By Sam Skopp
Since 1995, Venice Oceanarium has hosted an annual reading of “Moby Dick” on the beach just south of the Venice Beach Boardwalk. For years, the event was something of a happening, details popping up on a flyer just weeks beforehand, any time from June to November.
Since then, the Oceanarium has grown in prominence, making L.A. Weekly’s “100 Best Things to do in L.A.” list, and their annual “Moby Dick” reading has also garnered momentum.
“What inspired me is that my wife gave me a copy of “Moby Dick” years ago and told me to read it over and over again,” said Venice Oceanarium founder and event organizer Tim Rudnick, about how the event got started.
Throughout the event’s two full days, which ran from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on both Saturday, Nov. 19 and Sunday, Nov. 20, the entirety of the book was read, chapter by chapter, by a rotating number of local volunteers who have signed up for a specific chapter beforehand. Having hosted the event for 21 years, Rudnick now knows approximately when each chapter is expected to start and end within the day, and offers reach reader a time slot corresponding with their chosen chapter.
“We have people coming from San Bernadino, people coming from Riverside. People have been reading it for years,” said Rudnick, who then pointed out one attendee who was visiting from New Bedford, who reads the book there annually.
Local reading volunteers come largely from schools; in the past, Rudnick would advertise in coffee shops and local venues, but since inviting students to watch or read, some of whom are able to receive extra credit, the event has seen a much bigger response.
Rudnick said that scholarly beachgoers are often underrepresented or simply not considered by the larger beach-going public.
“One of the things that people do down here that’s unrecognized is read. They come down to the beach and read. And for that they need a quiet environment, and a comfortable environment, so it seemed like a good thing to get people down to the beach in an environmentally-comfortable way, and at the same time have an argument for keeping lights, sound and noise away from the beach, because people are reading,” said Rudnick.
The Venice Oceanarium, which is a self-described “museum without walls” can be found at the end of the Venice Pier most Sundays from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. For more information, visit veniceoceanarium.org.
