Swiftboating Obama
Someone named Taylor Marsh has been granted a spot at The Huffington Post (my favorite news site) to try to do her best to make Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee for president. There’s nothing wrong with that — Marsh is pretty open about who she supports, she’s not posing as an objective journalist in this regard.
What I object to is that Clinton and her supporters will do, apparently, anything to get elected, including adopting the tactics of Karl Rove to attack their opponents. The Rove doctrine says: don’t attack an opponent where he’s weakest, attack him where he’s strongest. If a man does important, high-profile work with children, start a whispering campaign that says he’s a child molester. If a man has the compassion to adopt a homeless minority child, tell all the bigots of the nation that “he has a black baby.” And if he’s a certified war hero (and your own candidate is a proven rich-boy draft-dodger) call him a coward and a traitor.
In the case of Obama, since the man is a gifted orator able to move millions of people with his soaring rhetoric of hope and change, call him a plagiarist and say he’s a con man. Obama’s foes, who have spent the past eight years intently studying Rove’s techniques, have little else to go on. They tried at the beginning to do the “attack him where he’s strongest” game, putting out memes like “Is Obama Black Enough?” and “He Has No Ideas Behind His Rhetoric,” both of which are utter hogwash. Now this. A couple of weeks ago, there was a conservative columnist who couldn’t help wondering aloud if Obama could speak so well if he had no teleprompter. That’s right, a man whose hero, George W. Bush, cannot string two words together under any circumstances without sounding like a complete idiot, is worried that Obama might not be so great an orator as he seems to be, and therefore should not become president.
And I keep waiting, but I’m not seeing the Obama camp coming up with crap like this. There’s plenty a crafty, cynical politician could do to smear Clinton and McCain, but I don’t see Obama or his staff doing that. Which I think accounts for a lot of why Clinton isn’t doing as well as she’d like to be.
(For what it’s worth, at least at HuffPo they let other columnists answer ridiculous charges.)
Sam on Temple of Doom
I’ll admit, I was a little nervous about showing Sam (6) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It’s darker than Raiders, its sexuality is bothmore “adult” and more juvenile, its violence is more brutal, it shows children being whipped and people being lowered into boiling lava after having their still-beating hearts ripped out, its protagonist turns evil, all that stuff.
With one exception. The character of Willie Scott didn’t bother him for her whining, shrieking girlishness or her shallow, conniving gold-digging — she bothered Sam because she wasn’t Marion Ravenwood. “Wait — there’s a different woman every time?” he asked, a little worried. I’m not sure what his concern was, and I wasn’t sure how to discuss it, but it seemed to worry him that Indiana Jones, having professed his love to Marion in the last movie, is now running around with anyone else. In his world, I reckon, a man chooses a woman and that’s his mate for the rest of his life. After all, Anakin Skywalker doesn’t have a string of honeys on his way to becoming a Jedi — he picks his mate when he’s nine years old and sticks with her until she dies in childbirth, and then he’s alone forever. That’s the way it’s supposed to go.
(Once he got accustomed to the idea of Indiana Jones’s serial monogamy, he began to wonder about who might be “the woman” in the new movie. He’s kind of hoping it’s this person, but I assured him that Marion Ravenwood is back — and about damn time too, in my opinion. Karen Allen, one of my all-time movieland crushes, looks fabulous.)
Apart from that, Sam was terribly excited by Temple of Doom. He accepted the “wtf?” dance number that opens the movie, he loved the nightclub shootout and the car chase through the streets and the dive out of the airplane. As usual, he had no trouble following the exposition, even when it was delivered by men with strong accents during scenes of people eating live snakes and chilled monkey brains. I think that’s all down to Spielberg’s uncanny visual sense — I can’t think of another director, from Hollywood or elsewhere, who is able to convey so much story simply through choice of images. When Indy and company show up at the deserted Indian village, with its brown fields and bare trees and homely, sad people, Sam, who has never been to India and knows little of Hinduism, immediately said “What’s the matter with the village? Where is everyone? Did someone take the children? Why would someone take their children?” None of these plot-points had been hinted at in the dialogue, yet Sam instantly understood the emotional hook of the movie and its central mystery, instantly knew what the protagonist would want. He was easily ten minutes ahead of the narrative, which eventually has a bony child wandering into the village clutching, for no discernible reason, a fragment of an ancient scroll that explains the thing about the magic rock that blah de blah de blah.
Sam did crawl up into my lap when the Thugee ceremony began (let’s face it, it’s not every day you see a man lowered into boiling lava), but minutes later he was confiding in me that he liked Temple of Doom “better than the first one” and by the time the mine-car chase came along, Sam was moved to start this conversation:
SAM: Is the movie almost over?
DAD: Oh no — they’ve got a whole lot more to go.
SAM: Good! I don’t ever want it to end.
I’m totally with Sam on this point. For all of Temple‘s brutality and darkness, once the third act of kicks in it becomes a non-stop cliff-hanging thrill machine, one unrivaled in cinema in terms of sheer inventiveness, joy and wit.
(I intend to analyze the Indiana Jones movies, and the rest of Spielberg’s work in the near future, but Sam pointed out one piece of art direction that had eluded me through many viewings of this movie: the stage in Willie’s nightclub act at the beginning of the movie is echoed in the Temple of Doom design, with the symmetrical dragon head being replaced by a giant skull. Both Willie’s act and Mola Ram’s sacrifice ritual are, essentially, show business, created to achieve an emotional effect. Both ceremonies also include unexplained, fantastic events: Mola Ram is able to take a man’s still-beating heart from his chest and have him stay alive, and Willie is able to enter her dragon’s mouth and participate an elaborate, impossible dance routine.)
Literary Oddities: You Can Survive the Bomb
Pulled this out of a long-forgotten box of books earlier. No, it’s not a self-help book written by Ben Affleck, it’s a classic 1961 slab of grim cold-war profiteering by one Col. Mel Mawrence.
The front cover blurb reads, in its entirety, “This book is a myth-shattering guide to bomb survival which offers new hope for millions of Americans. It firmly contradicts the ‘certain death’ psychology of well-meaning but mistaken spreaders of despair and…”
Despair and what? For god’s sake man, don’t leave us hanging! Luckily, the blurb continues on the back cover:
Read more
R.I.P. Ben Stein
Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Beloved Writer/Actor/Game-show-host Ben Stein is not dead — he’s just left the human race.
Then, in the past year or so, Stein started to make these bizarre appearances on news programs, where he would say things that weren’t merely “conservative” in their viewpoint (which I could respect) but demonstrably wrong. And then he would underline his points by saying something completely insane. And I thought “Gee, maybe Ben should stay at home more.”
Alas, he has decided to go in the opposite direction. He is the star of Expelled, a new “Michael Moore-style” documentary on this ridiculous piece-of-crap notion of “Intelligent Design.” When I first read of this new documentary, I thought perhaps Stein had regained his sanity and had made a movie about the obvious stupidity of not only Intelligent Design but of the stupid, bullying zealots who actively campaign every day to make American children dumber. Surely, I thought, a man as intelligent and well-read as Ben Stein wouldn’t be caught dead supporting a cause as ridiculous as this, would he?
Well, turns out, yes. He would. He has.
Look at that title again: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. That sure sounds like a movie in favor of intelligence, doesn’t it? Good trick guys! Make a movie designed to blunt the edge of scientific achievement and make it sound like it’s arguing in favor of intelligence! Classic Rovian strategy of attacking your opponent where he’s strongest — if schools exist to make students smarter, let’s make a movie that says that they make students dumber!
I was about to chortle about how this movie has no chance of making its money back, but guess what? The producers beat me to it!
Unlike most movies, “Expelled” may be looking to effect policy change more than rack up B.O.
“It’s not important to me whether it makes money. I’ve already been paid, and I might add quite modestly at that,” says Stein, who is making the rounds from college campuses to “The O’Reilly Factor” to evangelical church screenings to promote the film. “I’m hoping that (schools) will at least allow in science classes someone to say, ‘What if it’s not Darwinism, but what if there was some intelligent designer who created the universe?’ “
See? All Ben Stein wants is to create an environment where something besides science is taught in science class! What’s the matter with our world, when we are so caught up in our mania for categorization that we insist on teaching only science in science class! Why can’t we teach Pet Care in math class, or Industrial Welding in Home Economics, or Skydiving in English class?
Watching Raiders with Sam
As there is a new Indiana Jones movie coming out in May, and a new Lego Indiana Jones video game coming out soon after, I decided Sam (6) should see Raiders of the Lost Ark now, before all the cool parts have been reduced to mere slapstick comedy beats through the lovable antics of the Lego characters (we’ve already had many discussions of how the Star Wars movies differ from their Lego counterparts).
I knew what he meant. Raiders, for those who were not born yet in 1981, was a bolt from the blue. I had seen a lot of movies by the time I was 19 years old, and considered myself a pretty sophisticated moviegoer, but I had never seen anything remotely like Raiders when it came out. As Rolling Stone described it, it was a movie of all “good parts.” I sat in the theater slack-jawed, wondering, if it’s possible to make a movie like this, why aren’t all movies like this? It was grittier and more “adult” than Star Wars, swifter than any ten James Bond adventures, more fun than any movie in memory, with incredible action sequences that still hold up today as masterworks of movement, suspense, wit and pure kinetic genius.
Anyway, Sam had never seen it before and I was curious how he would react. He knows nothing about ancient Hebrew artifacts, Nazis or Nepal, and it turns out it doesn’t matter. He knew that the Nazis were the bad guys, Belloq was a more complicated bad guy (“it’s like he’s working with the bad guys, but he’s more like Indiana Jones, and they could almost be friends” was the way he put it, which put him yards ahead of my initial reading of the movie), and, in spite of a ton of exposition delivered by men in suits in Reel 2, he had no trouble following the whole complicated “Staff-of-Ra-leads-to-the-Well-of-Souls-leads-to-the-Ark-of-the-Covenant” storyline. He noted that the music sounded like Star Wars, that Indiana Jones reminded him of Han Solo, and that Cairo looked like Tatooine. Most impressively, in the middle of the truck chase he pointed out that one guy who falls off the back of the truck screams exactly like Boba Fett (actually a Weequay) falling into the pit of the Sarlacc.
Then he crept around the house for the rest of the afternoon, jumping out from behind things with a plastic axe when I least expected it. I don’t know if he was pretending to be a spy, or a crafty native, a Nazi or a living booby-trap but he seemed to enjoy the movie.
The Whale part 6
(A ship, the Rachel, pulls up alongside the Pequod.)
SAILOR. A ship! A ship!
(Activity. The crew comes out on deck. Ahab stands at the rail. The captain of the Rachel, Gardiner, and his mates appear at their rail.)
STARBUCK. It’s the Rachel. Out of Nantucket.
AHAB. That would be Gardiner. (to Gardiner) Have you seen the white whale?
GARDINER. Ahab! Thank God!
AHAB. Have you seen the white whale?
GARDINER. Yesterday – have you seen a whale boat?
AHAB. Yesterday! Where? Where was he? Not killed! You didn’t kill him, did you? What happened?
GARDINER. Have you seen a whale boat? We lost a whale boat. Will you help us search?
AHAB. Where exactly did you see the whale?
GARDINER. We have to find that whale boat! Please help us find it! It’s very important!
STUBB. What was on it? Your watch?
(Everyone on the Pequod laughs.)
GARDINER. My son.
(The laughter dies.)
My boy. My boy was in that boat. Please. Please help me find him. It’s been almost a day and we can’t find him. Please help us look for him. Me. Help me. I beg you. We have to –
AHAB. WHERE EXACTLY DID YOU SEE THE WHITE WHALE?
GARDINER. I’ll, I’ll charter your ship! I’ll pay for it, I don’t care what it costs. You have to help me. You have to.
SAILOR. His son is dead. They’re all dead.
AHAB.(to Starbuck) What do you suppose is this man’s problem that he can’t answer a simple question?
GARDINER. Just say yes. Just tell me yes. You must say yes to me. I won’t go until you say yes. The golden rule.
Sir. Captain Ahab. Your own boy. Your own child. Safe at home. What do you say? What is your answer?
STARBUCK.(to Ahab) Shall I give orders to follow her, sir?
AHAB. Why isn’t he telling me what I want to know?
GARDINER. What is your answer?
AHAB. My answer is no. Captain Gardiner, I’m losing time. Good bye. Good bye and God bless you. I have to go. Mr. Starbuck! The binnacle!
(He exits. Everyone watches him go. There’s a sick pause. Gardiner steps down from his rail, almost falling. His mates help him away. The Rachel glides away slowly as everyone watches. Fade out.)
NINETEEN
(The deck. Typhoon. Action. Men scurry about. Rigging. Alarum.)
STUBB.(singing) Oh! Jolly is the gale, and a joker is the whale, a’flourishing his tail – such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, jokey, hokey-pokey lad is the ocean, oh!
STARBUCK. Can it with the singing, Stubb! The typhoon is singing hard enough!
STUBB. I’ll stop singing when you cut my throat, Mr. Starbuck! And I’ll sing you the doxology for the wind-up!
STARBUCK. You’re as crazy as Ahab!
STUBB. Where the hell is all this wind coming from?
STARBUCK. It’s from the east! Look! If we can turn the ship around, it’ll blow us all the way back home!
STUBB. How the hell can you tell which direction it is?!
STARBUCK. The quadrant!
(He produces a quadrant.)
I’m going to chart us a course to turn us around and get us the hell out of here! We’re heading right into the storm! We have to –
(Ahab appears, carrying his harpoon.)
AHAB. Yes! The quadrant! I’ve been looking for that!
(He takes it from Starbuck.)
The quadrant! The direction-finder! The useless toy! Don’t you agree that the quadrant is useless, Mr. Starbuck?! What can it tell you? Nothing!
STARBUCK. It tells you where you are!
AHAB. What kind of idiot needs to know that?! I know EXACTLY where I am! I’m RIGHT HERE! I’m RIGHT HERE! This toy can’t tell me what I NEED! It can’t tell me where one grain of sand, one puff of cloud will be TOMORROW, and it can’t tell me where to find the white whale! It’s useless! It’s a useless toy!
(He smashes it on the deck. He addresses the sky.)
OLD THUNDER! IT’S ME! IT’S AHAB! HERE IS MY ROD! THE HARPOON THAT WILL KILL MOBY-DICK!
(Thunder. Lightning. The masts glow with St. Elmo’s fire.)
STARBUCK. The masts! Captain, look!
STUBB. St. Elmo’s fire!
(The sailors fall silent before the spectacle.)
STARBUCK. God have mercy on us all!
AHAB. YES! LOOK AT THE FLAME! THE WHITE FLAME THAT POINTS THE WAY TO THE WHITE WHALE! (to sky) HEAVENLY FIRE! (to a sailor) Hand me that chain! I want to feel this. Blood against fire!
(He is handed a chain which is attached to the mast and also glows.)
HEAVENLY FIRE! I WORSHIPPED YOU UNTIL YOU STRUCK ME AND SCARRED MY ENTIRE BODY FOR EVER! NOW I KNOW THAT WORSHIP IS NOT WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME, BUT DEFIANCE! YOU PUNISH THOSE WHO LOVE YOU, STRIKE THOSE WHO WORSHIP YOU, AND KILL THOSE WHO HATE YOU! I OWN YOUR SPEECHLESS, PLACELESS POWER NOW, BUT I WILL, UNTIL THE LAST GASP OF MY EARTHQUAKE LIFE, DEFY YOUR MASTERY OVER ME! YOUR POWER GAVE ME LIFE! YOU BREATHED YOUR FIRE INTO ME, AND NOW I BREATHE IT BACK AT YOU!!
(Lightning strikes the mast, several times. Ahab does not move.)
DON’T YOU SEE? I OWN YOUR POWER!! BLIND ME AND I WILL STILL GROPE, BURN ME AND I WILL STILL BE ASHES!! YOU ARE LIGHT LEAPING OUT OF DARKNESS, BUT I AM DARKNESS LEAPING OUT OF LIGHT! LEAP! LEAP UP AND LICK THE SKY! LET ME BE WELDED TO YOU! DEFYINGLY I WORSHIP YOU!!
(Lightning strikes and fire shoots out the end of the harpoon.)
STARBUCK. God’s against you, old man! Stop this voyage now! Let’s turn back and go home!
(Ahab throws the chain down. The harpoon remains on fire.)
AHAB.(to the crew) All of your oaths to kill the white whale are as binding as mine! If you still have fears, I will now blow them out!
(He blows on the harpoon, which immediately extinguishes. Blackout.)
TWENTY
(Night. Ahab’s cabin. Ahab is asleep. Starbuck stands next to him, holding his musket.)
STARBUCK. He was going to shoot me. With this gun. Look at me. I’ve handled guns a hundred times, and now I’m shaking like a leaf. Is it loaded? Yes. It’s loaded. Should I unload it? Perhaps. Perhaps.
This gun. He was going to kill me with this gun. This one right here. The one I’m holding. Right here. He would have killed me. He will kill me. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill the whole crew. He’ll kill the whole crew. He smashed the quadrant, the typhoon ruined the compass, we’re groping around blind. He will murder all of us. Thirty-odd men. Should I stop him?
He’s talking in his sleep. But at least he’s asleep. Which is the only way I can deal with him.
What could we do with him? What are my options? We could, what, tie him up? Put him in a cage? I’d like to see somebody try. Hell, even if we succeeded, we’d all be driven mad by his ravings before we ever saw land again.
I put the muzzle against his head. One touch, and I get to hug my wife and child again. God help me. Please help me.
(Ahab speaks in his sleep.)
AHAB. Moby-Dick! I clutch your heart at last!
(Starbuck jumps, wrestles with the gun. It looks like he’s wrestling with an angel. He puts it back in its rack.)
STARBUCK. God help us all.
TWENTY-ONE
(On deck. It’s a beautiful day.)
AHAB. Starbuck!
STARBUCK. Sir.
AHAB. Isn’t it a beautiful day?
STARBUCK. Yes it is sir.
AHAB. Look at that sky.
STARBUCK. It’s beautiful sir.
AHAB. It was a day just like this – just like this – I was eighteen – eighteen! Imagine being eighteen! Forty years. Forty years since I killed my first whale.
Forty years I’ve been on this water. Not three on land. Forty years I’ve eaten salted fish and hardtack while the poorest farmer on land had fresh fruit and warm bread. Married. Married one night, somewhere in there. One night before setting out. One night. One dent in my marriage pillow. Wife – wife! She’s a widow. She’s a widow. Forty years I’ve been chasing this fish and my wife’s a widow. Forty years. A thousand lowerings. When would it be enough, do you suppose? To say enough. To say I’m finished.
What a fool I am. What a fool. Forty years and what? Am I a richer man? A better man?
Christ, what a burden. And me with only one leg to carry it. Do I look so old? Starbuck? I feel as old as Adam. All of history piled up on my shoulders.
Brush my hair out of my eyes, would you? I think it’s making me cry.
Let me look at you. Let me look you in the eye. It’s better to look into a human eye than to stare at the sea. Or the sky. Or God.
I see land in your eye. The green land. My wife and child. I see my wife and child in your eye.
Starbuck, do something for me. When we find the whale, you don’t go. You don’t go. You stay. You stay on the Pequod. This is my fight. This is mine. I will go to Moby-Dick. You will go back to the home I see in your eye.
STARBUCK. Captain, why does anyone have to chase that horrible fish? Anyone. You have done enough. This is already enough. A hundred times, a thousand times over, you’ve done enough. Don’t you think? And on this day, on this beautiful day, this perfect day, let’s just thank God for what we still have and just go home. We can do that. Let’s just go. We can just turn around and do it. You tell me and I tell the men and we just do it. Just forget about the damn fish. Let it go on, doing what it does, it’s not our business. Let it keep going on, scaring sailors and making us wonder just what the hell it was all about. We can do that, can’t we? We can live with that, can’t we? We can do it right now. This can all end. All this. All this hate, all this madness, all this horrible waste. It can all end. Right now. This instant. And back to Nantucket. Good old Nantucket, good old stupid backwards Nantucket. You tell me, and I tell the men, and we’re on our way home. Can you imagine that? Happily, hysterically, on our way home. Home. Your family, my family, old age. Loving, longing, paternal old age. And telling your grandchildren your unbelievable tales of the sea. Sir. Captain. My captain. Surely, every now and then, they must have days like this in Nantucket.
AHAB. They do. They do. Summers. In the morning. My boy wakes up from his noontime nap and his mother tells him about his crazy old cannibal father. He’s at sea now, but one day he’ll come back to dance him again.
STARBUCK. My Mary! That’s my Mary exactly! Every day, she promised, she takes my boy to the hill, to be the first to see my sail.
AHAB. Yes.
STARBUCK. Then that’s it. We head for Nantucket. I’ll chart out a course right now and we’ll do it. Can you see your boy’s face in the window? My boy’s hand on the hill?
AHAB. Yes. Yes.
STARBUCK. Give me the order. We’ll be home tomorrow, your face in your young wife’s hair.
AHAB. I know what you’re saying. Starbuck. I do. Why am I doing this? I don’t have an answer. I don’t know. I’ll gladly tell you I don’t know. This isn’t me. I’m not the one doing this. I would never do this. I have no answers; I only have questions.
Is Ahab Ahab? Who moves this arm? Me? God? Or who? Does the sun move itself? Do the stars revolve in the sky on their own, or does God move them? And if God moves the heavens, then what am I? How can this one small heart beat, this one small brain think, unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living?
Smell that wind. It smells like a meadow. Somewhere they’re making hay in the shadows of the Alps, sleeping in the new-mown grass under the noon-day sun. But one day we all sleep. No matter how hard we work, one day we all lie down and sleep in the field.
(He sees something, off.)
What is that? Did you see that? Call all hands! Did you see that? Look! It’s his hump! It’s his white hump! All hands! THE WHALE!
(Blackout.)
TWENTY-TWO
(Ishmael addresses the audience.)
ISHMAEL. This story is over. Ahab saw the whale first, and so the gold coin was his.
Three days we chased the whale. And I have to say, it was something. How it moved through the water. Impossible to describe. Glided. A mild joyousness. Very quick, but very still. A great form, cutting through the waves with an unknowable somnolence. It was hypnotic. We couldn’t stop. None of us. No one complained after that. After seeing it. No one blamed Ahab any more, no one thought he was crazy any more. Not after seeing the thing. We all worked as one in pursuit of the whale. We couldn’t stop. We knew what waited for us, and we couldn’t stop.
(In dumbshow, boats chase Moby-Dick through the water.)
We lowered the boats and chased the whale through the water. After a time, the whale turned and attacked.
(Moby-Dick comes up from the water, knocking the boat out of the water, throwing men in every direction.)
He wrecked the boat, but no one was hurt. We got back on the Pequod and chased it for another day. On the next lowering, he smashed the boat, broke off Ahab’s ivory leg, and took Fedallah down with him.
(We see this as well.)
Again, Starbuck begged Ahab to stop. And once again, Ahab insisted that it wasn’t his decision to make.
And on the third day, Ahab took a boat into the water again. I was in the boat with him. We chased the whale, Ahab, his crew and me. We got a ways out, and then the whale turned and swam back towards the ship. Next thing we knew, the Pequod was sinking. Moby-Dick had stove in her side. And the Pequod sank without a trace. Almost without a trace.
That got Ahab mad. He threw his lance at the whale, and it stuck. By God it stuck. And it stuck hard. The whale pulled us, surging through the waves, so hard, so fast that I fell out of the boat, just like poor little Pip. I bobbed up and down in the water and watched as the whale pulled Ahab’s boat, Ahab, who looked victorious at last. But as Ahab’s line went out, it got caught around his neck, snapped it in two, pulled him over. And that was that. The last of Ahab.
(We have watched the above happen in silence. Now our focus returns to Ishmael.)
And everyone died. As you know. Except me. The only thing left of the Pequod was Queequeg’s coffin. After he decided not to die, we had sealed it, caulked it, and used it for a life-buoy. Indeed.
And so I drifted. A day and a night. The sharks swam by with padlocks on their mouths. Then the Rachel, still looking for her lost children, found another orphan.
(Blackout. End of play.)
I predict…
…this movie will do very well.
Happy Valentine’s Day from What Does The Protagonist Want
JAWS OF LOVE
I’m a man, I’m an idiot, it follows. I’m a man, I’m an idiot.
I’m human, that’s the problem. I’m human, I’m an idiot, it follows. I’m human, I’m an idiot. You can’t teach me anything, I won’t learn, I’ll never learn, I can’t learn, I’m an idiot, I’m trapped and you can’t teach me anything.
You ever look into someone’s eyes and been reduced to the size of a pin? A pin, a pinpoint of light, been reduced to a pinpoint of light? You ever see someone toss their hair back and it made you fall silent? You could be talking to someone — “Oh, yes, the third episode with the dwarf was the best” — and they do this –
[imitation of hair-flip]
— and you fall silent. Because, you know why? Because Something Important Has Happened. Or, or, you’re talking to this person, this person, this certain person who makes your heart want to get in your car and turn on some rockabilly and drive somewhere, and you’re hanging on every word this person says, and then this person says something like —
…”that would be nice”…
— and it dislodges this rock, somewhere in the deep stream of your subconscious this rock is dislodged, and you find yourself thinking about things you haven’t thought about in years. Am I ugly? Do I need some mints? How come I never read any Shelley? Jesus, do I weigh that much? This rock is dislodged, it sets off an avalanche in your head that wipes out everything else in your brain.
And you fall silent. It’s like you’re in church, it’s like you’re worshipping. Because you are in church. You are worshipping. You are having a religious experience.
Why? Why this person? Who is this person? What do you know about this person? Doesn’t this person have terrible taste in music? Doesn’t this person smoke? Isn’t this person ten years older than you? Isn’t this person not attracted to your sex? Doesn’t this person think you’re an insignificant blot on an otherwise charming landscape? Isn’t this person the rudest, clumsiest, most incorrigibly maddeningly frustratingly difficult person you’ve ever met in your life? Well? Then why? Why are you talking to this person? What is the point? Why are you bothering? Why do I find myself in this exact same position right now?!
Because —
[gesture to body]
— this, you see, this, you know what this is, this is flesh. It’s all I’ve got. It’s all they gave me. I didn’t get a book of rules. I didn’t get a wise old mind that could see into the future and tell me that these feelings would die, that lovemaking would become rote and tiresome, that I would lose interest, that we would get into fights over things like, like white-out!
I didn’t get that mind, my mind doesn’t say those things, my mind says things like YES! My mind says things like NOW! My mind says things like DANCE, like, like, KISS, like, like, GRAB THIS PERSON NOW! GRAB THIS PERSON NOW!
I don’t know what it is, of course I don’t know what it is. It’s not meant to be known, not by us, not by me, not in this life, not in this world. It’s a feeling, that’s all, it’s a feeling, you know it when you feel it, it’s like these jaws snapping shut on you, on me, like they’ve shut on me, and I’m trapped, because, because, I’m a man, I’m an idiot, it follows, like I said, these jaws are as big as the fucking universe, and they’ll chew me up and spit me out, and I’ll never learn, I’m trapped, I’m an idiot, and I’m trapped in the jaws of love.
The Whale part 5
(The deck. Starbuck addresses Ishmael and some other men. There is a vat of spermaceti.)
STARBUCK. Men, this is sperm. This is what we’re here for. This substance is secreted by a special gland unique to the spermaceti whale. Hence the name. It is the most valuable substance found in the ocean. When we get back to Nantucket, it will make us all a lot of money. But before that happens, someone has to squeeze out the lumps. That is your job today. No machine has yet been built which can do this job as efficiently a man’s hands. So hunker down by this vat and squeeze yourself some sperm.
(They do. Starbuck exits.)
ISHMAEL. Well. This is peculiar. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like this before. Hm. It, it’s quite nice, isn’t it?
SAILOR. Mm.
ISHMAEL. It’s so, so slick. So sweet. My fingers feel like eels. I can see why this stuff is so popular.
SAILOR. Hm.
ISHMAEL. Huh. This is – huh. You know, I’m sitting here, squeezing sperm, on this beautiful deck under this beautiful sun on this beautiful day, and, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing. You know? And I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean I literally can’t think of anything. I mean, like, ever. You know? Smells like violets. Don’t you think? Violets?
SAILOR. Hm.
ISHMAEL. It just – it feels, it feels…great. Doesn’t it. I could definitely do this all day long. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Wow. This is great. I, I think I’m getting kind of a buzz going here. This feels so great.
SAILOR. That’s my hand.
ISHMAEL. Oh. Sorry.
SAILOR. It’s all right.
ISHMAEL. I –
SAILOR. It’s really all right.
ISHMAEL. I didn’t mean –
SAILOR. I really don’t mind if you keep doing it.
ISHMAEL. I – right. I’m trying to think of something that’s given me more pleasure than this. And I can’t. I can’t think of anything.
SAILOR. Me neither.
ISHMAEL. You know what? This is heaven. This is heaven. When I get to heaven, what I’m going to see is long rows of angels, each with their hands in a jar of sperm.
(Blackout.)
FIFTEEN
(Ahab’s cabin.)
AHAB. Who is it? Get the hell out of here.
STARBUCK. It’s me, captain.
AHAB. What is it, Starbuck?
STARBUCK. The oil in the hold is leaking. We’re going to have to stop in Japan and fix it.
AHAB. Are you crazy? Stop now? Are you crazy? Go away.
STARBUCK. We have to stop, sir. Or we’ll lose more oil in one day that we could make up in a year.
AHAB. What do I care? Let it leak.
STARBUCK. Captain, we’ve come twenty thousand miles for that oil.
AHAB. We’ve come twenty thousand miles for only one thing, Mr. Starbuck, and I’m not going to stop for anything now. The hold has a leak? I have a leak, Mr. Starbuck. I’m full of leaks. I have a leak in my heart, I have a leak in my head. I’m draining away, into the mouth of that whale. I’ve already lost my leg. Either I stop that leak or I drain away completely.
STARBUCK. Sir, the owners –
AHAB. Fuck the owners. Starbuck. Fuck the owners. What are they going to do? “Complain”? They can stand on the beach of Nantucket and scream their faces are blue, I’ll never hear them. Owners? Owners? Who owns this ship, Starbuck? Who owns this ship? I do. I own this ship and you know it. On deck, Mr. Starbuck.
STARBUCK. Sir. In the past you have been a good captain. A great captain.
AHAB. On deck, Mr. Starbuck.
STARBUCK. And perhaps you will one day again –
(Ahab grabs his musket and points it at Starbuck.)
AHAB. Get one thing clear, Mr. Starbuck. One God rules this earth, and one man rules the Pequod. On deck.
STARBUCK. You have outraged me, captain, not insulted me. I will no longer disagree with you or stand in your way. You have no reason to fear Starbuck. But perhaps you have reason to fear yourself.
AHAB. Ahab fear Ahab? (Pause.) You know, you might have something there, old tar. (He puts down the gun.) Fine. Up Burtons, find the leak.
STARBUCK. Thank you sir.
AHAB. You’re a good man, Starbuck.
STARBUCK. Thank you sir.
SIXTEEN
(Queequeg’s cabin. Queequeg lies ill in his hammock. Ishmael, Pip, Starbuck, others.)
QUEEQUEG. I’m dying, friend.
ISHMAEL. You’re not dying.
QUEEQUEG. I’m dying. I know when I’m dying.
ISHMAEL. You’re not dying.
QUEEQUEG. It was cleaning out the hold. Looking for the leak. That’s what it was. That’s what killed me.
ISHMAEL. Queequeg –
QUEEQUEG. This fever. Finally did me in. Finally did in Queequeg. Is my coffin done?
ISHMAEL. You don’t need a coffin.
QUEEQUEG. Is it done?
ISHMAEL. It’s done. It’s finished.
QUEEQUEG. Put me in it. I’m ready to die.
(His coffin is brought in. Queequeg is placed in it.)
PIP. Poor Queequeg. Poor wanderer. Never resting. Now you’ll wander on forever.
If you get to the Antilles, where the sun always shines on a fine lazy beach, keep an eye out for a sad little black boy named Pip. He went out looking for whales and didn’t come back. I think maybe he washed up there in the Antilles. If you find him, comfort him. He must be very sad; look, he forgot his tambourine.
You go and die, Queequeg. I’ll beat out your death march on the black boy’s forgotten tambourine.
ISHMAEL. (to Queequeg) How is it?
QUEEQUEG. It will do.
STARBUCK. Pip? Are you all right?
ISHMAEL. He hasn’t been himself since the day he fell out of Stubb’s boat.
STARBUCK. I can see that he’s not himself. I’m wondering who the hell he is.
PIP. Give Queequeg his harpoon. Lay it across his chest. Queequeg dies a brave man! Better than Pip, who died a whining, mewling coward. Queequeg, if you find Pip in the Antilles, give him a kick for me. Tell everybody in the Antilles that Pip’s a coward. Jumped from a
whale-boat! Shame on cowards! Let ’em drown! Shame! Shame!
QUEEQUEG. You know what?
ISHMAEL. What? What is it, Queequeg?
QUEEQUEG. I…I actually feel better.
ISHMAEL. What?
STARBUCK. It’s the fever. He’s hallucinating. I’ve seen it a hundred times. He’s not got long now.
QUEEQUEG. Um…no. No. I actually feel quite a bit better.
ISHMAEL. Is that possible?
STARBUCK. Impossible.
QUEEQUEG. Yes. I feel…I feel fine now. Yes. I actually feel fine now. Yes. In fact, if it’s all right with you, I think I’ll go back to work. Is that all right?
(Blackout.)
SEVENTEEN
(The forge. Carpenter hammers a pike. Ahab looks on.)
AHAB. Those sparks. So beautiful. And so hot. But look at you. Not a mark on you.
CARPENTER. On me it’s all scars, captain. You can’t scar a scar.
AHAB. You sound very sane to me, carpenter. I don’t like it. Madness likes company. What are you making?
CARPENTER. I’m welding a pike-head. There were some seams and dents in it.
AHAB. And you’ll make it all smooth again?
CARPENTER. That’s the job.
AHAB. I’ll bet you could smooth out seams in anything, couldn’t you?
CARPENTER. I think I can, sir. Every seam but one.
AHAB. Could you smooth out this seam in my forehead? If you could do that? If you could do that, I would put my head on your anvil right now and you could hit it with your heaviest hammer.
CARPENTER. Sorry sir – that’s the one.
AHAB. Yes. That is the one. Isn’t it. You’re right; it cannot be smoothed. This wrinkle is no longer just on my skin; it’s in my bone. It’s in my brain. My brain is wrinkled. My brain is dented.
But enough. No more gaffs and pikes today. I need you to make me a harpoon. The strongest ever made. One that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone.
(He produces a leather bag.)
This is a bag of nails. Steel nails from the shoes of race-horses.
CARPENTER. That’s the toughest material on earth.
AHAB. And they will weld together like glue from a murderer’s bones. Can you do it?
(ISHMAEL appears, addresses the audience.)
ISHMAEL. And so it is done.
(Ahab holds the finished harpoon.)
AHAB. Splendid! Now the shaft. Hammer out twelve rods. Wind the twelve rods together like a rope, and hammer
them into one. Quick! I’ll blow the fire.
ISHMAEL. And so it is done.
(Ahab holds the finished staff.)
AHAB. Perfect!
CARPENTER. Captain, sir. Is this the iron for the white whale?
AHAB. Yes! God’s blood, yes! Now for the barbs. These are my razors. Take them. Don’t look at me like that, I’m never going to need them again. I’m not going to eat, shave or pray until Moby-Dick is dead.
ISHMAEL. And so it is done.
(Carpenter finishes attaching the barbs.)
CARPENTER. It’s done. Bring the water over here.
AHAB. No. Water’s no good. Blood. It has to be blood. Get me the harpooneers!
ISHMAEL. And the harpooneers come, and cut open their arms, and fill a cup full of blood. And they use the blood to temper the barbs.
(Queequeg, Tashtego, Dagoo and Fedallah all stand around Ahab, who hold a cup of their blood.)
AHAB. I baptize you in the name of the father and in the name of the devil!
(He puts the harpoon in the blood. It hisses. Blackout.)
The Whale part 4
(Ishmael addresses the audience. In the background, Ahab confers with Fedallah.)
ISHMAEL. We sail on. Days, weeks, months. Calm and storm, fog and sun. The sailors gossip about Ahab’s harpooneer
Fedallah. Some say he’s the devil, keeps his tail curled up around his leg. Some say he’s a million years old. Some say that he is the real captain of the ship, his mouth clamped to Ahab’s ear. Ahab says he’s using science to find the whales, but others say that it’s just Fedallah, guiding his hand, pushing him toward the darkness.
One night, we see a spout. Big one. On the horizon. We think, this is it. Our hunt is over. We sail out to the spout, but then it’s gone. Next night, the same thing. And the next. Every night. Midnight of course. And all over again. Ever on, into the night.
Many things happen. One day we come by a ship, the Albatross, that glides by as if we aren’t there. One day we find a giant squid. One day we come by a ship called the Town-Ho. They have a story about the white whale. You can bet Ahab is pleased about that.
And then one day we kill a whale. Stubb kills a whale. We hang its head from one side of the ship. As the killer, Stubb gets to have the first steak.
(Night. Stubb at the capstan, waiting for dinner. A sperm whale head hangs from one side of the ship.)
STUBB. Cook! Come on, bring me my steak out here, I’m freezin’ to death!
(Cook, an elderly black man, enters with a steak on a plate.)
Well, please don’t break your back or strain yourself in any way, cook, it’s only my dinner that you’re keeping me from, just get it the hell over here sometime before nineteen-hundred! Come on, I’m starving here, I’m going to keel over here, come on!
COOK. Sorry Mr. Stubb. Here you go.
STUBB. First cut off the whale is always the most tasty, eh cook? I guess you wouldn’t know.
COOK. I don’t catch ’em sir, I only cook ’em.
STUBB. Well let’s see how you cooked this one – uh, no. No. Cook, this is no good. What did you – no. I’m sorry.
This is no – I am so sorry you were born without a BRAIN, but if I’ve told you once, I mean come on –
COOK. Excuse me?
STUBB. Look at this! You ruined it! It’s a piece of charcoal here!
COOK. I barely –
STUBB. You barely thought is what you – Look. Here is the way you cook a whale-steak. You take the piece of meat – this, by the way, is the piece of meat – and you show it the fire. Then you put it on a plate. Do you got that? Is that so hard? Can you even conceive of – what the hell is that noise?
COOK. The sharks, sir, at the carcass –
STUBB. You blithering idiot, I know what it is, why do they have to be so God-damned loud? I’m trying to eat here like a decent civilized human being and I can’t even hear myself chew –
COOK. Sorry –
STUBB. Well go and talk to ’em, would ya?
COOK. What?
STUBB. Are you going deaf now too? Go talk to them, tell ’em to shut the hell up for a few minutes, Christ!
COOK. T-talk to the sharks?
STUBB. You are going deaf. Yes! God damn it, tell the fucking sharks to shut up! Move!
(Pause.)
COOK. All right…
(He goes to the rail, addresses the sharks.)
Hey! Sharks! Knock it off with the racket! Mr. Stubb’s trying to eat!
STUBB. They can eat all they want, but they have to keep it down.
COOK. You can eat all you want, but stop smackin’ your lips so damn loud!
STUBB. Cook! Hey!
COOK. Yes?
STUBB. You can’t swear at them.
COOK. Excuse me?
STUBB. “Excuse me”, listen to this guy – You can’t convert sinners by swearing at them.
(Pause.)
COOK. I’m going.
STUBB. No, keep talking to them. Coax them.
(Pause. Cook tries again.)
COOK. Look. Sharks. Um, beloved sharks. Um, I know that, um, you are by nature, um, voracious. But you’ve got to – hey! Stop the damn tail-slapping when I’m talking to you! You can’t hear me if you’re slappin’ your damn tail!
STUBB. Not with the swearing! Come on. Convince them.
(Pause. Cook tries again.)
COOK. Ahem. My, my dear voracious creatures. Um, I, I don’t blame you for your, your nature, but, but you’ve got to learn to control your, your nature. If you can, can control the, the shark inside you, you will be like, like angels. An angel is only a shark under control. Don’t tear that blubber out of your neighbor’s mouth. That’s wrong. This whale, this whale doesn’t even belong to you! Some of you bigger sharks, tear off some meat for the smaller boys!
STUBB. Now that’s Christianity! Keep going!
COOK. B-but they’re not listening.
STUBB. No?
COOK. They don’t have ears to hear, Mr. Stubb. They only have bellies. And when their bellies are full, they go to sleep on the coral and then they never hear anything.
STUBB. True. True. Then give the benediction and let me eat.
COOK. Cursed creatures! Make all the noise of hell! Eat your fill, burst your bellies and die!
STUBB. Amen.
COOK. (to Stubb) You’re more shark than them.
STUBB. And good night.
(Blackout.)
ELEVEN
(Ishmael addresses the audience.)
ISHMAEL. A while later, we come across another ship. The Jeroboam. This boat has a crazy man on board. The crazy man is under the impression that he is the archangel Gabriel. The funny part is that everyone else on the ship believes him. Seems a plague broke out on the ship and everyone who believed him didn’t die. So now this Gabriel fella is kind of running things on this boat.
They sent a boat out to us, and Ahab went to meet them.
(Two whaling boats on the ocean. Captain Mayhew, oarsman, Gabriel in one, Ahab and oarsman in the other. The sound of waves is loud; they have to shout to hear each other.)
MAYHEW. Don’t come any closer! Infection!
AHAB. I’m not scared of your epidemic, come aboard!
GABRIEL. Think of the fevers! Yellow and bilious! Beware of the plague!
MAYHEW. I’ll handle this, Gabriel –
AHAB. Have you seen the white whale?
GABRIEL. Think of your whale-boat! Stoven and sunk! Beware the tail!
MAYHEW. Gabriel, please –
AHAB. Have you seen the white whale!
MAYHEW. I have seen the white whale!
GABRIEL. Turn back! I warned him and he didn’t listen! Now I’m warning you!
AHAB. Tell that miserable cretin to shut up and finish your story!
MAYHEW. Two years out we saw him!
GABRIEL. I told him not to go after the white whale!
MAYHEW. I got five men to go out with me! I finally got an iron in him!
AHAB. Then what?
GABRIEL. He’s the incarnation of the Shaker God!
AHAB. Shut up, you moron! — Then what?
MAYHEW. My mate, Macey, had him in his sights! He was just about to hurl when the whale knocked him clear out of the boat! We never saw him again! Are you hunting the white whale?
AHAB. Until I die!
GABRIEL. Think of the blasphemer! Drowned and dead! Beware the wrath of God!
MAYHEW. We have to get back to the ship!
AHAB. Wait! Before you go, we got a letter when we left Nantucket! It’s addressed to someone on your ship!
MAYHEW. Who is it for?
AHAB. It’s – oarsman, give me that letter – it says “Mr. Harry…Mr. Harry, yes, Macey, Ship Jeroboam…” What?
MAYHEW. Macey! That was my mate! That’s the man who went over!
AHAB. It’s from his wife! Do you want it?
GABRIEL. You keep it! You’ll be seeing him sooner than us! (to oarsman) Back to the ship!
(They pull away.)
AHAB. Damn you! Damn you Gabriel! I’ll see you in Hell!
(Blackout.)
TWELVE
(Stubb, Flask, others, hoist a right whale head up the other side of the ship. Fedallah and Ahab confer to one side.)
STUBB. What does Ahab want with this thing? We’re a sperm whale fishery, we don’t have time to go after these useless things!
FLASK. Don’t you know? They say that a ship that hoists the head of a spermaceti on its starboard side and the head of a right whale on the port, that ship will never capsize.
STUBB. No. I’ve never heard that. In all my years I never heard that particular nugget of maritime folklore. Where did you hear it?
FLASK. I heard it from Fedallah. He told Ahab.
STUBB. Fedallah? This is his idea?
FLASK. He seems to know a lot about whales…
STUBB. Of course he does, he’s evil incarnate, why not?
FLASK. Oh, he gives me the creeps, that’s for sure. You ever notice that tusk of his is carved into, looks like a snake head?
STUBB. Hell, I don’t even look at him. His tail down his pants like it is, you know he sleeps in his boots so we can’t see the hoofs.
FLASK. What’s the old man see in him?
STUBB. I suppose one could say they have a bargain.
FLASK. What kind of – oh. Never mind. How old do you think he is, Fedallah?
STUBB. Old as time, Flask. That’s the whole point. I say we throw him overboard.
FLASK. But if he’s the devil, what good is –
STUBB. Give him a good dunking anyway.
FLASK. Yeah, but he’d come back and dunk you for good.
STUBB. He tries it, I’ll knock his tooth out.
(Unseen by Stubb, Fedallah comes to stand right next to the pair.)
Give him a pair of black eyes. You think I’m afraid of him? I’ll wrap his tail around the capstan so tight it’ll snap off – Oh hi, Fedallah.
(Blackout.)
THIRTEEN
(Ishmael addresses the audience.)
ISHMAEL. Now I could tell you about whales. I know about whales. I’ve read all about whales. I’ve seen them, I’ve touched them, I’ve swam with them, I’ve dissected them, I’ve hacked them into pieces and melted down their blubber. I could tell you about whales. I could talk your ear off about whales. I could go on for a good long time about whales: how to catch them, how to kill them, how to turn them into oil, what they eat, how they swim, peculiarities of their behavior, everything.
But in the end, the fact remains: I know nothing about whales. No one knows anything about whales. Whales are, unfortunately, unknowable. That fish we haul up the side of the ship, that’s not a whale, that’s just a husk, just a shell. Even that fish that we chase
through the foaming seas, risking our necks ten times a second, that’s not a whale, that’s not what a whale is, that’s only the time that we see them.
So no. I can’t tell you about the whale, about leviathan. It can’t be told. I don’t know how they act, what they think or feel, or even, truly, what they look like, since I never see them where they live. Leviathan is the one creature that must remain unpainted to the last.
SAILOR. (oov) WHALES!! WHALES!!
(Lights up. Stubb and crew in a whale boat, including Pip and Dagoo. They have an iron in the whale and are being towed by it.)
STUBB. Row! Row, you sons-of-bachelors! For God’s sake please don’t hurt yourselves, ladies! Please don’t get any blisters on your poor delicate fingers or you won’t be able to work the crochet hooks! Just break your fucking backs and kill that fucking whale! Who the hell are you?
OARSMAN. That’s Pip, Mr. Stubb.
STUBB. What the hell is this boy doing steering my fucking whale-boat?
OARSMAN. Regular man is sick, Mr. Stubb.
STUBB. So they give me a boy?
OARSMAN. He’ll be fine, Mr. Stubb.
PIP. I can do it, Mr. Stubb.
STUBB. You’d better, I don’t have time to bother! Row, you lazy bastards! The whale is over there, morons! Faster! Faster! Oh please don’t break a sweat or anything just because your life depends on it –
(The boat pitches. Pip falls overboard.)
DAGOO. Cut! Cut!
STUBB. Cut what? What the fuck!
DAGOO. Man overboard!
STUBB. Where? Who?
OARSMAN. Pip, Mr. Stubb!
STUBB. I thought you said man, Dagoo! Keep rowing, you bastards!
OARSMAN. We should stop for him, Mr. Stubb! He won’t last long out here!
STUBB. You’re joking. Right? You’re joking with me. You’re having a little joke at my expense. You’re dallying with my sense of propriety for the sake of humor.
OARSMAN. We really should, Mr. –
STUBB. Oh, Fuck it then! Cut! Cut the line! Let’s stop to pick up the black child!
(They cut the line and pull Pip out of the water.)
DAGOO. Here you go, Pip. That will do it.
PIP. Thank you sir. Thank you Mr. Stubb.
STUBB. Let’s get one thing straight here, son. This time I was intoxicated by the milk of human kindness. Next time you die. Just one barrel of oil from that whale is worth more than what I’d get for you on an auction block in Alabama. Do you understand?
PIP. Yes Mr. Stubb. I’m sorry Mr. Stubb.
STUBB. Now sit down and hang on. (to others) ROW, YOU COCKSUCKERS! We ain’t got all day!
(They row. Pip, who has not had time to sit down, immediately falls overboard.)
DAGOO. Man overboard!
STUBB. What?!
DAGOO. Pip, Mr. Stubb!
STUBB. What the – keep going!
DAGOO. Mr. Stubb –
STUBB. Keep rowing, you motherfuckers! I told him the deal, Dagoo! It’s his own fucking fault! Now if you want to jump out and save him, do it now and lighten my fucking load! If not, sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up!
(Dagoo starts, then thinks better of it. The boat is rowed off. Pip bobs up and down in the water.)
PIP. Hello? Mr. Stubb? I’m sorry. Pip’s sorry. Hello? Mr. Stubb? Mr. Stubb? Anybody? Hello?
(Blackout.)