how i chose this url

like most good things in my life, i was not expecting this project to actually see the light of day.

i had the insane thought, after reading moby dick, that it would be super cool if someone who loved the book as much as i did took on the ahabian task of reproducing it by hand, potentially with hand-drawings, potentially like an illuminated manuscript of this novel. the idea wedged into my brain but took a backseat, one of those ambitious "maybe someday" ideas.

then, on a trip back to nyc, sitting in the same living room that birthed the book club for which i read melville's classic, four of us played the card game dick. the game is essentially cards against humanity, but with only language from moby dick as the cards each person can play to answer the prompt. over the course of the game, my spouse pulled the following card:

full quote

A sailor takes a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears. [from chapter 107, the carpenter]

like a flash, i knew this was it: the universe had presented me with the perfect insane url for my handmade moby dick project. to no one's surprise, the url was available, and, also to no one's surprise, i purchased it immediately.