38Talk:

From: NoReply_Bullard@fer3.com
To: peterwhittemore@hotmail.com
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2014 17:41:14 -0700
Subject: [38Talk] Re: FW: Morgan Letter

Thank you, John.  Peter's piece was finally published in the Standard

Times just the other day.

Matthew Bullard

On Sat, Jul 5, 2014 at 2:49 PM, John Bryant  wrote:

> I enjoyed Peter's and Matthew's pieces.

> 

> 

> 

> John Bryant, Professor of English

> Founding Editor, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies

> Consulting Editor, The Melville Society, http://melvillesociety.org/

> Director, Melville Electronic Library

> Director, Hofstra Digital Research Center

> Mason 204, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549; Tel: 516.463.5470

> ________________________________

> From: 38Talk@fer3.com  on behalf of Veronica Lawlor

> 

> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2014 10:16 AM

> To: John L. Bryant

> 

> Subject: [38Talk] Re: FW: Morgan Letter

> 

> It definitely was!

> 

> 

> On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 2:21 PM, Peter Whittemore

>  wrote:

>> 

>> Thanks Veronica,  hope the inspiration was colorful.    Peter G W

>> 

>> ________________________________

>> From: NoReply_Lawlor@fer3.com

>> To: peterwhittemore---.com

>> Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:31:15 -0700

>> 

>> Subject: [38Talk] Re: FW: Morgan Letter

>> 

>> Hello Peter,

>> Your letter is beautiful, thank you for sharing it. I am here at New

>> Bedford today with some of the artists from Dalvero Academy, and I read your

>> letter to them this morning as inspiration before our day of drawing the

>> ship.

>> Best,

>> Veronica

>> 

>> Sent from my iPhone

>> 

>> On Jun 27, 2014, at 7:01 PM, "Peter Whittemore"

>>  wrote:

>> 

>> This is the letter I sent last night for the New Bedford Standard-Times

>> "letters to the editor" column, or maybe even a guest editorial column (with

>> pictures of the boat?)  Steve Urbon passed it on to the top editor today  so

>> I hope it shows up in the weekend edition, for all of our benefit.     Peter

>> Whittemore

>> 

>> ________________________________

>> From: peterwhittemore---.com

>> To: peterwhittemore---.com; surbon{at}s-t.com

>> Subject: FW: Morgan

>> Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 23:25:53 -0400

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> ________________________________

>> From: peterwhittemore---.com

>> To: peterwhittemore---.com

>> Subject: Morgan

>> Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:09:11 -0400

>> 

>>      A top-gallant salute to the Port of New Bedford, Mayor Mitchell, to

>> the Captain, crew, craftsmen and staff of Mystic Seaport, and to anyone who

>> has ever dreamt of the one of a kind voyage we have just been privileged to

>> experience sailing on the Charles W. Morgan whaleship from Vineyard Haven

>> back home to New Bedford Harbor.

>> 

>>      I am the great-great-grandson of Herman Melville, author of "Moby

>> Dick".  He left this port, which in the 1840's was the richest city in the

>> world, on the whaleship Acushnet like many a young man, going out to find

>> work in the energy sector, as they do today in the shale oil fields of the

>> Dakotas.  It has been the thrill of a lifetime to be among the crew sailing

>> into this port, blood coursing in our veins like the singing of the rigging,

>> with the joy of the creation filling our souls like the wind in the sails.

>> We did not catch sight of the great White Whale, but believe me, he's still

>> out there.

>> 

>>       Melville sailed in 1841, just four months before the Chas W Morgan

>> was launched.  One might say the Acushnet of New Bedford launched the novel

>> Moby Dick and the Morgan has given me an opportunity to return the story to

>> its source on a "sister" ship.  I left New Bedford Tuesday evening on the

>> SeaStreak, going to Martha's Vineyard at twenty-six knots and returned the

>> next day, some 173 years earlier, so to speak, at an exhilarating six knots

>> under eight square sails.  There were many descendants of former captains,

>> crew and owners aboard and we all agreed the ancestors were smiling down on

>> us all the way into port

>> 

>>      You might think this a great opportunity for one of the family to

>> plug the book Moby Dick as if we ever made a dime on your copy purchase.

>> The book sold 800 copies in Melville's lifetime, and was so panned by the

>> critics of the day that the copyright ran out never to be renewed.

>> So please all of you from high school kids to ancient mariners who read

>> Melville's epic, and who should be grateful for such open-source adventure

>> and wisdom, read it twice at least and read it in your later years when the

>> depth of the ocean and the depth of your soul is so much richer.  And if

>> you've gained value from the journey, please send that dime and then some to

>> the New Bedford Whaling Museum, and to the Berkshire Historical Society's

>> home at Arrowhead, in Pittsfield Mass where Moby Dick was written, and to

>> the great people of Mystic Seaport whose hard work, with blisters and

>> splinters to show for it, brought this great day to the Seven Seas. Please

>> support these efforts to keep the literature and the sea alive.

>> 

>>      Oh Lord this madness and thy mysteries are so great and my brain is

>> so small.  Give me the words of my ancestors that I might make us all see

>> that Melville's novel "Moby Dick" walks these docks as we speak, day and

>> night, walks the cobblestone streets of New Bedford and Nantucket and walks

>> the halls of Wall Street and the corridors of Congress, calling us like

>> Elijah the Prophet and Ishmael the Beholder, and Father Mapple in his sermon

>> on Jonah, calling us to speak the truth to falsity.  We need not speak the

>> truth to power because truth is the ultimate power, but we must speak the

>> truth to falsity as we see the oceans fill with plastic and pollution, as we

>> see whale fishing continue beyond any reason, and as we witness industrial

>> enterprise crushing the American soul once so joyous in its freedoms.  Moby

>> Dick still plies these waters calling us to wake up and smell the seaweed,

>> breathe in the beauty and to step up and act to sustain our Earth.

>> 

>>       Thank you Mystic Seaport, crew of the Charles W. Morgan and to those

>> who love the sea and the life it has given us all. Thanks for showing us

>> that we can rebuild and rededicate ourselves to a revival of the American

>> spirit in view of a sustainable future for the seas that continue to feed

>> the world.

>> 

>> Peter Gansevoort Whittemore

>> Cohasset MA

>> 1-781-383-6568

>> 

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> 

> 

> 

> --

> Veronica Lawlor

> Studio 1482

> 917-449-9425

> veronica{at}studio1482.com

> www.studio1482.com/#veronica

> www.veronicalawlor.com

> 

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