The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Now Powered by RI -- Real Intelligence
Word of the Every So Often
faldstool: (noun) A faldstool is a chair of sorts used in a church, whether you’re referring to a portable stool for kneeling at when one prays or a folding chair for a clergy member to sit on when not officiating a service.
Everyday History
Yesterday was the anniversary of the exploding whale in Florence, Oregon. To continue a theme... On November 14, 1851, Herman Melville published one of the greatest novels that nobody has read, Moby-Dick. You know the story. Captain Ahab becomes obsessed with getting the Great White Whale and it all ends poorly, as do most obsessions. Surely you’ve seen the movie.
The novel was loosely based on the adventures of the American whaling ship Essex, which was captained by a guy named George Pollard. In 1820, on Captain Pollard’s first voyage with the Essex, it was attacked by a rather large sperm whale in the South Pacific and sank. The captain finally made it back to Nantucket after a harrowing ordeal that saw 12 of the origin crew of 20 eaten by the survivors. And he was given another ship, the Two Brothers... which also sank, this time just west of Hawai’i. And that was it. He was considered unusually unlucky and never sailed again. Melville even met the good captain, a year after Moby Dick was published.
Yeah, back to Moby-Dick, with or without the hyphen. It is praised as being one of the greatest novels ever written, probably by the same folks who think Paradise Lost is a thrilling poem. I mean, they’re both good in a literature-major sort of way, but at best they’re tedious. Really tedious. When Melville is writing action scenes, like being attacked by the whale, he’s good. But for crying out loud! There are entire chapters devoted to nothing but rope.
So over the years Moby-Dick has gotten the reputation as being one of those books that everybody says is great, but nobody has actually read. Take, for instance, the 1983 Woody Allen movie Zelig, where a guy name Zelig (as if that comes as a surprise) comes to act and look like everybody he meets, which was caused by his never having finished reading Moby-Dick.
The madness has got to stop. So what we propose here at the Press is that readers are awarded merit badges after reading certain books. I mean, if you read the Bible – the whole thing – you ought to get something more than satisfaction of having done so. Same for things like Uncle Tom’s Cabin – historically significant, but quite awful to actually read. Paradise Lost, or for that matter, anything by Milton. Or anything by James Joyce. Or Dickens. There’s a reason why we watch A Christmas Carol every year and don’t read it. War and Peace, seriously? Or any Russian author. Just listing their names is tedious. But if you read them, other people ought to know. Just sew that merit badge on your sash right next to Don Quixote and Dante’s Inferno. Maybe then more people would read more books. Just sayin’.
Oh, by the way, Ahab’s first mate is a guy named Starbuck. It is after him that Starbuck’s Coffee is named.
Cartoon of the Week
“The point of it?! There is no bloody point of it! That’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”
Stuff
Black’s Beach
That was the night I was driving Duckworth’s Volkswagen. The one without brakes. Well, brakes that would work on the first try without being pumped.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you...” This after I’d blown through a red light.
I don’t know why I was driving Duck’s car. I don’t think I understood it then. It wasn’t like either of us had been drinking, or even had anything to smoke. That’s why we were trying to find Swartout’s apartment.
Mind you, had we stayed on the base we could’ve drank all we wanted at the Club. They didn’t care that we weren’t 21, as long as we had a military ID. But nobody drank on base. I mean, not when you didn’t have to. And there were never any women drinking at the Club. Not on a Tuesday night. Of course, there probably wouldn’t be any women at Swartout’s. But at least we’d get off the ship for a while.
There was always a party at Swartout’s. I’d been there maybe half a dozen times, and every time there was beer and weed and the stereo cranked. A party. But not tonight. When we got there the place was dark and quiet. If Swartout was there, he didn’t want us knocking on his door. So we left.
We were headed back to the base, since we couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. On the way back to the ship, that’s when we found Black’s Beach. We weren’t looking for it. It was just there. There was a sign. It announced that somewhere at the bottom of the hill, somewhere down there in the dark, was the only nude beach beach in that part of the world. Look it up. It was the first legal nude beach in all of America. And we had found it. There was nothing to it. We had to go.
Only there was no way to get there. No sane way. 300 feet down. Mind you, it wasn’t straight down. More of a steep incline. What is known as a “slide zone.” Once you start sliding, you’re probably not going to stop until you hit the bottom. It probably wouldn’t kill us, but we wouldn’t like it. So there in the dark we scaled down that hill, holding on to the scrubby groundcover the best we could, hoping our feet could find something more solid. Inch by inch, all the way to the bottom.
Dirty, scraped, and sore we finally were there. Where one guy – a dude – who had built a pathetic campfire was running around naked. Butt naked. Not a stitch. Happy as he could be.
“Hey guys!” he said, way too happily for a Tuesday night, “You ought to take your clothes off!”
“Why?” I wondered.
“Because we can!” And then as an afterthought, while holding his arms out to the night, “Ain’t it great?”
“Are you it?” Duck asked. “Are you the only one down here?”
“Yeah. Maybe. But others will show up. You did!”
And then with a “Whoop!” he ran toward the breaking waves. He didn’t get in, but he did a lot of splashing. And a lot of whooping. And he continued to “whoop” as he continued to splash around in that cold water on a cold evening. I mean, yeah, sure, it was Southern California, but it was nighttime... and January. And this guy’s running around naked.
So we decided to go. Before we did, we asked him how to get back to the top, and he showed us the stairway that was maybe 10 feet from were we had struggled all the way down that hill. I don’t remember having anything to say on the walk back up, or on the ride back to the base.
Contact Us
Comments? Criticism? Insults? Money Orders?
Earl, our editor, wants to hear from you!
(But that doesn't necessarily mean you'll hear from him.)
Send your messages or bank account information to: