Gansevoort and I arrived at the New Bedford
Fairfield Inn within minutes of each other on Friday afternoon. He had driven down from Waltham, and I had taken the train from Wilmington to Providence, where my sister (who was also heading to the Marathon) picked me up for the drive from Providence to New Bedford. We dropped our bags and walked over to
Freestone's (a/k/a "The Marathoner's Rest") for a pre-Marathon-buffet drink.
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Melville fans arrive early to get good seats for the lecture |
This was our first year attending the Marathon buffet dinner, a pleasant, communal way to kick off the Marathon activities. Our table included my sister and brother-in-law, the
Dutch Melvilleans Tjitske Zwerver and Tonnie Schakenraad, and RISD professor Burton Van Name ("Van") Edwards, with whom I had a nice chat about parchment, papyrus, and points.
After dinner and a quick trip to the museum
shop, we headed into the Cook Memorial Theater for this year's lecture, "
Moby-Dick in American Popular Culture," by
Timothy Marr of UNC. The lecture -- illustrated with photos, videos, and music -- earned lots of laughs, as we watched clips of cartoons, video games, and movies, very,
very loosely inspired by
Moby-Dick. (Professor Marr omitted one
Moby-Dick by-blow, however:
Age of the Dragons, starring Danny Glover as Ahab.) Among the photos were some intriguing, and some just plain odd, covers of editions of
Moby-Dick from the collection of our blogging compatriot
Bill Pettit.
After the lecture, we strolled back to the hotel to rest up for the main event.
How did we forget that M-D reference from Seinfeld? -- http://youtu.be/-SRH_cFz-WM
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