Moby Dick graffiti

I don't know why, but MOBY DICK is in the graffiti in this issue of Hellblazer #54.

The challenge is to read the book!

http://lifehacker.com/5856601/answer-how-much-did-you-understand-when-you-first-read-moby-dick

Daniel Russell has a column called Search ReSearch where he issues challenges to find information in our tech world. He picked Moby Dick for the latest one. Catch what he says about the book as a whole first:

If you're like me, you probably read Moby Dick at some point in your life. Maybe in high school, maybe for general reading later on in life. Regardless of when you read it, you probably have a pretty good mental image of the story, right? Captain Ahab and the search for the great white whale... maybe something about the inherent qualities of mankind, some ideas about man vs. nature, madness and a bunch of characters, the likes of which would never enter a Starbucks, but would prefer their grog on the open sea.

Whenever it was that you read Moby Dick, how much of it did you understand? Let's test your level of understanding: You know what a right-whale is, you probably remember the difference between a top-sail and a stun-sail, and you remember the characters of Starbuck, Queequeg and Ishmael, right?

He then goes on to issue a challenge to find some obscure traits about the Pequod. The question and answer is here at

http://lifehacker.com/5856601/answer-how-much-did-you-understand-when-you-first-read-moby-dick

Cool. And he had to go to the real text to get an answer and then powered through it with a good old CTRL-F find method. Didn't re-read it or anything, though.

Overall, I wonder how many high schools still teach Moby Dick. I wouldn't dare for fear of mutiny. It's a very cursory factual understanding that Russell shows above and I would be interested if all that didn't come out of a quick search rather than his memory.

Celebrating 160 years of Moby Dick in a weekend

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111103/ENTERTAIN/111030302

Published on November 3, 2011, "It's a very 'Moby' weekend" is an article by Lauren Daley for South Coast Today. She hits it right on the head several times about this strange novel pervading our culture.

"This whole thing started by asking the question: 'How do people come to know "Moby-Dick"?' Because you know 90 percent of the public hasn't read the book," said Katherine Knowles, executive director of the Zeiterion.

Yet amazingly, we still keep saying--

"Moby-Dick" (1851) is largely considered one of the greatest works in all of American literature.

Everybody knows that the whale is everywhere, but no one knows why--

"Moby-Dick," part of the American literary canon, has also become a part of 20th- and 21st-century pop culture, showing up in everything from a Led Zeppelin song to "The Simpsons" to "Star Trek."

"The fact is that 'Moby-Dick' has become iconic," Knowles said. The cartoon character "Mr. Magoo played Ahab. Tom and Jerry played out the story; 'The Simpsons' have done the story. 'Moby-Dick' is now pop culture.

So they have all kinds of activities going on to celebrate. Do they do this for The Scarlet Letter? Or Huck Finn?