Inspired by Herman Melville's epic tale, "Moby-Dick or The Whale", THE WHALE GUITAR: INSTRUMENT OF CHANGE follows a late-blooming singer/songwriter and former toy designer, Jen Long, as she acts on a startling vision and commissions the design and build of a remarkable custom electric guitar. Its body is "The Whale" itself as it snags the mad Captain Ahab in the tangled ropes of his own obsession and prepares to launch a boat of his whalers to their doom. The entire guitar re-interprets Melville's tale as an Anthropocene climate change warning, with the whale representing the seas and storms of climate change arising on this "third day" of late-stage capitalism.
Hundreds of guitarists, including J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., and Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females, have played and signed this "Instrument of Change" to amplify the alarm to turn our ship of over-production and over-consumption around while there is still time. As the embroidered strap featuring Starbuck's last words implores: "Oh! Ahab, not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist."
Hundreds of guitarists, including J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., and Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females, have played and signed this "Instrument of Change" to amplify the alarm to turn our ship of over-production and over-consumption around while there is still time. As the embroidered strap featuring Starbuck's last words implores: "Oh! Ahab, not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist."
