Phthursday Musings: On Bird Poop

One of the Substack newsletters I subscribe to - and even pay for! - is the terrific Numlock News done by Walt Hickey, a man who appears to have numerous unhealthy obsessions, as do we all.

Numlock News treats some slightly less reported stories, always with some kind of numerical angle. Walt was the original writer for FiveThirtyEight’s Significant Digits before he set out on his own and destroyed journalism, or whatever exactly Substackers are being accused of this week. (Am I one of the accused? If not, how do I get to be so recognized?)

One of Walt’s favorite sources for stories is Hakai Magazine which covers “Coastal science and societies”, by which they are not backhandedly meaning Manhattan.

All of this is a long-winded lead up to encouraging you all to read this week’s literal dropping: “Banking on Bird Shit”.

Yes, it’s an article about bird shit. Guano, if you want to use the formal term. It’s first-rate organic fertilizer, didn’t you know?

No, it’s not the first time I’ve heard or read about guano.

99% Invisible offered a delightful podcast episode a few years ago called “Guano Mania”. If you’re more into listening than reading, it’s much the same as the story Hakai ran this week.

Now. Why am I trying to encourage you all to think about bird crap?

Well, for one, it’s funny. It’s poop!

Really though, I think guano is a fascinating way to understand the convergence of ecology, economy, and international relations. There were Guano Wars in the 1860s, a series of naval battles between Spain and South American countries. The Guano Islands Act of 1856 is one of the wildest laws the U.S. has ever passed, arguably laying the groundwork for American imperialism later in the century. You can readily understand everything from how people literally work by taking boats out to rocks and scraping shit off of those rocks, to how that scraped shit ultimately commands $474,000,000 annually.

We all get overwhelmed by the world. We want to understand it better but it’s hard to make sense of things. Then you run across something silly - poop! - but you can actually use it to piece things together where you were failing to see the connections before.

Also, bird poop is elemental to one of my very favorite jokes.

It’s not a good joke.

But, a joke is in the telling, right? And what makes this joke special is the telling.

Oh, I can’t do it justice.

But the originator did. Of course he did. Because the originator was Kurt Vonnegut.

Well, I really shouldn’t put it off any longer.

Here goes:

What is the white stuff in bird poop?

That is bird poop, too.

The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library publishes an annual journal, So It Goes, which is a collection of vaguely Kurt-inspired works around some kind of theme. Last year’s theme was civic engagement. This year’s theme is Vonnegut and the environment.

His most environmentally forward work was Galápagos, which I also think is starkly different from much of the rest of his work. It’s been a long time since I’ve read it and I won’t spoil anything here. (It does fit in somewhat with the guano discussion, though, since many of the guano islands are out there somewhere in the vicinity of the Galápagos Islands!)

I want to submit something this year. Perhaps some of you can help suggest something. See, I find fiction very hard to put together, even a very short story, and I am sure as hell not submitting a poem.

Well, maybe a haiku.

how many times can

one man in one newsletter

write the word guano

Speaking of bird shit, how about those Republicans?

Believe it or not, I was going to write at some length this week about the La Salle County Republicans. Really. Then I stumbled upon all the guano. Figured, why put my readers to sleep?

At this point I don’t have much to lose, I may as well stick with the theme.

Several years ago, I was in Sioux Falls. Of course.

Sioux Falls is a fascinating place. You might think, come on, it’s not a fascinating place, it’s freaking Sioux Falls. But see, it’s a larger city than you realize - it’s bigger than all but two cities in Illinois! - and it’s a magnet for artsy types who don’t want to head further away from home. There’s diverse dining - in one week I ate at a Vietnamese place, an Ethiopian place, and a Burmese place, this at a time when there wasn’t even a Burmese restaurant in Chicago. I even found a Mediterranean restaurant downtown where they make excellent walnut fatayers! It’s a place I’d actually be happy to visit again.

One of the featured attractions of Sioux Falls is the Statue of David.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… Isn’t that in Italy?

Yes, it is in Italy, Florence to be exact. But in Sioux Falls there is an exact replica, one of two extant castings of the original.

And in Sioux Falls, David is not kept in a museum. No, he is right by the river, standing in his full 18 foot glory in the middle of a public park.

One of the nights when I was in Sioux Falls, I went to see David, dumbfounded by the idea that they would put such a thing in such a place. But they did. I found him.

The thing was, I had to get to him. Which meant walking through this riverfront park. Which meant… tiptoeing through an unbelievable field of goose shit.

Rarely have I ever felt such a deep surreal juxtaposition. Right there, David, exposed to the world. Behind me, downtown Sioux Falls, a very incongruous place for David to be hanging out. Between us, the collected feces of a veritable army of honkers. And not a single living soul anywhere to be seen.

I don’t know what kind of artistic statement this did or did not add up to. Weirdly, I don’t seem to have any photographic evidence of this trip. Was this all in my imagination?

I guess I’ll have to take the family to Sioux Falls and figure it out.

The next time I saw nearly so much goose crap - not as much, but as close as I’ve since come - was a few months ago when, on The Grand Tour, I took my goofball child to a huge park complex in Oak Brook.

I have not written about The Grand Tour yet. It is forthcoming. My boy has now played at over 100 different playgrounds. I have pictures. I have deep, deep opinions about what to do and not do with your playground. You park districts better be listening!

Anyway, we were at this park, and we wandered all over the place, and at some point, by a lagoon or whatever exactly that water was, there were a whole lot of geese, and along with the geese, a whole lot of turds.

What if I would have stopped right there and provided an impromptu lecture about the intrinsic value strewn out before us, and how we could be rich if we’d only brought a few shovels and wheelbarrows with us? Would my son have become a full-fledged capitalist on the spot?

If only I had a mind like that! Always searching for the quick buck, the underdeveloped opportunity! Imagine what I could have done with myself! Imagine where I could be! Living the high life as an executive working out of Citibank’s back office in Sioux Falls! Flying off for adventures in the Galápagos!

But no, here I sit, regaling you people with tales of guano.

You’re welcome.