"Ten Things I Learned" Reading Whaling Logbooks

Whaling jokes... (from a volunteer here at NBWM).

1. Just because you're the son of a captain doesn't mean he won't list you as a deserted to get out of paying discharging fees in a foreign port when he sends you home early.

2. Tetanus shots would have been a good idea in the 19th century.

3. If you're planning to desert and use "taking your clothes to be washed on shore" as an excuse, make sure you don't include boots and shoes when you ask the captain, 'cause, you know, boots and shoes don't need to be washed...and the captain knows that.

4. When in Chile, beware "One Arm Pete". He will ply your crew with spirits and convince them to desert. Then they will laugh at you from the deck of a Chilean warship in the harbor while you watch helplessly.

5. If you leave the ship in protest of the captain's behavior, don't be surprised if he leaves you behind to fend for yourself on some small Pacific island.

6. There are no strikes on whalers, only mutinies.

7. If you're going to set fire to the ship, make sure that you are close enough to shore to get off before she burns. Unless your crazy...in which case, you really don't care what happens now, do you?

8. Turning the ship into a rum-soaked den of iniquity while the captain is sick ashore is not going to win you any points with the owners. And using the captain's cabin while he and his wife are sick ashore...that's just gauche.

9. If you want to toughen up your recalcitrant son with some real world work experience, you might want to think about something other than working on a whaler. Like working in a mine, or factory, or the army.

10. But, if your brother complains to you that going on a whaling voyage is a fool's errand when you could be in the more stable army or navy, you should remind him that it's the middle of the Civil War and the open sea is significantly less dangerous than the fields of Gettysburg.

The White Whale

A friend at the museum found this, a fantastic addition to my collection of whale cartoons.















While I'm at it, here's the Hindenberg on a pillow.

Classic Whaling Prints Exhibition

Check out my meticulously constructed 1':.75" model of the upcoming Classic Whaling Prints Exhibition! It's not done yet, but it's getting there. Here's a walking tour of my souped up curatorial dollhouse.





















Here're the Hulsart prints you see when you first enter (yellow paper just represents information plaques).




















Then immediately on your left is the seventeenth century Dutch whaling prints.















There are a bunch of French prints behind you.

The French are the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings in Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.

The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England's experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt.

(Moby Dick, Chapter 56)
















Back to more Dutch stuff. And the narwhal tusk. Grey cardboard indicates a display case, yellow a door.















British prints.















Then onto the American prints! Apparently, if things go according to my model, a large number of prints will remain in plastic bags on the floor in front of you.















More American prints on all sides. America rocks.















The Benjamin Russel 1871 Arctic Abandonment series, both water color originals and print versions.















Closing with Japanese and Eskimo whaling prints. Unfortunately, the Eskimos never really made very many prints of any sort, but the Japanese sure as heck did. That green piece on the table is a scroll.















The exhibition opens in late February if you'd like to see something more than scale three-quarter-inch place markers on foam core.

Election 2008

I knew it was going to happen.
I watched it happen.
And I just can't believe it happened.
































Art by Josh Lermon

NYTimes, Reactions Worldwide

NYTimes, Election Unleashes a Flood of Hope Worldwide

One Day to Change the World (gets me every time)

"We have a lot of work to do"

Signs of Hope and Change

Rain in Virginia

Acceptance Speech

News Headlines

Scrimshaw Thursday Update

Gosh I haven't updated in a bit. These past few weeks have been crazier than Right Whale mating season. But here's a Scrimshaw Thursday update (there's been a lot of great stuff I haven't uploaded, unfortunately). Hopefully you'll find this stuff as neat as I do.

The bounty!















I'm definitely the youngest member of the scrimshaw crew.















Sweet tooth!















The above tooth has Garneray's Pêche de la Baliene carved into it. Garneray's prints are not only awesome in their own right, but also because Melville describes this very picture in chapter 56 of Moby Dick, "Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes":

In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his back weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shellfish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons fo tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.

(Ambroise Louis Garneray, Pêche de la Baliene, 1835
Photo courtesy of the the New Bedford Whaling Museum.)


Another bit of scrimshaw, with what we think might be a scene from The Merchant of Venice carved on it. Alongside is a 19th century ruler (not King George IV).




















I thought this thing was neat. It's a stamp, though we're not sure what the purple ball is supposed to be. Maybe an ink blotter.
















When writing logbooks for whaling voyages, whalers would use these stamps to indicate when they had caught a whale, and then write the specifications next to the stamp. Stamps are often forged, but with a collection of 2500 logbooks here at the museum, we could (theoretically, given an intern and a lot of time) check to see if any of the stamps match up. Interestingly enough, this one seems to have an Orca on it.
















Here is the painted Alaskan whale rib, followed by a bunch of closeups of my favorite drawings on it.
















It's an eskimo! Note the toes.




















Frog.















Snake.















I love this guy. Fantastic ears.















My favorite.















Election day is tomorrow! Make sure to have a beer for Obama, and the future of our country.