MDM18 is streaming NOW!

If you can't make it to the Marathon, watch the video stream, live until the reading ends, about 1 P.M., Sunday, Jan. 5.

If you love this annual event, the Whaling Museum has made it easy to support the Moby-Dick Marathon using your credit card.

Blessed by "Berkshares"

A news segment on PBS this evening talked about the "local currency," Berkshares, an alternative coin-of-the-realm for western Massachusetts.

Who is the "face" of Berskshares? None other than our man, H.M., pictured on the twenty next to a profile of Mt. Greylock.

Damned by dollars, blessed by Berkshares...

A four-letter word to the wise

courtesy of ksbuehler

Buried in today's newsletter from the Whaling Museum was this note:

Food and beverages will be sold on site to keep you well-fed and hydrated.

That four-letter word, "sold," marks a change from previous Marathons, where chowder dinners were served at 6 P.M., and snacks and coffee/tea/cider were available through the night — all, generously, free of charge. My guess would be that this change is due to the loss of the grant from the Department of Education. We'll have to wait till the MDM for the details.

Mind you, I'm not criticizing the museum for this change. To quote Tom Waits, "things are tough all over." Just a heads-up to returning marathoners to bring some extra cash (or your own snacks).

Save the MDM

courtesy of Elizabeth Ellis

The Whaling Museum sent out a letter last week:

This year, due to the abrupt elimination of a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education which historically underwrote the costs of this event, we are seeking the support of past readers and MDM enthusiasts.

The live streaming, the PA system and audio techs, the maintenance staff who keep the place functioning through the night — it all costs money.

Even a few dollars will help. See the "Support" notice on the Museum's MDM17 page.

Ahab's "attaboy"

Here's something I've wanted to check since reading Lemuel's post about the the current purchasing power of the $1.25 he spent on M-D in 1977.

In Chapter XXXVI Ahab memorably takes a page out of the corporate manager's Big Book of Manipulation to offer a gold "sixteen dollar piece" to the first crewman to spot Moby Dick. Using the tool that Lemuel cited to gauge the purchasing power of $16 in 2010 dollars (2011 figures are not yet available), we get the following values. In the novel, Ishmael tells us that the Pequod sailed "some years ago," so I present numbers for the ten years preceding M-D's 1851 publication date.

$16 in	1841 is worth	$412 in 2010 dollars
	1842	$442
	1843	$487
	1844	$481
	1845	$476
	1846	$471
	1847	$437
	1848	$456
	1849	$471
	1850	$461

So we're talking about an "incentive" worth something like $450 today (although the coin might be worth somewhat less with a big nail-hole through it).

Not what you'd call a killer bonus for three years' work, but certainly a respectable "attaboy"—particularly since it was coming out of Ahab's pocket, not some productivity-enhancement budget.

How Much Is That in Real Money?

One of my favorite Internet resources is How Much Is That in Real Money?  The site provides links to a variety of calculators for determining purchasing power over time. 

My old Signet Classics paperback Moby-Dick, for example, cost $1.25 back when I bought it in, I think, 1977.  In current dollars, that would be about $4.42 (which as it happens is nearly the current price of the Signet Classics Moby-Dick). 

Technical aside: The HMITIRM calculators are now actually maintained at a site called Measuring Worth, but I find it much easier to remember "How much is that in real money?" when I need to go there.