I’m reading Moby Dick again (I read it once about 15 years ago). I’ve never seen such a divisive book between men and women as Moby Dick – most guys who have read it, love it, most women hate it. Just something I always noticed. I’m just as enthralled as I was the first time around with the taste of the saltwater and the cold night air, the wild lofty wisdom juxtaposed with detailed descriptions of a sperm whales head, and especially the old scraggly bearded arrrgghhh people – but I’m starting to have trouble with the whale killing parts in my old age. Since I moved to Woodstock I’ve stopped eating mammals (but still eat fish and birds).  Really strange how the environment one lives in can totally change a person’s outlook. That’s why I never believed the supposed old wisdom that “wherever you go, there you are”, or to put it another way “you can’t run from yourself”. Not true! I’m way better off psychologically and creatively living outside the city than I was living in it. In a similar vein, George Bernard Shaw once remarked, “Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty : what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.”
Anyway, there was a scene in the book where Stubbs stuck a harpoon into an injured whale and twirled it around until its heart exploded.  Pretty intense.