Today on The Culture Show, host and GBH News Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen breaks down a Massachusetts marathon that might be more rigorous than Boston’s famed 26.2 mile road race. This is a 25-hour, non-stop epic endeavor where the equivalent of Heartbreak Hill is reading Herman Melville to a live audience at 2 or 3:00 a.m.
It's the annual Moby-Dick Marathon. Though it’s been centuries since a whaling ship sailed out of New Bedford, the literary legacy of Herman Melville enshrines New Bedford as a thriving whaling port where no end of Melville aficionados convene for this annual read-a-thon. Amanda McMullen, president of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which hosts the annual event, joins the show to talk about this upcoming winter ritual.
From there, get a satirical take on the 2024 presidential race. The Good Liars comedy duo join Bowen to reflect on eight years of heckling politicians and getting takes from voters. If there is indeed truth in jest, their hijinks reveal some ugly and uproarious realities about America’s powerful political institutions. They'll also stop at the Crystal Ballroom this Saturday on their mission to "Fix America."
Finally, the show wraps up with a conversation with local spoken word artist and activist Amanda Shea; she's curating the latest edition of #HellaBlack, an annual project by Boston Center for the Arts celebrating and uplifting "artists from the Black, African, African American, Afro Caribbean, and Afro Latine diaspora" across Boston.
It's all on The Culture Show — listen to the full episode above!
