Pornosophy: Moby-Dick vs The Humpty Dance, An Essay in Comparative Nonsense

etching of Joseph O. Eaton’s portrait of Herman Melville 

“Call me Ishmael”is the famous opening line of Melville’s Moby-Dick.  “My name is Humpty” is a defining moment in Digital Underground’s Humpty Dance. The syntactical parallel is not without significance since both works of art are inured in phallic imagery. What better symbol of phallic worship than a novel titled Moby-Dick about a big white whale. Similarly when Shock G cries “I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom,” he is making no secret about the fact that he enjoys employing his penis. He enjoys employing it so much that he will do so even in inappropriate situations. Ahab might also said to indulging in edgy behavior in the pursuit of his obsession, in that he puts not only his life, but the lives of his crew in danger as he gives chase to the whale. Maybe he doesn’t go so far as Humpty Hump when it comes to being caught with his pants down. However he certainly goes after Moby in nature’s bathroom, the ocean, where his vaunted whale resides. It’s important to remember that Melville and Digital Underground are storytellers at heart. The phallus is both an object of worship as well as narrative device to the extent that both are intent on telling a whale of a tale. It should also be noted that that in terms of classical dream interpretation, the whale is a symbol of snot. When children are reprimanded for picking their noses, their parents or teachers attempt to embarrass them by asking if they have caught a whale. And in the famous "Humpty Dance" video, Humpty Hump's overly large nose has a whale like capacity for mucus. The nose lays like a dark cloud over the rest of the video, to the extent that it threatens to unleash its contents on his crowd of admirers.

Montreal Journal II: On the Waterfront

photograph by Hallie Cohen

There were two great immigrations to Montreal, one in the 1840’s which resulted from the Irish famine and also brought many English and Scots to the city. Then there was one which extended from l896-1914 in which three million immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy and Germany arrived. By 1880 large companies like Cunard and White Star were using Montreal as a way station for voyages to Europe and down the Northeast coast of the United States.You can read all about this, if you journey down to the Old Port of Montreal. On the way you will pass the remains of L’Hopital General de Montreal which was built in 1693. It’s the second oldest building in Montreal and emanates before any of the major immigrations. A few huge tankers and barges still line the old waterfront today, though the port of Montreal was moved further down the St. Lawrence in l976. The Algoma Montrealis out of Toronto is locked in ice like an heirloom, its huge propellers and rudders looking like the fins of an oversized fish caught in a net. And then there’s Bota, a ship that has been turned into a spa, where you can ponder Chapter 42-The Whiteness of The Whale from Moby Dick, enjoying the relief of frigid air after you’ve sizzled in the deck side jacuzzi. There’s a hole cut in the icy river for those who need to refresh themselves before re entering the hot tub and also steam baths and saunas. And the meditative element is encouraged by a policy of strict silence on the vessel. But as you arrive a freight train is still pulling its load along an overpass, as a reminder of the day when the comings and goings of people and goods were still the major occupations of this once busy and noisy port area.

Thailand Journal X:The Julian Schnabel of Chiang Rai

                                                                      Photo: JJ Harrison

There are a number of reasons travelers visit Chiang Rai province in Northern Thailand, chief among them being the proximity to the Golden Triangle. But there are two other major attractions: the spectacularly delicious small pineapples and The White Temple or Wat Rong Khun a work of art by the Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat. The whiteness of the temple is part of its subversion since many temples in Thailand use gold especially for their Buddhas.  The Whiteness of the Temple calls to mind Chapter 42 of Moby Dick “The Whiteness of the Whale,” in its enormous ambition. The temple is really an essay in demonology containing as it does modern anti-Christs as varied as Osama Bin Laden and George Bush. Kositpipat is an expansive figure, who was eager to chat with strangers waiting to depart for a flight to Bangkok at the Chiang Rai airport. Modestly dressed in blue denim and sandals, he looked more like a mid-Twentieth Century revolutionary figure than a 21^st Century artist and provocateur in the style Julian Schnabel or Ai Weiwei, as he talked openly about his wealth and the ll0 assistants who work with him on the temple. Naturally Buddhist themes infuse his work, though the kind of worshippers who come to his temple might more likely be found in Chelsea. "I intend to remain a painter for the cause of Buddhism until the last day of my life," he has commented.  "Nothing can ever change me or divert me from this course...."