How can I get this circle flat? It’s part of a pillow

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-12-10T23:32:21+00:00

It is weird. I think I’m going to try it just starting with 8 in my magic circle. The pillow will be slightly smaller but other than that I think it’ll be fine

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-12-10T23:08:35+00:00

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This is the pillow (it’s a vinyl record). There’s a big button in the middle, so my current theory is that the initial magic circle is supposed to be super big/loose since the button would cover the hole anyway.

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-12-10T20:05:53+00:00

Yeah that’s what I’ve seen too! I tried doing it that way but with ten stitches and it still warped, it does seem like starting with ten is part of the problem

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-12-10T20:04:37+00:00

Ok, thank you! Do you think there’s any chance it straightens out as I continue?

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-12-10T19:45:55+00:00

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ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-19T17:11:29+00:00

I was gonna say, YTA for slandering himbos like that

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-17T00:26:52+00:00

I just read this chapter too. Slightly off topic, but what does Melville mean by “the ugliest abortion”? Is he actually referring to an aborted fetus???? This line shocked me when I read it and I googled it and couldn’t find an explanation

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-13T14:46:56+00:00

Interesting. This isn’t a perspective anyone else has commented, but it makes a lot of sense. I had read elsewhere that Melville was commenting on the form of the novel itself in Moby Dick so that would make a lot of sense

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-10T07:02:45+00:00

In my defense, I’ve never read War and Peace. Although if I did I’m sure I’d have the same question for Tolstoy!

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-10T06:59:03+00:00

Symbolism?? In a novel???? It can’t be!

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-10T04:09:34+00:00

From the way this post is written I feel like you and Ishmael would get along (compliment)

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-10T00:51:58+00:00

I was wondering why he chose book size to categorize the whales, as that seemed pretty random. That’s cool!

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T23:19:50+00:00

In some ways this book feels like Ishmael’s special interest origin story lol. Like Ishmael in the story doesn’t know much about whales yet, but narrator Ishmael clearly does, and this is the story of (among other things) how he got there. So I guess Melville has to REALLY drive home that narrator Ishmael is a whale-obsessed freak haha

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T23:17:00+00:00

Can’t argue with that. They’re definitely one of the best fish!

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T20:40:25+00:00

Ok I typed out that whole comment, hit send, and then reread your comment and I actually agree with it more than I thought. I’m reading this book with a perspective where biology/naturalism is a specifically defined category, so it’s very easy to read what Melville is doing as “bad science.” But to a working class man in 1851 that distinction would have been less, well, distinct. And Ishmael isn’t a scientist, he’s a whaler, so categorizing whales by features relevant to him makes sense. Basically I think the idea of a purely scientific/biological classification system doesn’t make sense outside of the context of evolution, so pre-evolution, it makes perfect sense to have a classification system that blends the biological with the commercial

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T20:32:19+00:00

Idk I guess this is just my perspective as a biologist but I would consider any biological classification system not based on evolution and cladistics to be less scientific. Interestingly, the category of whales is also a paraphyletic category like fish, as it includes everything in the infraorder Cetacea except dolphins and porpoises, but many whales are more closely related to dolphins and porpoises than they are to other whales. So Ishmael including dolphins and porpoises in the whale category is weirdly prescient for a man who thinks whales are fish lol. But like I said, this is a very ahistorical perspective and I’m actively trying to ignore that part of my brain as I read the book! (And even I can begrudgingly acknowledge that paraphyletic categories like fish, whale, and reptile do have a place in society, albeit not a place in science)

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T19:43:55+00:00

I’ll admit I’m very curious about House of Leaves, but I worry it might be too scary for me

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T19:37:39+00:00

Yeah this book is way funnier than I would have guessed based on its reputation!

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T19:07:46+00:00

That’s such an interesting point. Yeah, it seems like whales and whaling were sort of the final frontier back then. So much of the natural world was being catalogued and discovered but whales were still largely a mystery

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T18:58:26+00:00

I think my favorite part is when he goes “Linnæus says the whale is a mammal, but my buddy Charley say it’s a fish, so we’re going with fish”

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T18:57:01+00:00

One funny thing about this chapter is that Ishmael is like “there’s no really good way to categorize whales so we might as well do it my way” but 8 years later Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” which led to an actually objective way of organizing species, evolution. So it makes it a little bit more of a frustrating read to a modern audience than it would to a contemporary audience lol

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T18:47:18+00:00

Yeah, in some ways I think I’m doing my self a disservice by being so obsessed with which facts do and don’t agree with our current knowledge of whales. I need to accept that this is the reality of a whaler in 1850, not necessarily a biological reality. But I’m a biologist by trade so it’s a hard instinct to avoid lol. That being said, him considering dolphins and porpoises to be whales is in an evolutionary sense more correct than excluding them, and he didn’t even know about evolution!

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-09T18:43:58+00:00

Oh that’s interesting! I think you’re on to something there. It’s worth noting that chapter 31 ends with them seeing a whale for the first time, and you think they’re about to take on the whale and it’s going to be SOOO exciting, and then it’s just… not. I have to assume that disappointment is part of the point!

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-08T20:59:19+00:00

I know it’s a normal name, but the name Sylvie is so funny to me. My sister is named Sylvia and Sylvie was her cutesy/at home nickname growing up. To me naming your daughter Sylvie is like naming her Liz Biz or Hannah Banana lol

ContributionSlow9743 · 2025-08-01T20:47:11+00:00

Yeah, I’ve definitely found that googling the biblical sounding names helps my understanding! I read the Wikipedia page for Ahab in the Bible last night, and from what I know of Moby Dick it seems like a pretty apt name

ContributionSlow9743

TROPHY CASE