Raising Our Site’s Reading Level: Deleted Chapters From Moby Dick About Whale Dicks (This Post Is NOT Funny)
Earlier in the week DJ brought to my attention a startling fact: apparently you people are not very literate. Well either that or the content on this site is just too stupid- though no particular post comes to mind. Here’s the evidence:
88% Basic 11% Intermediate 1% Posts by Patty O’Leary
Not looking good. Well, luckily I work in a library and I happened to have some archive access. That’s right! I have access to archived books- really famous manuscripts that have never been released! So, in an effort to boost our reading level, I stole this exclusive chapter excerpt from Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick. These particular chapters were censored from the original publication because they describe the whale’s penis and Ishmael’s diatribe on whale semen. It’s pretty boring stuff, but I can guarantee you that this is 100% real. I stole these documents from the library I work at and copied them here, word for word, verbatim. Enjoy:
***
I now find it apt to delay the horizontal movement of the plot, as it were, to arrive after brief sojourn, if I may use such a word, at a head which has been pressing against me for a large portion of the aforewritten chapters- it is a matter of great import, as are all when the topic of whaling presents its lofty snout. The topic of discussion then is that of the great whale’s mighty organ, found below the bowels of the beastly sea and situated in such a way as nature’s hand found most a propos in all animals, including our own, dear reader, as homo-erectus, to situation such an organ in close proximity with the point of departure, the water proof latch of the whale’s own bowels. It must be seen then that the device in question, that of the whale’s flimsy titan’s tusk, should be considered, as with all its features, on an echelon all its own, where on a human man the portion of his loins which he holds, though he mustn’t, most dear would only pale in comparison if held side by side with that of the whale. For, though the whale is a creature of solitude, there comes an occasion of maritime lust when, perhaps confused by the shadowed complexion of a bulbous cluster of earthy sea rags, its senses are drawn in such a way as to engorge said torch with a sensual blood, and the blubber stick becomes awakened from its submerged slumber, arriving as the Indian cub from the inner chambers of his squaw, it perks its nose out, departing towards the grimy depths where no man could suffice himself without all the world’s science at his disposal. The member appears then into its murky atmosphere and murmurs: Here I Am.
***
Yes, these soldiers of the oriental, spending their rice-caked lives beneath the rising sun which they have deemed their own, and perhaps rightly as their round faces and generous glows prove after they have completed a drought of any kind in the sunny, quaint villages of straw and bamboo which they called home. With this baking, their skin has metamorphosed to a healthy, imperial leather, parched as papyrus over the kiln, so that dispatching an exact age based on a visual recapitulation becomes irksome without an oral knowledge of the Chinese characters which innumerate eleven to ninety-five, and thus it was quite fathomable that this guru may have not been of mere middle age, but many scores older or younger. In speaking, he twiddled his hairy digits, cloaked by the cuffs of his navy gown, and began to explain in the broken click-clicks of his dialect the mysterious origin, the most curious etymology.
I wish not to continue further without using my own calligraphy to capture the sight of thus humdrum man who has left such a watermark on my memory and who I will forever fold in delicate concision with my proper knowledge of the whale. He was a seller of wares, as many men of the east find their living most easily. His wigwam, which was his market, was filled with shelves of jade and porcelain, tiny spinning tops and monkey boxes which would make rounds and pop if a small brass handle was rotated in a certain way. Knowing his mind to be an encyclopedia of whalish reference, upon entering the musky shop, I half expected, dare I say rightly, to discover behind a gilded dragon fan, a tiny cupboard containing the smallest canister of precious leviathan goo. Set to be sold only after fortnights of haggling with any witchdoctor or European collector who wishes to have his medicine chest of ailment cures to be, at last, complete. Alas, there was no cupboard, no secret sperm cellar, or else, perhaps under a floorboard which creaked in such a way. But it was a ground of dust, and I was left to satisfy my hunger with the China-man’s wise explanation which was drawn forth as follows:
***
Coda:
I didn’t find that funny, by the way. Also, of course, that wasn’t really from Moby Dick. Sorry. It’s just a parody I wrote while I was drunk. It is a pretty good impression of Melville’s style (if I may pat myself on the back)- that’s how Moby Dick sounds. So stupid, why would anyone read that book? I did, uselessly. Anyway, it proves that trying to do parodies of 19th century literature, or anything on an advanced reading level, isn’t funny. So that’s why our site has a low reading level, because it’s a humor blog. Ta-da!
