Finishing the last "Historical Note" in the Final Volume of THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE

Bob Sandberg, who has been heroically transcribing Melville's poetical manuscripts, has been heroically criticizing my "Historical Note," now only a few back and forth emails from being OK to go. Well, the edition started in 1965 and with any luck will be completed in 2016, only a few years after we started. Sandberg is one of Hayford's younger students. Now he is retired and thinking of buying a house up north in a town where one of my Bell cousins, a 50er if not a 49er, built the first Court House.
I look over at a wooden waste box I picked up at the Northwestern warehouse in 1965. Got a nice square wooden one that has another 50 years of active life to go, unlike some of us.

Intrepid Traveler Pausing on Way to Paso Robles

Paso has suffered from the drought. Where did the high-spirited Gallic charm go?

Nobody else on 2 mile stretch of California Beach, again Today

Yesterday in the rain there was no one else in sight up and down the beach from North Point to Morro Rock. Today, after real rain, crossing Duck Creek (dry these 4 years) and Cloisters Creek (also dry these 4 years) took climbing into dunes and a little selective jumping. It was wildly beautiful, and not a single other person was in sight.

This water you see is in the dunes where water has no reason to be. There is no beach.

"Carly Fiorina struggling to break through with women"--But she sure broke through with Robert Dear

Carly Fiorina struggling to break through with women

After two standout debate performances that lifted the candidate to the top 3 in some national polls, Fiorina is now far behind the top tier of GOP candidates

Posted: 12:06 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015

After two standout debate performances that lifted the candidate to the top 3 in some national polls, Fiorina is now far behind the top tier of GOP candidates---

 

BUT SHE PROVED HERSELF A GREAT COMMUNICATOR BY HER INFLUENCE ON HER WARRIOR, ROBERT DEAR.

Posted: 12:06 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015
 
 

80 and a week

At the Vet's Hall in Morro Bay.

Russell Weaver's stories about me are another matter

The anecdote I just posted about a student drunk-dialing me is amusing. I am rather more baffled by Russell Weaver in his new book on BILLY BUDD. I have marked a dozen passages where the language is twisted so as not to be obviously grudging. This is from memory, but it will let you know the genre: "This is not to obviate what Parker says." I see that my first name is misspelled in Works Cited and that Yannella's last name is misspelled. I cringe. The elderly and the dead deserve more respect. I can't read Weaver until we are done with the final Northwestern-Newberry volume, but it is proving curious to turn through. I see that Weaver knows me better than I know myself, for he frequently says what I must think and what I would have thought. Well, no, no, not really.
Back to the Historical Note to the final volume.

Stories that Circulate About You If You Live Long Enough

A FRIEND JUST SENT ME THIS.

Workshop Heretic

Jacob Weber 

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Don't get an M.F.A. (final post)

My first course in graduate school was a survey on Melville. Melville is my favorite writer. The professor for the class was Brian Higgins, one of the great Melville scholars in the world. (I'm sorry to find out that Brian died in May.) This was as close to Heaven as I would ever find in life. He told a story about fellow Melville scholar Hershel Parker. A former student of Parker's drunk-dialed him in the middle of the night once, his plaintive voice pleading for an answer to the question, "My God, Hershel, what does Moby-Dick mean?" Parker was reportedly proud of the answer he managed to scrape together while still half-asleep: "When you go up against the universe, you're likely to get the shit kicked out of you."

I hope you liked that anecdote. It cost me about $50,000.