Moby Dick Pod
93 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 months ago -Read by Josh NordmarkOne chapter once a day with wrap ups on the weekends.
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Episodes
Chapter 39 - First Night Watch
May 18, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 1.77 MB"Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!" Stubb's thoughts. A true Melville-needed-an-editor chapter.
Chapter 38 - Dusk
May 17, 2021 23:00 - 3 minutes - 2.34 MB"And with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!" Starbuck deep in thought.
Chapter 37 - Sunset
May 14, 2021 17:00 - 4 minutes - 2.93 MB"I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass." Ahab's dark frame of mind.
Chapter 36 - The Quarter-Deck
May 13, 2021 17:00 - 17 minutes - 12.2 MB"Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the horn, and round the Norway maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up." Ahab whips the crew into a frenzy.
Chapter 35 - The Mast-head
May 12, 2021 18:00 - 15 minutes - 10.7 MB"At last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it." Ishmael describes the sublime disassociation of being in the crow's nest.
Chapter 34 - The Cabin-Table
May 11, 2021 17:00 - 13 minutes - 9.51 MB"Not by beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished." The crew eats and Ishmael observes how the old seafaring traditions and power structures play out over dinner.
Chapter 33 - Specksnyder
May 10, 2021 16:00 - 6 minutes - 4.8 MB"Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!" Ishmael talks about the harpooner and the dictator-like qualities of the captain of a whale ship.
Chapter 32 - Cetology (with a brief announcement from Josh)
May 07, 2021 18:00 - 34 minutes - 23.9 MB"For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included." Ishmael (or Melville) describes all the different types of whales. It's a real page turner.
Chapter 31 - Queen Mab
May 06, 2021 15:00 - 5 minutes - 3.77 MB"Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask? I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho'." Stubb recounts his dream to Flask, attempting to explain why it's cool to get kicked by someone.
Chapter 31 - Queen Mab
May 06, 2021 15:00 - 5 minutes - 3.77 MB"Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask? I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho'." Stubb recounts his dream to Flask, attempting to explain why it's cool to get kicked by someone.
Chapter 30 - The Pipe
May 05, 2021 17:00 - 2 minutes - 1.86 MB"How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized?" After discovering he no longer enjoys smoking, Ahab throws his pipe overboard.
Chapter 29 - Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb
May 04, 2021 18:00 - 7 minutes - 5.33 MB"A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore call a conscience." Ishmael witnesses an altercation between Captain Ahab and the second mate, Stubb.
Chapter 28 - Ahab (feat. Jess Maynard)
April 29, 2021 17:00 - 10 minutes - 7.4 MB"So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood." Ishmael lays eyes on Captain Ahab for the first time.
Chapter 27 - Knights and Squires
April 28, 2021 17:00 - 10 minutes - 7.55 MB"They were nearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were!" Ishmael describes the other mates aboard the Pequod. Starbuck, Stubb, Flask, Tishtego, & Daggoo.
Chapter 26 - Knights and Squires
April 27, 2021 18:00 - 8 minutes - 5.71 MB"I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale... an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward." Ishmael describes Starbuck, 1st mate.
Chapter 26 - Knights and Squires
April 27, 2021 18:00 - 8 minutes - 5.71 MB"I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale... an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward." Ishmael describes Starbuck, 1st mate.
Chapter 25 - Postscript
April 27, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 1.79 MB"We whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff!" Ishmael forgot to include this chapter in the last.
Chapter 24 - The Advocate
April 26, 2021 17:00 - 11 minutes - 7.69 MB"But this is not the half; look again." Ishmael extolls the virtues of the whaling profession, whalers, and the wonders of far off places.
Weekend Wrap Up #1 (Chapters 1-23)
April 24, 2021 22:00 - 8 minutes - 5.55 MBOn our first weekend wrap up, I'll be talking about our weird, sometimes relatable narrator Ishmael. What do we know about this guy? Who is he? Why is he?
Chapter 23 - The Lee Shore
April 23, 2021 15:00 - 3 minutes - 2.41 MB"Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs." Ishmael is the ship, the ship is Ishmael.
Chapter 22 - Merry Christmas
April 22, 2021 23:00 - 10 minutes - 7.13 MB"I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity." Peleg and Bildad wish the crew a farewell like worried parents. And we've finally set sail...!
Chapter 21 - Going Abroad
April 21, 2021 16:00 - 7 minutes - 5.02 MB"It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we drew nigh the wharf." Ishmael and Queequeg are accosted by Elijah again and eventually go on board the Pequod. They sit on a man.
Chapter 20 - All Astir
April 20, 2021 19:00 - 6 minutes - 4.28 MB"If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea." Ishmael quantifies all the preparations for making The Pequod sea-worthy.
Chapter 19 - The Prophet
April 19, 2021 23:00 - 7 minutes - 5.3 MB"Morning to ye, shipmates, morning." Some old sailor on the street starts ranting about Ahab and gives Ishmael the heebie-jeebies.
Chapter 18 - His Mark
April 16, 2021 21:00 - 8 minutes - 6.03 MB"Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers—it takes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who ain't pretty sharkish." Ishmael and Queequeg go to The Pequod and Bildad and Peleg give Queequeg a hard time for not being Christian. Queequeg then demonstrates his badass-ery by throwing a harpoon and suddenly they don't give AF.
Chapter 17 - The Ramadan
April 15, 2021 19:00 - 13 minutes - 9.44 MB"Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling." Ishmael returns to the inn and freaks out because he's neurotic. After telling everyone in the inn that Queequeg has had a stroke, he breaks down the door and Queequeg is fine. He then gives Queequeg a freakin lecture about how religion is bad. In bed.
Chapter 16 - The Ship
April 14, 2021 13:00 - 33 minutes - 23.2 MB"Aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on the passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought that about, as any one might see." Ishmael signs with a ship named The Pequod. He asks about the spooky captain.
Chapter 15 - Chowder
April 13, 2021 16:00 - 7 minutes - 5.34 MB"A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows!" This episode is about exactly what you think it's about.
Chapter 14 - Nantucket
April 12, 2021 19:00 - 5 minutes - 4.01 MB"For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires..." Ishmael talks about Nantucket.
Chapter 13 - Wheelbarrow
April 09, 2021 20:00 - 10 minutes - 7.21 MB"That common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records." Ishmael and Queequeg leave the Spouter Inn and exchange stories. They catch the a small boat to Nantucket and after a sailing mishap Queequeg saves a man's life. Like a boss.
Chapter 12 - Biographical
April 09, 2021 00:00 - 6 minutes - 4.33 MB"It is not down in any map; true places never are." Queequeg tells Ishmael how he came to be a whaler and both promise to stick together and get on the same ship together out of Nantucket.
Chapter 11 - Nightgown
April 07, 2021 15:00 - 4 minutes - 3.28 MB"Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal." Ishmael talks about being cozy. Queequeg begins to tell the history of his island.
Chapter 10 - A Bosom Friend
April 06, 2021 19:00 - 9 minutes - 6.37 MB"No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world." Ishmael and Queequeg beome besties.
Chapter 9 - The Sermon
April 05, 2021 22:00 - 22 minutes - 15.3 MB"In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers." Ishmael takes in Father Mapple's Sermon about Jonah, sin and salvation.
Chapter 8 - The Pulpit
April 02, 2021 23:00 - 6 minutes - 4.68 MB"Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom." Ishmael takes in the church and the minister there and cannot help but see how whaling is incorporated into every aspect of New Bedford life.
Chapter 7 - The Chapel
April 01, 2021 23:00 - 6 minutes - 4.18 MB"But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope." Ishmael wanders into a chapel and sees the memorials of sailors long dead and gone. Thinking of the living and the dead, he falls into a melancholy and a happiness at his future on a whale boat.
Chapter 6 - The Street
March 31, 2021 04:00 - 5 minutes - 3.89 MB"Still New Bedford is a queer place." Ishmael tells of the strange people of New Bedford, a cross roads of the world. A rest stop of the high seas.
Introduction to Moby Dick Pod
March 31, 2021 01:00 - 43 seconds - 544 KBWho am I? Who do I think I am? What's the big idea? I can explain.
Chapter 5 - Breakfast
March 30, 2021 18:00 - 4 minutes - 3.23 MB"A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing." Ishmael goes to breakfast and is fascinated by the sailors, oddly quiet. He's keeping a curious eye focused on Queegqueg.
Chapter 4 - The Couterpane
March 30, 2021 04:00 - 9 minutes - 6.84 MB"But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition state—neither caterpillar nor butterfly." Ishmael wakes up and tells of a strange dream. Queequeg gets dressed.
Chapter 3 - The Spouter Inn
March 25, 2021 00:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MB"When it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely multiply." A very nervous Ishmael secures lodging but has to share a bed with a stranger. Chaos ensues.
Chapter 2 - The Carpet-Bag
March 24, 2021 19:00 - 8 minutes - 5.96 MB"My mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me." Ishmael arrives in New Bedford. It's late and cold. With little money he scours the dreary town for a place to stay for the night.
Chapter 1 - Loomings
March 24, 2021 17:00 - 13 minutes - 8.97 MBThe great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open...