The “Google Doodle” of the day yesterday was a reference to Moby Dick, which was first published in England (no, it was not first published in America) this week in October of 1851.
This rainy morning I spent a half hour in Starbucks in Chinatown prior to an interview around the corner.
The Starbucks’s coffee chain is named after the First Mate on the Pequod, the boat in Moby Dick. The three guys who created Starbucks (an English teacher, a History teacher, and a writer) wanted to name their coffee house “The Pequod,” but the bank would not lend them money on that name, so “Starbucks” it was.
It occurs to me I could write a very good ad for Starbucks with a one-word substitution from the opening page of Moby Dick. Here it is:
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to Starbucks as soon as I can.”
. . . ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
. . . . (with a one word substitution)
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