The Phrenological Journal & Haunted Typebox Blog » Literature http://www.hauntedtypebox.com/blog Dispatches from the Lost Hat Department Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:55:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Ishmael at sea http://www.hauntedtypebox.com/blog/2009/10/25/ishmael-at-sea/ http://www.hauntedtypebox.com/blog/2009/10/25/ishmael-at-sea/#comments Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:44:24 +0000 Haunted Typeboxer http://www.hauntedtypebox.com/blog/2009/10/25/ishmael-at-sea/ As Ishmael takes to the sea, the style of narrative changes. On land a somewhat ecstatic, idiosyncratic narrator, at sea a man of ceremony, classification, strategy, ologies. He takes to the sea to escape a kind of death. On the Pequod he is outside of himself, even omniscient. Here too he brings us his text-within-text, his cetology (whose own form ‘quarto’ and ‘folio’ are noted just as the whales inside).

Ishmael notes the order of the Pequod, describes its society and stratifications at length. Just as the ship has unspoken orders, the ship brings order to our Ishmael.

]]> http://www.hauntedtypebox.com/blog/2009/10/25/ishmael-at-sea/feed/ 1 The Singer with the Sorrowful Face http://www.hauntedtypebox.com/blog/2009/03/04/the-singer-with-the-sorrowful-face/ http://www.hauntedtypebox.com/blog/2009/03/04/the-singer-with-the-sorrowful-face/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:24:53 +0000 Haunted Typeboxer http://www.hauntedtypebox.com/blog/?p=78 As the Ingenious Knight Don Quixote makes his way across Spain, the Idol hopefuls continue to sing their way into the hearts of Americans. I don’t know that this is really a parallel relationship. But it is an introduction to a discussion of last night’s Idol proceedings. For the first two-thirds of the evening, it was pretty hard to pluck out a winner. We had perfectly affable performers doing capable renditions of songs, but nothing stellar. Predictably, the stand-out performance came at the end (if this aint fixed, it’s at least programmed) with Lil Rounds ’slaying’ some modern pop song (Keyes? Blidge?). It really was good. I guess that’s how I judge Idol: If someone can impress me in a genre I despise.

Still, and I know this is completely politically incorrect, last night’s Idol was ’special.’ By which I mean, you had the gay guy, the Spanish-speaking guy, and the blind guy. The last two are shoe-ins, both for the aforementioned characteristics, and their performances (and for Jorge’s tears and Spanish-speaking appeal to the voting public). It’s gonna be Lil, Jorge, and Scott. 

And what of the Knight of Rueful Countenance the Sorrowful Face? Quixote confronts a troupe of costumed actors and—surprisingly—takes them for a troupe of costumed actors. For Quixote, everything is transmogrified into an element of his fiction, except this element of honest  illusion (actually this brings to my count two things which are seen as they are, the other being the fulling hammers).

And now Quixote has met his mirror…

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