Two NPR afternoon edition stories this week that seem oddly related to one another even though they're actually opposites, like the North Pole and the South Pole of pop culture, have snagged my attention. One was about the release of Carly Rae Jensen's auditory bubblegum album that quickly loses its flavor in comparison to her summer confectionary hit, "Call Me Maybe." The other was about the creative efforts to make Herman Melville's epic, 653-page, 1851 literary classic about a man named Ishmael and his quest for a great whale more compelling to a 21st century audience with the attention span of a YouTube video. The author Philip Hoare and the artist Angela Cockayne came up with the inspired idea to make "Moby Dick" more accessible and animated by persuading notable actors, politicians, and writers along with schoolchildren, vicars, and fisherman to read aloud one chapter of the book at a time and posting the recordings online where anyone is welcome to listen and to download them for free.
Five chapters have been posted thus far, and you can listen to them and download them here if you wish:
