Where Went Melville

Herman Melville was born in New York to a respectable family, which fell on hard times and forced the young boy to work, but to escape impoverishment he went to sea culminating in a voyage to the South Seas, where he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. This escapade formed the basis of his highly popular TYPEE about two sailors who seek refuge with cannibals and how one falls in love with a woman named Faraway.

Once more with money he married and wrote more novels. Most notably MOBY DICK. A literary failure. Melville retired from writing and worked as a customs inspector in downtown Manhattan. I always thought thzt the US Customs Building was where, but it had been erect in 1907. Decades after Melville's death. Inside the Beaux Arts building is a large oval desk overlooked by maritime murals by Reginald Marsh underneath an oval rotunda, which replaced the Seaman's Museum. I imagined Melville at this desk. Not so.

Melville faded into a comfortable obscurity.

Somehow thanks to a Melville revival in the early 20th Century MOBY DICK was declared a masterpice and assigned to school reading lists. "Call me Ismael." I remember the first line well.

"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee."

I don't remember a single word in between unlike the Oxford Dictionary aardvak and zyzzyva, a tropical weevil or beetle. I have a copy of TYPEE someplace. Years ago I stumbled on a bust of Melville by by William N. Beckwith outside of 6 Pearl Street. It is no longer there. Such is fame. Fleeting and eternal in the mnds of the unreading public of the modern age. I wonder where the bust when.

to read more go to read Herman's Head by Adam Mellion

https://allvisibleobjects.substack.com/p/hermans-head

Adam Mellon further seeks Melville's bust in https://allvisibleobjects.substack.com/p/hermans-head-part-2-the-bust

The only known bust of Melville. heck out Adam Mellon's substack site All Visible Objects

May 4, 1978 - Journal entry

Shitting is a great release of tension. Antonio at the Ebasco dining room and I share the same schedule.

"Every time I eat here, I gotta take a shit 30 minutes later."

"Right before we serve lunch."

"Like clockwork."

"And then at 2."

Tick-tock."

I had only been constipated once in my life at fourteen. I didn't shit for two days and suffered an excruciating pain in my bowels. No one was home at my parents' house and I finally sat on the toilet for an hour, then I found an enema plunger and followed the directions. Warm water up my ass. Ten minutes later release and relief.

LATER

Today I have not one cent. I jumped the turnstile of the subway, both coming and going to Ebasco on Wall Street. My bag was stuffed with left-overs from the executive dining room. I was prepared for the worst, but arrived at the SRO hotel to find a letter from the IRS.

$308.90.

The last money I'll received for teaching at South Boston High School.

They are still having riots over bussing.

I'm glad to be away from all that hate.

Now all I have to do is find a place to cash my check.

Ila Jaheem Ma'ik

ila jaheem ma'ik means 'go to hell' in Arabic, which is what Arabic men might feel about the previous entry. Firstly most Arabs are not terrorists. Secondly some Arab men drink beer. Lastly the majority of American men would rather stand and fight a thousand al-Qaada warriors than spend the night with a 300-pound naked American woman.

"Run for the hills before they dose you with Viagra."

Then again some guys like fat.

When I was working at the Milk Bar in 1986, each night a taxi would pull up across the street around midnight. A couple would get out of the back. The thin male weigh about 140, but his over-sized date plused over 300. I'd shake my head in disbelief at how much in love the small man was with her, especially since she treated him like shit. I couldn't figure it out the attraction, until my Haitian co-worker Big Joel said, "Some men like a woman with a little meat."

"A little meat." I wasn't buying his explanation. "That woman is mostly fat."

"It's not the meat, it's the motion. Riding a big woman like that is like riding the ocean." Big Joel was 6-5. He liked his women big.

"More like riding a water bed." When it wasn't going up, it was going down.

"Man like you doesn't know a good thing, when he sees one." Big Joel was eying the big woman struggling up the stairs. The thin man was carrying her bag. If I didn't know better, I would have thought that my bouncer was jealous. I didn't say a word about the woman again, but always said 'hello' to her. She never said 'hello' back.

Another useful Arabic expression is 'kharrah ibina' or WTF.