A few unrelated comments

[xiphias]

First, I downloaded Moby Dick to my PalmPilot, to have more random stuff to read with me -- it's important to always have a book or two on you, and the greatest strength of the PalmPilot is that it makes it practical to always have twenty or thirty books on you.

I'm only up to chapter six, but I'm really enjoying it.

Okay, I've avoided the book in the past, because everyone always talked about how Great it was, and how it dealt with The Human Condition, and never once did anyone use the adjective "wacky".

Like I said, I'm only up to chapter six -- but, so far, I would like to be the first to publicly state, "Moby Dick is wacky fun."

At least, the first six chapters are.

Anyway, on Sunday, after coming home from Hebrew School, I was so pissed off and angry that I decided to make something inedible. I was feeling mean and destructive, so I decided that a good way to deal with it would be to make an alcoholic beverage so nasty that nobody could possibly ever stomach it. And I didn't simply want to mix something unpotable -- I wanted to brew it.

As you know, Bob, anything with sugar in it can ferment when you add yeast to it, so I set about to take some of the nastiest sugariest stuff in the kitchen, and mix it with water and yeast in a gallon glass jug to set aside for a couple days to ferment.

Which is why there is a jug of Tang Mead bubbling away on my kitchen counter right now. Unfortunately, it's actually smelling lack-of-horrible, and, while there is no remote possibility of this tasting GOOD, it may fail to be completely undrinkable.

Comments

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who makes his own wine. One day, feeling curious, he went through the store looking for bottled juice to use. The only juice he could find that was 100% juice without added sugar was Juicy Juice.

So, he picked up 8 or 10 gallons of it and hauled it home, set it up with the yeast and stuff and let it ferment for a while.

According to him, the resulting booze was actually pretty tasty. And of course he ended up calling it "Winey Wine."

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Moby Dick is a wonderful book - what my favorite high school English teacher would have called "a rollicking good read." It's a pity that so many people read it through the dreaded "required reading" filter that kills the joy in so many truly great books.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

What really killed it for me was studying it under a teacher who gave objective tests on the book. Actual test question: "Where was the Pequod at the end of chapter 3?" Without prior consultation, every student in my A/P English class responded "In the water."

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

And did you all get the question correct?

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Technically, no, but the teacher recognized both the implied criticism and the incipient rebellion, and caved. We all got credit for the answer and the next test was marginally better.

[ckd]

It's just an info-dump filled SF novel minus the spaceships, you know.

[copperpoint.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was really apprehensive about reading moby dick, until I got to the joke about sleeping with a harpooner, and I nearly lost it.

[marquisedea.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you're liking Moby Dick. I usually heard the opposite of it, but perhaps I should pick it up one day. Also, Patrick Stewart as Ahab in the movie rawks.

Tang Mead? Oh gracious. THAT is wacky.

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

Well dammit, now I have to read Moby Dick. :) Also, I'm metaquoting you, if that's all right.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Please do. Um, what part?

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

Pretty much the entire post. Check out metaquotes to see comments. :)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yep, I saw. . . .

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Wait'll you get to the chapter about squeezing. Now that's wacky fun.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

I found Moby Dick to be one of those books where I really enjoyed the first few chapters, and the last few chapters, but not those in between. There is a period of about 300 pages where *nothing* *happens* while a vague sense of unease is developed. But then you get to the ending, and it's great.

[sokmunky.livejournal.com]

Ask Aaron about Tangdrivers....

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

not_the_angel Aaron?

[sokmunky.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It was a pretty safe guess, after all: the name "Aaron" and "weird alcohol."

Did I mention that I got my first ever, and WORST ever, hangover with him? It was a bachelor party, before either of us were legally old enough to drink. I rarely drank at that point, he drank . . . um. . . significantly less rarely than I did.

Anyway, the point is that, while he was drinking spiced rum, I was drinking Akavit, and there's nothing quite as colorful as an Akavit hangover.

[deerdancer22.livejournal.com]

Has anyone heard from Not The Angel lately?

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

I bet I could get people at Pennsic to drink Tang Mead.

[nextian.livejournal.com]

I wandered over from metaquotes and was ... sort of struck by the similarity between your reaction to Moby Dick and mine to Les Miserables. XD Oh, the Romantics? I will read Moby Dick when I am done with the Epic French Work, I think.

... may I friend you? As anyone who talks about space pirate zombies is cool enough in my books.

(Have you thought about anything the Decemberists ever wrote? There are ghost pirate chimbley sweeps. I dunno if that counts.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Hey, I actually LIKED the bits in Les Miserables where he goes on about using the sewer system of Paris to fertilize crops. Gross, unsanitary, and impractical, but amusing. I also like the two chapters where he goes on and on about Napoleonic tactics, why the battle happened exactly there, what the strategic importance of the battle was, how he, Victor Hugo, could probably have done it better, and the fact that all of this was totally irrelevant to any of the characters, who were just there to loot the dead bodies.

My friending policy is to enourage random people to friend me, and to friend random people. Hello, random person! Welcome!