NTMP #7, March 13, 2022

It's invertebrates' time to shine

This Week’s New-to-me Phrases

InverteButt Week * Mega Nuts * Mensun Bound * Ass flaps * Pank * Wayne Cram * Woke sky

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The Phrases, With Context

This week we have amazing art devoted to uncommon butts, notable names for humans, and a mixed bag of meganuts.

Photo of a sea anemone by Allan Pickering on Unsplash

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1. InverteButt Week

I believe in making our own traditions, and here’s a good example of that.

It’s a good thing that I’m lazy and that I have awesome friends like Lindsay, who spoon-feed me phrases like this one. There’s a lot to unpack here, because Science Illustrator Twitter had a field day with this one:

franz @franzanth

With the powers of @spissatella & @RosieRiots's science by my side, we present: The Butt Political Spectrum ™ What is A Butt? How do you even define a butt? Tag yourself I'm Butt Chaotic #InverteButtWeek

Look at all of those glorious new-to-me phrases from just one infographic! Butt Chaotic! Butt Political Spectrum! Butt Normie! I am so happy right now! I am also very excited to discover Franz Anthony’s work; it’s stunning. He also added “invertebrate shitposter” to his bio and just . . . chef’s kiss. You can support his Patreon here.

This Smithsonian piece links to a bunch more, including one by an artist and writer I dig, Rosemary Mosco:

Rosemary Mosco (Bird And Moon Comics) @RosemaryMosco

Ah, the beautiful butts of the sea. A few weeks ago, some twitter folks saw the news about a new marine worm that had 100 or more butts. We decided to collaborate on this comic. My co-conspirators here are @MaureenBug and @americanbeetles. #invertebuttweek

If you don’t want to miss a single butt from future festivities, you can follow the hashtag #invertebuttweek.

Speaking of artists I dig, we finally, after three years, painted over the hideous ‘70s goldenrod walls on the main floor of our 1950 mid-century modern home. Now we can unpack the art that’s still in moving boxes from ::checks calendar:: three years ago. Maybe it’s time to buy something by Rosemary Mosco and Anthony Franz for our beautiful sky blue walls.

2. Mega Nuts

This phrase is the name of a Picky Bars energy bar (a new-to-me brand!). Here’s another copywriter I want to meet and air-high-five (because since COVID arrived I do not want to touch anyone’s hands ever again eww eww eww).

By the way, “Lauren’s Mega Nuts” is arguably an even funnier phrase. Discuss.

3. Mensun Bound

This is a person’s name, and I am here for it! Bound is a marine archaeologist who led an expedition to find The Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s doomed wooden vessel that sank off the Antarctic coast in 1915.

The NYT has some video of the shipwreck, but I’m not sure whether it’s paywalled. There are also some great pics at the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust. I also saw a twitter thread describing the invertebrates seen in images of the Endurance! I was wondering what those were, and I love it when phrases collide.

Apparently this expedition was funded by an anonymous donor who put up $10 million for the project. I love a good mystery.

If you had $10 million, what would you fund? Discuss:

I think I’d need at least a billion to fund a project to shoot a few billionaires into the sun, but I’d also end up adding myself to that list. Worth it!

The Telegraph calls Munsun “The Indiana Jones of the Deep.” Anyway, Archaeology is objectively cool and so is this dude’s name.

What are you the Indiana Jones of? I wanna know!

4. Ass flaps

This one was just me mishearing my friend Kelly say “asshats.” We Zoom giggled for a good couple of minutes over this one. If you are not an invertebrate and have ass flaps, please see your medical provider.

5. Pank

You know, this week I was once again concerned by “only” having seven new-to-me phrases, and yet nearly all of them are a treasure trove of cool info.

I subscribe to Culture Study, Anne Helen Petersen’s excellent newsletter and community of whip-smart, kind, and curious humans. In a comment thread about what makes the place we live unique, someone wrote that people from Northern Michigan invented a word, “pank,” which refers to flattening snow - similar to the word “tamp,” I suppose.

Apparently Roxane Gay went to grad school up there and co-founded Pank Magazine, which still exists today. They have a blog post dedicated to the various meanings of the word.

When googling it, I also saw “Professional Aunt, No Kids.” I’m into it.

Anyway, words are fun.

6. Wayne Cram

Not gonna share the source to protect the innocent, but this is an actual person’s name.

If you had a surname like this, or Butts, would you legally change it? Start a convo about it:

7. Woke sky

Rep. Clay Higgins @RepClayHiggins

You millennial leftists who never lived one day under nuclear threat can now reflect upon your woke sky. You made quite a non-binary fuss to save the world from intercontinental ballistic tweets.

This tweet made the rounds a couple of weeks ago and I neglected to harvest any phrases for it because I was too busy rolling my eyes. Good thing my friend Rebecca reminded me of it by sharing a Facebook post of George Takei noting that Woke Sky and Non-binary Fuss would make good band names.

Serious question: Did an intern with a beef write this to troll this dude?

At least Dictionary Twitter was on the scene:

Dictionary.com @Dictionarycom

@RepClayHiggins We’re not entirely sure what this tweet is supposed to mean, and we’re literally the dictionary.

Another note: All hail dictionary social media account managers, the unsung heroes of this, our darkest timeline.

Anyway, Takei is right; Woke Sky and Non-binary Fuss would make good band names. So would Millennial Leftists.

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News Bits

Substack app for iPhone

You can now read New-to-me Phrases in the new Substack app for iPhone.

With the app, you’ll have a dedicated inbox for any Substacks you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never get cut off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. It’s a different way to access the reading experience.

The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.

Paid Subscriptions

Depending on where this project goes, I’ll most likely keep all New-to-me Phrases content free to everyone. It’s all too new to tell what will happen here.

This newsletter does take time to write—some of the most joyful writing time I’ve spent in a long time. I am loving Substack and the movement in general to step outside of algorithm-tainted social media outlets to read interesting content and support creators by paying them for their work. It feels like the early days of blogging sans the later days of blogging that monetized via dozens of pop-up ads on every page, and that’s very exciting to me.

I know there’s a limit to what any of us can afford to support. At some point we’ll all hit a Substack-and-Patreon-and-news-outlets saturation point. But I figure if someone wants to toss me some dollars for that because they value writers and writing, more power to us. I know I get a good feeling out of tipping someone on Ko-Fi or supporting a paid newsletter. I can even donate a portion of whatever this thing earns to charity.

I’ll probably add a subscribe button next week. Let me know your thoughts. Hit reply or post a comment about the current movement toward supporting indie creators.

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That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading, sending me nice notes about this here dumb project, and sending new-to-me phrases my way!