NTMP #31: Jarkey pumpkins
Welcomde to the land of blood and honey
New-to-me Phrases, September 4, 2022
Cleared art * A giant pumpkin growing seminar * HORG * The jellyfish haircut * The Forbidden Recipe * Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey * Storrowing * WELCOMDE HOME * Jarkey * Poopy Stupid Butt * David Bopey
The Phrases, With Context
It’s a new month that heralds a new season and I’ve already dosed myself with pumpkin spice once so far because I am exceptionally basic. This week we have copyright workarounds, a giant pumpkin spice vessel, and some big Gen X feels.
Poll results are in!
Your favorite phrase for August was "Bestie from another teste!” (poll is at the end of the link). The runner-up was a tie between Croots and ouchpoints. Thanks for playing along! If you see a phrase each week that you insist must be included in a monthly poll, leave a comment or hit reply if you’re reading this via email.
Let’s get to this week’s phrases!
1. Cleared art
My friend Abby mentioned this in my hag friend group chat and it’s one of those interesting industry insider terms that I thought would be cool to share. Cleared art refers to copyrighted works that are cleared for use in TV or film. There are entire businesses and side hustles devoted to cleared art, and this site turns artists’ names into goofy 6-letter words.
2. A giant pumpkin growing seminar
A Nebraska man grew a giant pumpkin that he then ::checks notes:: carved out, sat inside, and sailed 41 miles down the Missouri River in (there’s video at the link).
I mean . . . it’s not hurting anyone except the pumpkin, so okay. (No offense to pumpkins.) But that’s not the most interesting part of this story. Dude just casually dropped that he was at a THREE-DAY seminar in Portland, Oregon devoted to growing giant pumpkins, where a conversation there inspired his intrepid journey.
While researching this phrase, I learned the difference between squash, gourds, and pumpkins (hint: it’s based on how we use them) AND I realized that now that September is here, decorative gourd season is just around the corner (or already here, depending on how soon you celebrate).
Grammar Nerds! I’ve shared this phrase as it was included in the news story, but I think this should be “giant-pumpkin-growing seminar.” Thoughts? Grammarly seems to agree with me. I might have to update the Phrases Google Doc with an asterisk.
3. HORG
A very fun acronym, URL (horg.com/horg) AND favicon. Equally awesome are the words that comprise the acronym (The Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group : A Database of Synthetic Taxonomy). But there’s an ecologically disturbing underpinning if you’re worried about plastic pollution and microplastics. ANYWAY, this is a fun newsletter so let’s just laugh at “HORG” instead.
The folks at HORG set out in 1994 to catalog and name those little plastic bread ties, and they’re still at it. What’s the Venn diagram of “people who would join HORG” and “people who would attend a 3-day giant pumpkin growing seminar?”
Here’s a nerdy challenge for you: What do you call the words that make up an acronym? Is there a phrase for it? I tried Googling it but got mostly definitions for an acronym. If you know it or find it, let me know!
4. The jellyfish haircut
First of all: NO.
Second, if you want to see a variation of it on Nicole Kidman, here you go.
Here’s a deeper cultural dive via the NYT.
5. The Forbidden Recipe
This phrase comes via my middle kid (who does not read this newsletter). The Forbidden Recipe is just combining Kraft and Annie’s mac and cheese into one pot. Make this at your own risk, as it’s forbidden to do so.
6. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey
Morning Brew reported that the copyright for some of author A.A. Milne’s earlier works recently expired, so someone made a horror movie based on Winnie the Pooh.
7. Storrowing
The entire extent of my knowledge of Boston comes from this video. But apparently, Storrowing is a Boston-specific phenomenon where trucks repeatedly get stuck under overpasses on Storrow Drive.
Why are those images always so visually fascinating?
8. WELCOMDE HOME
This phrase is a typo from a Zillow listing in my town. This is the second time a home has gone up for sale here with the weirdest assortment of most random photos that have me wondering if this realtor is an AI bot.
The overview, where realtors typically share an enticing and detailed description of the home and its amenities simply reads:
WELCOMDE HOME THIS IS IT!!!!!
9. Jarkey
What a fun word! Except it’s just a product name for a jar opener. Jar key—get it?
I kind of wish it was British slang for something not quite right—maybe because it’s close to janky.
10. Poopy Stupid Butt
Here’s a Buzzfeed piece by reporter Katie Notopoulos with a beautiful hed-and-dek one-two punch:
Kids Yell “Poop” At Alexa, And These Musicians Profit
“Alexa, play ‘Poopy Stupid Butt’ again.”
There are many gems in this piece, written by a mom of a 5-year old—the poop song’s main demographic:
“It’s not surprising that there are songs about the most basic of human functions — what is the point of art if not to unite us through shared feeling?”
and
“Amazon did not respond to requests for comment about whether it knows how often children yell “poop” at Alexa.”
The story behind this particular song is great; the songwriter, Joey Helpish and his partner, Kriesen Muir, run a music school in Oregon that helps kids with autism connect to their creativity. During a songwriting session, Helpish asked the kids for five syllables to use to write a song, and a four-year-old girl shouted:
“POOPY STUPID BUTT!”
The song has since earned the songwriters over $10K in revenue from Amazon. I wonder if they gave the 4-year-old a cut.
In a very American twist, Helpish discovered the revenue when he was strapped for cash and needed to pay some medical bills. This country’s healthcare system is a stupid poopy butt.
11. David Bopey
I was telling my oldest kid (who doesn’t read this newsletter) a bit about David Bowie’s otherworldly talent and commanding presence on stage after leaning alllll the way into my feels watching the Taylor Hawkins tribute at Wembley yesterday.
My kid was sitting with our budgie, Yoshi, and his only reply was “David Bopey.”
One of our nicknames for Yoshi, is “Bopey,” a portmanteau of “bird” and “dopey.”
Seriously, the Hawkins tribute was a pu pu platter of emotions for us Gen Xers watching mega rock stars from our youth and the next generation of talent paying tribute to him. Be kind to your elder music fans this week, as we’re all feeling a bit tender.
Here’s Taylor’s son, Shane Hawkins on drums with the band, playing There Goes My Hero. And here’s 12-year-old Nandi Bushell on drums for Learning to Fly. For those who may not know, Nandi challenged Dave Grohl to a drum battle on Twitter in 2020, when she was 10 years old, and according to Dave, she buried him. Here’s a YouTube playlist of their drum challenges and some behind-the-scenes footage of the Wembley show.
I’ve heard from more than one person expressing dismay that this tribute was somehow glorifying addiction. But my take is: Addiction is really, really hard, and its origins and treatments are complex. Hawkins tried quitting more than once and failed, like many addicts do. Ultimately, it cost him, but I see that as a tragedy, not a source for finger-pointing. Could the band and tribute spoken frankly about the dangers of drug addiction and offered recs to get help? Absolutely. But for whatever reason, they didn’t (at least not that I saw; I didn’t watch the entire event).
By all accounts Taylor was an enthusiastic, kind, and loving person—Steve Irwin, had he played the drums. I don’t have any room in my dessicated heart to blame an addict for dying due to their addiction, because I just don’t think it’s that simple. All I can muster is grief and compassion these days. I’ve known too many people who have lost loved ones of every age and background to addiction. Time and time again, what these family members most want us to know is that their beloved were so much more than their addiction.
I don’t think that individual accountability is enough in these scenarios. If kicking an addiction were easy, there would be no addicts. I think we should instead be mad that we don’t have a culture or infrastructure to help people heal from trauma through access to mental health services, and at the lack of affordable and universal healthcare in our country, and the toxic masculinity baked into our patriarchal culture that makes getting help even harder. Dave Grohl breaking down and crying during “Times Like These” made the news, because while we’ve made progress, we still haven’t normalized men feeling their feelings. MAN CRY? WHAT IS? We should be mad about that, because it’s exactly that kind of oppression that creates addicts.
I know this phrase took a REALLY weird turn from the usual around here, and I’m not sorry. Got more thoughts on this? Leave a comment or hit reply.
P.S. Chrissie Hynde can still get it!
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading, and remember to stay curious and remain furious!