Wordpecker 02: Saxolotl

In which (spoiler alert) "Nanapush farts himself to death."

Feb 01, 2026

Ice pancakes
Slidey guy
Great Farts of Literature
Piss missile
Skullet
Frictionmaxxing

close-up of a screech owl looking adorably grumpy — Photo by Jeremy Hynes on Unsplash

This week in phraseology

Well, we made it through January. Somehow. I hesitate to call an entire year good or bad but I will say that so far, 2026 has been a chaotic, messy b and I hope that trend does not continue. There is hope: the sun is setting after 5 here and the temps should climb above freezing after a week of subzero penance. My oldest kid and his partner bought a house and moved out, and while I miss them, I am also no longer writing from concentration corner, having expanded onto a three-season (heated) porch with views of (increasingly horny) wild turkeys leaping onto our roof from the backyard.

Also, I brought you some fresh phrases! This week, we have frozen breakfasts, revenge of the band nerds, cue ball in the front/party in the back, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Ice pancakes

Being a Midwesterner, “pancake ice” feels like something I should know, but I like ice pancakes more. Ice pancakes are slushy discs that form in larger bodies of water, where the motion of the water causes slush forming near the surface to break apart and get knocked around into, well, ice pancakes.

Meteorology nerd alert 🤓 — Wikipedia offered up a bounty of types of ice that I had never heard of:

Shuga - Slush, but chonkier
Frazil - Also slushy but somehow different from shuga??? I think people who stare out the window at frozen water start losing their minds a little bit
Grease ice - Ice that looks like an oil slick, not that D student bully from high school who took a signing bonus to terrorize his neighbors in soldier cosplay
Ice rind - Shiny ice crust!
Nilas - Do you enjoy visiting museums but get fatigued from taking in so much information? This is how I’m feeling about ice right now. Anyway, nilas is thicc. Nilas needs better branding. Get Cantore on the phone—I can help.

Check out this footage of kayakers navigating around giant frozen flapjacks on Lake Michigan in Chicago. This phrase was shared via my husband — thanks, honey! P.S. Can you clean out the garage fridge because a can of Coke exploded in there and I’m busy writing? Thanks!

2. Slidey guy

Do you know the feeling when you come across a social media account run by someone who knows how to do it well? That’s the rush I got when I found this post from a couple of band directors at hinghambandtok.

Captioned “that one kid in band class,” they start off with one person saying, “Actually, it’s flautist” while holding a flute. Then they launch into some really good jokes, including:

Actually, it’s trumpediatrician (trumpet)
Actually it’s hornithologist (French horn)
Actually it’s saxolotl (saxophone)

The “slidey guy” (trombone) line really hits and I love it so much. There are more good ones, so go watch the whole thing!

3. Great Farts of Literature

Have you ever bought a book on impulse? (Me: “Only every week!”) Someone I know mentioned that their friend has a book coming out soon. The author, Elizabeth Zaleski, has a memoir coming out in February called The Trouble With Loving Poets and Other Essays on Failure (you can order from that link).

But tucked away on Zaleski’s website is a heading called Other Projects, where I found greatfartsofliterature.com: Great Farts of Literature—Ranked.

Andy from Parks and Rec reacting to hearing some really good goss — actual footage of my reaction

Here’s the about section:

It was only after I'd already read the majority of the Western canon that I started paying attention to the really important stuff, namely passages about flatulence.

As an English lit major and lifelong fart appreciator, this is entirely my jam. I immediately went looking for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and there he was. They even use the 💨 emoji to rate the passages. My life is now complete.

As a Louise Erdrich stan1, I have to share this from one of the rankings:

In addition to being, generally speaking, one of the greatest novelists of our time, Louise Erdrich is, more specifically, the reigning queen of the literary fart. In this exquisitely rendered and uproarious scene, Nanapush farts himself to death. But wait, there's more.

I immediately pre-ordered Zaleski’s book, which features an essay about a guy with a giant wang, and I think you should, too because presales really help authors make a living.

4. Piss missile

Enough about farts; let’s move on to piss. Not really; this is actually about paper airplanes, via my pal Charlie, who designed Wordpecker’s snappy new brand.

I couldn’t find this account anywhere but Instagram - Chicago_Paper_Airplane is run by a guy who wears a neon green balaclava as he tosses paper airplanes out of Chicago buildings while classic rock plays. It’s fun! And mesmerizing! There’s some serious aeronautical wonder happening there.

Here are some recent post captions:

You get the idea. It’s very testosterone-fueled, harmless fun, if you’re into that sort of thing, which apparently I am.

5. Skullet

Speaking of testosterone, this portmanteau of “skull” and “mullet” comes from my friend and Wordpecker reader Kris, who texted “a mullet but bald on top” with a picture of Riff Raff, the butler from Rocky Horror Picture Show, lol. A quick Google search for “famous skullets” turned up Kelsey Grammer as Frasier and Benjamin Franklin, LOLLLL.

Share your favorite skullets in the comments!

6. Frictionmaxxing

Are we nearing the end of calling everything we do “maxxing” yet? I sort of hope so, and yet I do enjoy collecting maxxing varietals, like fibermaxxing (🚽), looksmaxxing, and now frictionmaxxing2.

In her Brooding column for The Cut, Kathryn Jezer-Morton writes, “In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing.” It’s a reference to the tension between tech broligarchs promising that their seemingly benign apps will remove the “friction” (e.g., effort, discomfort) from our lives and how that effort actually benefits us as humans.

Friction-maxxing is not simply a matter of reducing your screen time, or whatever. It’s the process of building up tolerance for “inconvenience” (which is usually not inconvenience at all but just the vagaries of being a person living with other people in spaces that are impossible to completely control) — and then reaching even toward enjoyment. And then, it’s modeling this tolerance, followed by enjoyment and humor, for our kids.

Jezer-Morton makes some good observations about how technology is removing the friction of deep thought and social interaction, and ponders what this means for parents and their children. Some suggestions she offers to bring friction back into our lives include: Stop sharing your location, quit using ChatGPT, and invite people over even when your house isn’t clean. More examples: a friend of mine started buying CDs again, and I’m considering both buying vinyl records again and breaking out my 40-year-old Minolta XG-1 film camera.

Share some ways you’re frictionmaxxing (or frictionminning, for that matter):

Bonus Nuggets

1. Asshole Bird of the Month: January 2026

A screech owl perched on the headrest inside a car

ABOTM is an affectionate name for stories of birds behaving like the unrepentant tiny dinosaurs that they are. This month’s award goes to this limber screech owl, who somehow got inside a locked car and made themselves at home on a headrest. It’s really worth clicking through to the article to see how tiny this owl is in someone’s hand.

If this happened to me you would never, ever hear the end of it. 🦉 I would make a screechie choosing my vehicle my entire personality.

2. Catherine O’Hara: NOOOOOO! 💔

I was gutted by the news of Catherine O’Hara’s death last week at 71. As a tiny kid in the ‘70s I used to stay up late to watch her on SCTV with John Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Andrea Martin, and Dave Thomas. She always knew how to take comedy one step further and still land it. Check out the gorgeous portrait the NYT used for her obituary. I’m gonna be sad about this loss for a long time.

3. The 2026 Chicago snowplow naming contest 🚫🧊

Via the excellent Block Club Chicago (emphasis mine):

Among over 13,300 submissions to Chicagoshovels.org, “Abolish ICE” made up over 9,200 — or about 70 percent — of the entries, according to a list of submissions obtained through a public records request. The name also got an early nod of approval from Mayor Brandon Johnson last month.

4. Relatedly: We said what we said.

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious.

I insist you read all of Erdrich’s books in order of publication because there is a huge surprise a few books after Love Medicine that is so incredible it will haunt you in the best ways for the rest of your life.

Wordpecker style guide note 🤓: I’m no New York magazine copy editor, but I’m choosing not to hyphenate this phrase because others I’ve found are not hyphenated.