Posted by Juliet Linderman
Hello Dick lovers! Welcome to the first installment of Dick Watching, where we’ll be bringing you the sexiest Moby Dick-related links on the internet. Excited? Of course you are.
1. Apparently there are a whole lot of whales stranded off the coast of New Zealand. Sad. The poor little pod of pilot whales washed up on the Karikari Beach in northern New Zealand and only 15 survived, because conservationists were unable to “re-float” the little dudes. According to the Guardian, this isn’t so uncommon: over the last century and a half more than 5,000 whales have been stranded in New Zealand. Everyone please pour one out for these guys.
2. In other, weirder and more uplifting news, earlier this week the New York Times reported that the Charles W. Morgan, the world’s last-surviving wooden whaling ship from the days of yore—you know, the 19th century—is being restored….USING LASERS. This boat, as expected, rules really hard:
“Built in New Bedford, Mass., a bustling port known as the whaling capital of the world, the Morgan sailed the globe for eight decades in pursuit of leviathans, escaping fire and cannibals, Confederate raiders and Arctic ice. She brought home thousands of barrels of whale oil that lighted homes and cities. She also delivered tons of baleen, the horny material from the mouths of certain whales that was made into buggy whips and corset stays.”
Scientists are using X-ray machines and hi-tech laser technology to tease out the details of the ship in order to fix her up and get her out on the water again. Rejoice!
3. Danny Glover must have been wasted when he signed on to play Ahab in this…er…questionable cinematic re-imagining of Herman Melville’s epic novel. In director Richard Little’s Age of the Dragons, the crew is now hunting dragons instead of whales in some weird steampunk middle-earth type nowhere, and from what I can extrapolate from this bizarre trailer there is now a sexy lady present (Ahab’s daughter?!) who is primed to be Ishmael’s love interest. Intrigue! Embarrassing!
Apparently a white dragon killed Ahab’s whole family and now he’s pissed. Thanks for this, internet. It’s in post-production people, so you can all start getting REALLY excited now.
4. While we’re on the topic of embarrassing MD adaptations, do you guys remember this? Now this I can get behind, except maybe Ahab’s magic laser-harpoon.
5. And let’s go across the pond once again, where journalist David Barnett has brilliantly founded the Guardian’s Wankh Award for the smuttiest book title, and made mention of our beloved Moby Dick (natch). Brainstorm, people, he’s taking submissions now!