A round-up of recent posts on All Visible Objects, a Melville/Moby-Dick substack.

I stopped posting biweekly updates on new posts to my Melville/Moby-Dick substack so as not spam the subreddit, but thought it was about time for a round-up of some recent investigations.

Back in early April, I explored the question of what, exactly, Ishmael meant when he said that the Spouter-Inn was "the very spot for... the best of pea coffee." Several annotations claim that "pea coffee" was actually made from chickpeas.

I also dug into a certain line in Moby-Dick in which Melville described Ahab as being buried in "this spiked Hotel de Cluny," exploring the history of the Hotel de Cluny (later a museum) and Melville's own visit to these ruins in 1849. I was also able to find exactly what he would have seen in the museum at that time and how it directly informed his description of Ahab and his decaying psychological state.

Then there was a post about the perennial claim spotted all over whether on social media, in newspapers, and even coming from English professors that Moby-Dick is so long -- and stuffed with encyclopedia information about whales -- because Melville was "paid by the word." In the process of thoroughly debunking it, I discovered that there might be the tiniest sliver of truth in it as well.

I also looked into a question i came across on r/AskHistorians, about the meaning of a pin from the 1960s reading "MELVILLE EATS BLUBBER." Besides being a silly, slightly irreverent joke, I found that it was linked it to an important mid-20th century obscenity trial and, bizarrely, the Zodiac Killer.

Finally, the post published this morning looked into what sea shanty the crew of the Pequod were singing as they were weighing anchor in Chapter 22 -- the one with "some sort of a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley." While at least one annotated edition of the book suggested a the song was one called "Haul Away Joe," I found that there was pretty good reason to question this claim and found another shanty that better fit the description.

In the next post, I'll post a "part 2" in which I investigate exactly what Booble Alley was, where it might have been located exactly, and what other historical information I can find out about it. And there's much more to come already in the queue. If you're interested, feel free to subscribe (for free, always). I send out new posts every other Sunday.

I'd love to hear what you all think, and/or ideas for new posts!