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Dick Watching: Why Do We Need to Keep Trying to Turn "Moby Dick" Into a Bad TV Movie

h4. By Juliet Linderman _Greetings and salutations to all the whale lovers and enthusiasts of the internet and welcome to Dick Watching, everyone’s favorite periodic cetacean-themed link list chock full of sea-licious news items and delectable...

By Juliet Linderman

Greetings and salutations to all the whale lovers and enthusiasts of the internet and welcome to Dick Watching, everyone's favorite periodic cetacean-themed link list chock full of sea-licious news items and delectable tidbits pertaining to the our finned and flippered friends.

It is imperative for all Melvillians and those who love them to take a moment today, on the first of August two thousand and eleven, to give thanks to our main man Herman Melville, who was born on this day in 1891. If he were still alive, he would be celebrating his 192nd birthday. Unfortunately, he’s dead. But we’re not, so let’s celebrate for him. If you're so inclined you can visit his resting place at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where you will discover a tombstone decorated with…a blank scroll. Oh, Herman. So typical.

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Alright, crew. Won’t you come Dick Watching with me? You will? Fantastic; all aboard!

Ok, well this is embarrassing. Today, the New York Daily News ran a review of the brand new Moby Dick: The Miniseries starring William Hurt as Captain Ahab and Ethan Hawke as Starbuck (and Gillian Anderson as Ahab's wife…) Of the series, the Daily News writes: "Whaling captains were royalty then and Ahab lives accordingly. This is no ruffian who slouches around until he can climb on a boat and go kill something. Hurt’s Ahab is a man of culture and refinement. He lives in a grand, tastefully appointed house. He eats good food, drinks good wine and enjoys relaxing in his library with a good book."

Hopefully, this is not the trailer but the entire film.

The Boston Herald, however, has a different take, describing the show as "about as thrilling as a three-hour tour of Boston Harbor while blindfolded on a sweltering summer day."

Want more Moby Dick re-imaginings? A theater in Korea kicked off a month-long run of Moby Dick: The Musical. Uhhm. Hrmm. Barf. If anyone does visit Herm today, be sure to check and see if he's spinning around in his grave.

Meanwhile: Check out this very cool article in the Japan Times in which author Michael Hoffman charts the history of Japan-United States relations using the whaling industry as a jumping-off point, comparing Herman Melville and lesser-known (accidental) whaler Manjiro's traversal of the seas.

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Rest in peace, Herman Melville, we love you very much. Now: let's get down to some science.

There's a grey whale in the Klamath River who refuses to leave, and it's puzzling scientists, and nearby residents, and pretty much everyone who knows anything about whales knows firstly that they live in the ocean, and not in rivers.

According to this article in the Triplicate, scientists have been attempting to shoo the stubborn whale back into the ocean by employing a series of unorthodox techniques including “banging long metal pipes in the water with hammers, slapping the top of the water with tree branches and spraying water out of a cannon from a Fire Department boat. ‘We really honestly exhausted the techniques that have worked well in the past….We’ll go into a wait-and-see pattern.”

Here’s a treat: my personal favorite whale lover and Dick Watcher Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan or, The Whale, writes about how grandmother sperm whales care for young calves relegated to surface waters, unable to dive into deep waters where their mothers hunt for squid. Amazing!

Also amazing: British business magnate and aspiring astronaut Richard Branson swam into the mouth of a whale shark. That’s all.

Let’s get political for a minute: A couple weeks ago, things started heating up between the United States and Iceland over the nordic country’s unwillingness to adhere to the International Whaling Commission’s moratorium on whaling. The US is now in a position to threaten economic sanctions against Iceland, permitted by the Pelly Amendment, a law that subjects countries in violation of global fisheries conservation to economic sanctions.

This promises to be a hot topic in the coming weeks, suggested by Japan’s walkout at the International Whaling Commission meeting on July 14, thereby killing a proposal to protect whales in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

In closing, here’s a story about a couple who was boating in Juno, Alaska when a breaching humpback whale fell on their boat and destroyed it. Don’t worry, they survived unscathed. The name of the boat? Ishmael, of course.