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Clare Sera throws the questions like harpoons to dig 20,000 leagues into the expertise of arch Herman Mel-villian Danno Sullivan, a small white man who’s an expert on the Great White Whale.
Much love and many thanks to announcer Moira Quirk.
Your hosts are Danno Sullivan and Clare Sera.
Love the show? Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Every episode, with transcripts, lives at experteasespelledwrong.com.
All right. Our audience tonight is composed mostly of fans of Herman Melville. And Danno, that's your... Spelled wrong? No, it's not. Naturally. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong, the podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Expert comedy writer Clare Sera and expert comedy writer Danno Sullivan bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Danno, we have a lot of folks that are especially excited this evening to hear not only tales of Herman Melville, the man, but also his little known foray into poetry, which I know that you have excavated and sailed the many seas of.
You can only imagine how many words there are that rhyme with whale. I can't even. Herman Melville, what drew you to harpoon this topic? Clare, as a boy, I was unusual in that I loved anything that was small but heavy. For example, a hunk of lead. So the other biggest thing that I could find that wouldn't poison my sister just by lugging it around was the complete works of Herman Melville. To me, that book, Clare, 10,000 pages of pure English prose was like a pet. But this is a different type of weight, was it not? Because... This was poetic weight. The weight of an intelligent mind working hard to make words rhyme. For example, whale, sail. You can easily see how you could weave a poem about whaling and sailing.
Oh my gosh. Just with those two words. I didn't even put them together that they would be of the same nature. So I don't want to sound condescending, but the way rhyming works, Clare, is you have a starting word. Whale is your jumping off point. Now, what you need to do is find another word that has most of the same sound, the ending of that word, but with a different beginning. And it has to be a real word. Okay. I'm just going to have a question right now as a neophyte. So would the word ale count? As a rhyme? Yes. Different experts have different opinions. I say yes. And I congratulate you for your first try coming up with something that good. So you could have a story of a drunken whale.
Simply by crafting together those two words, whale and ale. Now add into it the third word that we used a minute ago, sail. And can you see how this is starting to become almost Odyssean? Oh my goodness. And so would a sail count? No, no. So Dano, one of the things that our listeners have written in when they found out that you were going to be interviewed on our podcast... Pale, pale would count. Sorry, I was not really listening. Rhymes are hard to come up with, and it took me a minute, but pale, I would accept. Great. No, that's wonderful. Thank you. And obviously you are the expert here.
Right, right. So please go ahead. I'm sorry. You have a theory about why Herman Melville turned to poetry towards the end of his writing days. Claire, could I just interject for a moment? Yeah. I'm sorry. Nail. Nail also rhymes. So his poetry being lighthearted and the fact that he was a very short man. Yes. I always wondered if those were connected. Light of heart, short of stature. That was his motto. Can't lose. So he was a short, heavy, balding man with a bad attitude. You're making him sound a lot like the Toulouse-Lautrec of poetry. Which is interesting because as an author of Moby Dick, one of the great tomes of time, he was a tall man with a light aspect. But when he became a poet, his entire physicality changed.
It was the most remarkable thing you've ever seen, Claire. You could sit him down and ask him to write a poem and watch the man shrink before your eyes. And the shorter the poem, the shorter he became. When he started doing limericks, you could barely see the guy. But his girth remained gigantic. So he was short and wide. For certain bits of short poetry, he would take on the appearance of a highway, just long, flat, and wide, but only an inch or two thick. Just really one of the most fascinating Americans in European history. And that's not even talking about his Asian heritage.
Um, I know that you are expecting me to ask this. And so I feel like I need to get it out of the way. We've gotten so we've got the live requests are coming in right now. I can just see the hearts are climbing up on my screen. Would you tell us your favorite of Herman Malville's poems and maybe recite a little piece? Yes, I see that Levon from Leavenworth, Kansas, is writing in with a request. Can you read that subject to me? And I'll give you the poem. He is asking if you would read Herman Malville's Ode to a Birdbath. Of course I can. Do you have it handy? I mean, I know that you can't have memorized all of his poetry.
No, no, no. But I have everything reverse indexed so I can look it up by subject. Bath, bird, Ode to a. And this is one of his heavier books of light poems. Page 20,219. Oh, wow. Stinky, stinky, birdy, birdy, bathing now, not so dirty. Signed Herman Malville, January 1877. Gosh, Dano, I am going to tell you something. I just I have chills still from you reading that and the picture that you painted of him growing smaller as he wrote it, smaller and wider, highway-like. I don't know if you could tell, that was my, I do a live show, Claire, for elementary children where I do a presentation in the character of Herman Malville. And it's not as popular as my Teddy Roosevelt show that I also do.
Right, right, right. We need to have you back about that. Well, both voices are exactly the same. Is that live or CGI? Oh, that's live. Yeah. Yeah, I go in costume. And the difference is with Teddy Roosevelt, I have to wear protective gaiters around my legs as if I were investigating the Amazon. And Herman Malville never wore gaiters and never investigated the Amazon. Oh, isn't that interesting? And the elementary children must just cheer with excitement. Yeah. I followed a fireman and an astronaut and brought in my Herman Malville character. And I can't tell you, there were so many questions for Malville over the astronaut, over the policeman.
Oh, no. How do you make that rhyme? Tell us about dissecting whales. What's it like to eat a human at sea? Right, right. What's happening with your girth right now? Yeah, yeah. That's the hard part. In that sense, Roosevelt is a little easier to do because his girth changes over time with the sorrow over the loss of his wife and his mother. Oh, gosh. But Malville's just changes in the space of a moment, depending on the length of the poem. I also do Houdini, if you know anybody looking for a Houdini. Oh, gosh. I don't, but we'll put that in the show notes.
The fun thing about doing Houdini is I book the engagements and then I try to get out of it. Oh, my gosh, Dano. That's really got to be annoying for the people whose children are waiting for someone to show up at their party. Well, here's what I do, Claire. I know that the kids aren't going to get it. Yeah. So I write the little joke up on a card in the handwriting of Herman Melville. Oh, now the kids are engaged. Yes. They love their Melville. So I send it over with a few performance coach tips for the principal to read to the whole school over the intercom system so he can get this Houdini joke in the voice...
Oh, what? ...of Herman Melville. Dano, I envy the generation that is growing up with that in their school. This is entertainment for the ages, Claire. There's just not a lot of intercom entertainment going on anymore. That is intelligent for the children. I call it intercomnant. Oh, well, you call it intercomnant. I call it inter-excitement because just hearing about it gets me all a Twitter. Oh, are you on Twitter? I am on Twitter at intercom.com. It's about the common commerce spelled differently. Sometimes when I go in with the Herman Melville show, I'll do readings from Billy Budd.
Oh, right, right, right. Which was, you know, in its own time, that was more successful than Moby Dick, but Moby Dick is better today. So what I'll do is I'll do Billy Budd being attacked by a great white whale. Oh, my gosh. And the kids must love that mashup. I love it. Because kids love mashups today. Anything that's mashed up. Anything mashed. Because children's teeth and their minds are not as developed as they were. Not even that portion of their skull is fully developed. Yeah, they've got that soft spot. And that's- This is a very young crowd. Preschoolers. Yeah, yeah. A lot of this is acted out with blocks and little felt characters.
Well, you know, it might be little felt today. We're striving to create things that will be felt in the future. I think that's about as much Herman Melville as anybody can really take in in one setting. And it's probably time for us to wrap up this interview. I know you've got a gig to get out of. That's right. It's Houdini this afternoon. Yeah. Melville tomorrow. Can't lose. Oh, my gosh. What a life. What a day. Listen, it has been an absolute intelligainment of information from you today. Claire, it's been a real treat to be here. Like the expert podcast listener we know you are.
Now, is this going to be sent out over an intercom? Yes, this will be intercommed to the tri-state region. Wonderful. That's really the only entertainment form that I understand. I know there's this new technology stuff, this TV and this movies. No, no, no. We're strictly an intercom podcast. We're a comcast. We're supported by Comcast to do intercom podcasts. Flail. Flail is another word that rhymes.
