Quake Lake | Goosey | Geophagy | House burping | Gros Michel | Smart toilet
This week in phraseology
It’s getting so close to fall weather where I live. I can feel the basic bitch in me rising as the urge to wear sweaters and boots and sip PSLs grows with every passing hour. I’m so ready for the end of slimy air. Candy corn season is almost upon us!
In this edition of Wordpecker, we have heroic honkers, a pleasing rhyme, sentient hoppers, and more. Let’s get to it!
1. Quake Lake
We love a good rhyming phrase with a pleasing Q sound! I’m surprised I’d never heard of this event; I’ve been to Yellowstone enough times where I should have encountered Quake Lake.
Officially called Earthquake Lake, it’s named for what created it: an earthquake along the Madison River in Wyoming.
Just before midnight on August 17, 1959, an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter Scale created a landslide that brought 80 million tons of rock traveling at 100 mph down the mountain, blocking the Madison River in less than a minute.
Sadly, 28 people died as a result of the landslide. The speed of this event is hard for the human mind to comprehend. Even today, you can still see the treetops that were flooded in minutes.
2. Goosey
GOOSEY!
That’s what I yell every time I think of this story of how a four-month-old goose named Goosey alerted their family of a fire in their barn. Thanks to Goosey’s heroic (and eerily human-like) honking, the family extinguished the fire and all of the animals in the barn survived. GOOSEY!!!!!
Here’s a heartwarming video of Goosey and his family.
Let’s bring back ringtones and add Goosey’s alarm honk to our work email accounts.
3. Geophagy
The next time you want to tell someone to eat dirt, fancy it up with this scientific word for that behavior. I came across this geophagy while reading a study of African grey behavior in the wild. As one does.
Longtime readers know my family shares a home with a 36-year-old Congo African grey parrot named Cuppy, whom we adopted from a friend a decade ago.
While for centuries, greys have been snatched from their native habitat in Africa and raised as pets, very little is known about their behavior in the wild. This is in large part because the Congo is an extremely difficult place to travel. Congo African greys are also elusive creatures; like many birds, they’re wired for safety and don’t enjoy being observed. We know they nest in cavities in trees—which explains Cuppy’s need to chew wood, and books, and puzzle pieces, and my daughter’s laundry basket.
Every once in a while, I’ll check to see if new research on greys exists.
While the study I read wasn’t about geophagy specifically, it does mention this behavior in greys and other parrots, who will fly to specific regions to eat mineral-rich soil to gain nutrients. The study found that greys will regularly leave their forest habitat to feed in nearby clearings, particularly during the dry season, making the argument that preserving these habitats is essential to the survival of the species.
If you’re an etymology nerd like me, you’ll note that ‘geo’ = earth and ‘phagy’ = eating. In humans, geophagy is called pica.
While reading this study, I also learned that in 2025, the Democratic Republic of the Congo officially outlawed taking African greys for the pet trade. Progress!
4. House burping
THIS IS JUST AIRING OUT YOUR HOUSE. EVERYTHING DOESN’T NEED TO BE A TREND!
Earlier this year, a thing started on TikTok where people started opening their windows to air out the house, noting that this is known as Lüften in Germany. Somehow the phrase house burping caught on here in the states, and I guess we’re running with it.
I did get to add a new banger to my collection of headlines, at least.
5. Gros Michel
Did you know we eat substandard bananas now? We could be living in paradise but instead we have explosive-diarrhea lettuce, homicidal blueberries, and lame-ass bananas. What a time to be alive.
Until the 1950s, the Gros Michel banana was the predominant variety sold to consumers. Oops; I buried the lede here: If you’re French-illiterate like me, you’ll be delighted to learn that Gros Michel translates to “Big Mike.”
Today, we mostly consume the Cavendish variety of banana. I had no idea we were missing out on banana glory and would love to do a side-by-side taste test. This writer did just that in a piece for Epicurious, which also contains the hilarious phrase banana corporations.
Here’s where we get to the dark side of Cavendish banana ubiquity: Corporate malfeasance:
In 1954, the United Fruit Company (which became Chiquita in 1984) even instigated an overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government.
Today, Cavendish bananas are monocropped, which is terrible for the soil and water. ::Nods in Midwestern corn sweat:: It’s almost like unregulated capitalism is a scourge on both humanity and the planet.
6. Smart toilet
I’ve been watching The Last of Us with my son and his boyfriend over at their place this summer. The pilot for that show is one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen.
We don’t have the ad-free version of HBO, so on one of our watch days, we were forced to endure the unintentional comedy that is ads for a Kohler smart toilet. In one version, a woman walks through a city in a black designer dress and shoes, ultimately arriving on a rooftop where what is presumably the elegant toilet version of her awaits. Here’s the ad, if you’re curious and also need a good laugh.
The way I howled at “uncover uncommon beauty.” Look, I know everybody poops, but if I were friends with this person, I’d never let them live it down.
I for one prefer my toilets dumb. There are some things that need to stay between a person’s toilet and them, and I’d rather not contemplate a toilet data breach.
I’m curious to know what the toilet version of you would look like? What features would it offer? I think I’m a basic Kohler, but not, like, a new-money tech billionaire Kohler.
Goodpecker
As an antidote to the horrors or modern existence, I wanted to periodically share some good things happening and highlight some organizations and groups doing good work.
Shoutout to a remote Midwestern nonprofit
As a marketing copywriter, I’m a big fan of an engaging newsletter. As a consumer, I think that very few organizations do them well. If you’re into conservation and birds specifically, I’d like to suggest the Friends of Whitefish Point. This Northern Michigan conservation nonprofit is situated along a crucial route for migrating owls in the Upper Peninsula region. Their newsletters feature charming updates about owl banding research, an awesome-sounding event called Moth Night, and updates on specific owls passing through the area.
They also have a killer AI statement:
This website is an AI free zone. All content is written by 100% real people and the occasional owl. Should you find a mistake, rest assured that it was made by the owl.
Subscribe and donate if you’re able!
Hometown Hero(es)
The leadership in my town got suckered into buying Flock cameras. Now our town square has six of these infernal machines monitoring everyone, and people of every political leaning are mad as hell about it. This week, someone put a pink sticker over one of the camera lenses.
Margaret Killjoy argues in this essay that “public support for criminal activity is a primary driver of social change.” I think people are sick of the tech oligarchy, of every technology sucking, and of having our data monitored, harvested, sold, and regularly stolen in data breaches. Anyway, shoutout to my local homie for making good trouble.
That’s it for this edition. Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!