While you’re waiting for Joyce, here are a couple random news tidbits to keep you busy:
Last week, marine archaeologists in Hawaii announced that they’d found the shipwrecked remains of the whale ship Two Brothers, captained by George Pollard. Why is this relevant to the Rosenbach? Pollard’s first ship, the Essex, had been attacked and sunk by a sperm whale, a tale which later inspired Herman Melville in his writing of Moby Dick (see, I promised there was a connection). Rescued after a truly hellish journey (let’s just say that it involved cannibalism) Pollard bravely set sail again in the Two Brothers, which also sank. That’s the ship that’s just been found–check out the New York Times story for more details. And if you’re interested in the story of the whale-sunk Essex, I read Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea about six months ago and found it to be a real page turner.
Or if you really want to waste your time, check out the Great Gatsby video game, which is the hot new internet sensation. It’s an old-fashioned Nintendo-style game (in fact, the site claims that it was a real Nintendo game, which some folks doubt), but instead of Mario and Luigi, it’s Nick jumping around to collect coins. Not terribly literary, but fun.