Hello from a hotel room MADISON, WISCONSIN, where Thursday night I will be performing at the MAJESTIC THEATER, and you can get tickets if you want right here, please. https://bit.ly/JJHOMAD24
Then on Friday I will be performing in MINNESOTA at the FITZGERALD THEATER, home of a very special dog, and you can get tickets to see us both here: https://bit.ly/JJHOSTP24.
But before all that, I spent the afternoon speeding across Lake Michigan from Muskegon to Milwaukee. It was my first time traveling on a Great Lake, and it was great.
I always expressed disdain for lakes. I’m an ocean person. And it was strange that the air was saltless, and the water felt… flat.
Certainly there was chop, but it was missing the ocean’s deep tidal currents and heavy swells that make you feel like it’s trying to heave you off its fat, slow shoulders.
And yet, you were right: I couldn’t see the shore. You were right, all of you: it’s huge and impossible.
And as I stood on the top deck in the middle of it, the wind was strong enough to make me feel like a piece of paper that could be blown away at any moment, never to be recovered.
A feeling of insignificance is all I request from any ocean, even an inland one like Lake Michigan. So it counts, despite my old slanders. It counts.
Meanwhile the cabin was sheltered and pleasant. It had the feel (and decor) of an 1980s elementary school cafeteria. All modular tables and chairs, and those quiet times post-lunch, when normal kids had gone outside to flirt and move their bodies, while a few oddballs stayed behind to play nerd games and discuss movie trivia.
We also played cards today, thanks to the nice young woman in the galley. When I asked (hopelessly, I thought) if they sold playing cards, she magically produced this loaner deck and handed it to me.
The cards were worn down, the plastic coating slicked with use, and some ragged cards bent like paper. Playing with them made us feel part of long tradition, the latest in a line of travelers who needed to pass the time… for whom the Lake Express wasn’t quite express enough.
Matthew and Jennifer and I played poker using sugar packets for chips. Jennifer won. Then I played solitaire until I got stuck. Then Matthew asked if I minded, and I said no, and he showed me the obvious mistake I made.
Within a few moves he had flipped all my cards over and put them in line: triumph. And within a few more minutes Milwaukee hovered into view, and we stood on the top deck to watch it get bigger and bigger.
The wind died. We arrived. And I returned the playing cards as promised to the galley. The gifts of the oceans, as well as great lakes, are only ever temporary.
As promised, I also took some time on the boat to read MOBY DICK to you. It’s in the secret room at the top of the stairs, though I warn you: I had to go out onto the deck so as to not bother anyone.
The wind and engines are loud, but it does offer an appropriate sense of adventure to these chapters, when Ishamael and Queegueg FINALLY stop telling each other stories in bed and FINALLY get on a boat FINALLY.
I enjoyed reading it. I hope you can hear it all above the noise.
Before we ascend to the secrets, I want to really thank those of you who re-upped your annual subscription yesterday.
I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since I started this SECRET SOCIETY, and it came as a very happy surprise last night when I saw that so many of you decided to stay for another one.
If you’re not a subscriber anymore (or ever at all), that is totally understandable. I’ll only mention that if you do sign up in the future, all the secret messages and past non-nautical adventures are preserved for your review.
In any case, I’m lucky to correspond with you this way, all I can say is thank you.
