Hello and welcome to the fortieth edition of McSweeney’s Internet Substackency, the Substack of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a humor and satire website run by McSweeney’s Publishing.
Today’s Substackency is all about birds. For those unfamiliar with birds, they are winged creatures of various sizes and colors that fly around and chirp. Some people say birds used to be dinosaurs, which is kind of cool to think about. Winged dinosaurs of various sizes and colors, flying and chirping around your yard.
We are fans of birds. Well, most of the time, at least. Sometimes birds play with your emotions, so even though you have never really given a thought about, like, say, a mourning dove, one goes ahead and builds a nest on your air conditioner outside your bedroom window, and suddenly you have a mom bird and her mourning dove dinosaur eggs to worry about.
That’s a lot to put on us, no? Life is complicated enough for us as it is, you know? We had no clue what Doris (that’s the name we had to give our mama mourning dove) was thinking, but ours was not to wonder; we just accepted our fate and did whatever we could to make sure she and her eggs were safe and sound.
Fortunately, things worked out.
Now it’s springtime again, and Doris and her mate, Doug (the name we had to give him), are hanging around our house once more, flirting and chirping with each other, and clearly scouting for a place to lay a nest and get on with the getting it on of making more mourning dove dinosaur babies.
Our AC is not up yet, thankfully. So it will be interesting to see where they drop anchor this time around. Regardless, we will be prepared to do everything we can to help them, such is our plight.
Alright, on with the links…
Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not actually birds. They’re, like, tall dogs or something.
The bird’s natural predator is the thrown shoe.
We should all be afraid of geese.
Birds absolutely suck at Jenga.
The collective noun for a group of birds is a “sky problem.”
I’m watching birds at all hours now. I can see thirty, fifty birds a week, sometimes even more if I don’t put it all in my journal. All the animals come out in the morning: blue jays, warblers, northern cardinals, hawks, sparrows, ruddy ducks. Someday, a real rain will come down and refract the sun into a rainbow backdrop for idyllic wildlife photography.
A WORD OR TWO FROM OUR STORE…
In The Believer’s 149th issue: Kristin Keane explores the surprising intimacies and revelations of the animal web cam; Eskor David Johnson revisits Trinidad and Tobago’s brief but fateful coup led by Abu Bakr in the summer of 1990; Joel Whitney chronicles novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s imprisonment at the Buru Island “Humanitarian Project,” an Indonesian labor camp for communist sympathizers; and photographer Adalena Kavanagh stops by a small New York City establishment that offers portraits taken by a peculiar piece of hand-sensing technology. We also have interviews with writer Suzanne Scanlon; legendary actor Delroy Lindo; book publisher Lisa Lucas; and Fargo series creator Noah Hawley, who speaks to actor Jason Schwartzman about Moog synths, Alien’s class consciousness, and his entrepreneurial approach to Hollywood.
You’ll also find a brand-new two-page poem by Ocean Vuong, Aria Aber’s late-night writing routine, Chris Gayomali on the transcendence of “Like a G6,” and Carrie Brownstein on the plight of the baby-faced professional. In addition to all this, these pages—perfectly bound for your readerly pleasure—feature games, book reviews, lyrical verse dedicated to poorly executed films, a meditation on Joey Lawrence’s sartorial impact, and still more.
All subscriptions to The Believer placed before May 1, 2025, will include this issue.
I love each new day, what it might bring, the possibilities, the joy of the unknown. One thing is certain, though, and that’s the yelling I will do out of my beak hole in the stillness of dawn, every single day. Did you think I might take time off here and there? Wrong. What kind of bird would I be if I let a morning pass without using the voice God gave me? That’s called apathy, my friend, and I’m not about to relax quietly as the world goes on sleeping. You might want to rest for seven to eight hours a night, but not me, no ma’am, the worms are wiggling and I’m alive with ballistic energy.
Listen, birds can’t be perfect all the time.
Eastern Towhee: “Drink your TEA!”
Barred owl: “Who, who, who will come to my funeral?”
Carolina Wren: “Cardigan, cardigan, cardigan!”
White-Throated Sparrow: “The kids never call, never call, never call.”
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