WP 08: Lustrous Astral Tinkle
I read so many articles about space potties this week
Dumb McNamara | Holy as fuck | Zodiacal Glow | Rogue floating turds | Bonjour Ottawa | Felted Nudibranchs |
This week in phraseology
Hello there! In this edition of Wordpecker, we have interstellar commodes, a salty pope, fuzzy felt facsimiles, and more.
Let’s get to it!
1. Dumb McNamara
In a phrase that reads like a recurring SNL skit, Dumb McNamara is a nickname Pentagon and Department of Defense staffers have reportedly bestowed upon the soft-bodied, self-designated “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth. This is a reference to Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who seemed to fuck up that war pretty badly but remained respected as a military strategist. I am no war historian; I only care about this man as a conduit for burning Hegseth.
Coincidence alert - Jono Hey wrote about The McNamara Fallacy this week for Sketchplanations, which is also named for Robert McNamara but totally unrelated to being a bloodthirsty and eye-wateringly stupid warmonger.
Which brings us to our next phrase . . .
2. Holy as fuck
If you’re a Chicagoan, Catholic, and a White Sox fan, Pope Leo memes are your time to shine. (Shoutout to my pal Mike!)
Pop culture translation for any non-Xennial/GenX/Boomers reading who may not know the visual reference: Young Pope Leo is dressed here as one of the Blues Brothers, a movie that is basically a love letter to Chicago.
It seems Pope Leo is also not a fan of Dumb McNamara. This week, he made a statement that God rejects the prayers of leaders who wage wars, a pointed reference to Hegseth recently leading prayers for “overwhelming violence of action” against Iran. I’m not religious at all, but even I know that Jesus and violence are not supposed to go together.
3. Zodiacal glow
I saw this phrase in Liz Neeley’s newsletter, Meeting the Moment, which covers news and events in science and higher education. More commonly referenced as zodiacal light, I prefer glow as a more evocative and lovely option befitting Neeley’s writing. She describes this phenomenon as “a result of interplanetary dust scattering the sunlight,” and was specifically referencing this incredible image of Earth taken this week from the Orion spacecraft. You can see zodiacal glow at the bottom right of the image. Here’s a fun explainer by astrophysicist Katie Mack. By the way, there are lots of fake images of the Artemis II expedition, so double-check against what NASA is posting before sharing.
The good news is, you don’t need to be in space to see it, although moonlight and human-made light make it hard to see. Team Dark Skies!
SKYbrary, which I’ve written about before here, describes zodiacal glow with an image of what it looks like from Earth:
Zodiacal light (also called false dawn when seen before sunrise) is a faint, diffuse, and roughly triangular white glow that is visible in the night sky and appears to extend from the Sun's direction and along the zodiac, straddling the ecliptic, which is the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun.
Here’s an image from the New York Public Library:
All this space talk brings us to the next phrase . . .
4. Rogue floating turds
If you’re new here, you may not know I curate a collection of amusing headlines, and this week, another one made the cut:
Poop in space revisited: Apollo 10’s floating turds pop up 44 years later
In an incident sometimes described as “Close Encounters of the Turd Kind,” a transcript of the Apollo 10 mission, uh, log describes the three astronauts dealing with more than one errant poop, released from the confines of both gravity and the plastic storage bag where they belonged. Hat tip to Morning Brew for use of the word rogue to complete this phrase.
The current mission to the moon is significant because it’s the first spacecraft outfitted with a space toilet1. This, uh, piece from CNN describing some of the crew’s troubles with the new commode features a subheading “Glistening space pee,” a stupendous phrase if ever I saw one. The line from the toilet that ejects urine froze, so astronauts were instructed to temporarily use the toilet for poop only.
I don’t know about you, but how is that even possible? Do I need to do more kegels? Did an AI that has never once pooped write those instructions? Anyway, the fix was: We shot the pee out into space, where it glistened, freed up the toilet for full use once again, and hopefully didn’t accidentally start an intergalactic war due to the grave insult of flinging excreta around the galaxy.
5. Bonjour Ottawa
Barry Petchesky at Defector wrote a thoughtful essay about the mayor of Ottawa’s mid photos of his city (gift link), shared on the stupidly named X/formerly Twitter from his morning runs. He opens each tweet with “Good morning, Ottawa. Bonjour, Ottawa.” There’s something to be said for not making everything Instagrammable or otherwise palatable to sell something to others, and Petchesky says it well here.
7. Felted Nudibranchs
Before reading about this phrase, you really need to click this link at Colossal to see how visually stunning this project is. While working as a cook at a remote bio-research facility on an island in the White Sea, Georgian artist Arena Borevich became fascinated with nudibranchs, or sea slugs, which come in a delightful array of shapes and colors. (I wrote about one variety here.)
Because it probably gets pretty boring on a Russian island science station, Borevich started making tiny felted wool renditions of these colorful creatures to share with the scientists and students working there. A decade later, she runs Wool Creature Lab, with monthly giveaways for Patreon supporters (currently paused for the artist’s maternity leave).
The Wool Creature Lab Instagram is a pretty fun follow, too.
Learn more about nudibranchs and check out some great photos at the National History Museum, London.
Book hype interlude: One I’m stoked about
My talented zine-making friend Lee wrote a book on a topic that feels deeply relevant right now:
The book explores why it’s so hard to make friends in adulthood from both practical and societal angles and makes a bold case for creating a less lonely world.
If you’re Canadian, you can preorder directly from the author here (puts more $ in the author’s pocket) or from the publisher (boosts the odds of future book deals).
American? Sucks to be us in general but at least we can get a copy via Lee’s U.S. store. (Preorders from U.S. booksellers coming soon!)
Bonus Nuggets
1. For those who prefer flying to driving
Wordpecker reader Mel sent this lovely companion to an ideal road trip map I shared recently:
The Poços de Caldas airport code is POO. And yes, there is a PEE: Perm International Airport in Russia. So you can fly from PEE to POO, or reverse it because we don’t kink shame here.
2. Super-weird bloom
As a follow-up to the last edition, here are the names of some of the flowers super-blooming in Death Valley, with links to see what they look like:
Thanks to Wordpecker subscriber Tonya for sending these in!
3. My current favorite meme
I’ve seen more than one variation of this meme; it shows a potentially terrifying natural phenomenon with the caption NOT NOW [TERRIFYING NATURAL PHENOMENON].
If you spot any good versions of this in the wild, please send them to me!
That’s it for this edition! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious.
I must note that space toilet is also a terrific phrase!