch as a guide for the vision.



And here's the finished product, I like it a lot :)



UPDATE: I initially wanted the cutting side of the board where the whale was facing left, like the drawing I did. But after I cut it out I realized that there was a large knothole on that side, and it looked like the eye of the animal even though it was in the entirely wrong place anatomically. So I flipped it over and now use the side where he faces right. But then I had a brainstorm: what if I burned the "name" of the board on the back so that there would never be that confusion? Well, I think it works :) Especially if I ever want to use that side for cutting!

The "cyclone bomb"

We had our first big winter storm a couple of days ago. The media made a huge deal of it. They described this one as a weird combo of winter storm and cyclone.



I got to the house yesterday late afternoon, I wanted to give it a couple of days for the LIE to get cleared up. It was bright and sunny so I thought it would be a good day to travel. But it's still bitterly cold. Supposedly last night it felt like -10 to -20 degrees with the wind chill factor. Really?? Yikes, I didn't go out. I made a nice roaring fire and watched one of my favorite new obsessions, "Somerset Murders", a British TV series where there's always a murder in a little country village. It's very Miss Marple. The perfect thing to curl up with on your laptop while the fire is crackling. :)



I went for a walk into town today to get groceries. Here's a pic of the house. Lots of snow but I can remember times when we've had MUCH more snow. This feels just average.

Moby Dick

As I stated in my last post, I'm reading Moby Dick. At 56 it's high time I read this literary classic. I'm about 2/3 of the way thru and the word is "dense". It's not as hard as I thought it would be, but it's not a page turner either. When Melville actually focuses on the story of Ahab and the whale (as told by the narrator, Ishmael), it's accessible. But so much of the book is a dry explanation of whaling and the biology of whales. I'm glad I'm reading it though. I'm using an old paperback copy of it that I've had for probably 30 years. I think I got it when I worked at Waldenbooks in college. The cover is brittle and the edges of the pages are yellowed.



One thing I do like is all the Moby Dick related information and artwork on the web, like the character studies of Ahab, Queequeg, and Ishamael.







I'm also following an online website that's like the old Cliffs Notes we used to use in high school. It makes it easy to keep up with the story and helps explain some of the themes and symbolism.