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DID SOMEBODY STEP ON A DUCK?
(A Natural History of the Fart)
By Jim Dawson


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book cover


"Did Somebody Step on a Duck? captures the universality of flatulence, combining scholarly diligence with scatological delight. Jim Dawson is indeed the King of Farts."

--Paul Krassner, author of Who's to Say What's Obscene?


BERKELEY BREATHED's BREATH OF "FRESH" AIR

Berkeley Breathed  
The Los Angeles Times ran this self-portrait of children's book illustrator Berkeley Breathed on the cover of its October 3, 2009, Calendar section. The dog in the upper right corner is flying on the power of its super-chunky flatulence.


SONGS FOR FART LOVERS!

Da Yoopers CD (cover)  
It's been sixteen years now since the Grammy Awards snubbed Da Yoopers' 1994 CD, Songs For Fart Lovers, but that hasn't stopped Jim Dawson from including it in his Did Somebody Step on a Duck? chapter about the Yooper culture of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. With songs like "She Loves to Fart," "If She Farts on Da First Date (She's a Keeper)" and the tear-jerking "If I Could Fart Like My Dad," Songs For Fart Lovers is guaranteed to be one of those evergreens, like Phil Spector's 1960s Christmas album. (www.dayoopers.com)


THE ULTIMATE FART SILENCER

fart silencer  
In December 2008 a Chinese prankster from WuHan announced his new invention called The Ultimate Fart Silencer, that looks like a tooth brush tube with one end cut off and the other punched with holes. You insert the open end first where the sun don't shine. To sweeten the smell, you can also put a perfume-scented cotton ball inside the tube, says the "inventor," who calls himself Big Chicken Mushroom.


MADOFF SCULPTURE

Madoff sculpture   Chinese sculptor Chen Wen Ling’s solo exhibit, “Emergency Exit,” which opened at Beijing’s Joyart Space in late August 2009, included a bronze Wall Street bull being propelled by a space-shuttle-like blast of flatulence coming from its ass, as its horns pinned the figure of ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff against the wall. Called “What You See Might Not Be Real,” it supposedly represents the runaway economy goring Wall Street’s greedy bingers.

SPARROW FART

sparrow stamps

From a chapter called “His Eye Is on the Sparrow Fart,” Dawson reports, “You’ll have to get up pretty early in the morning to find anyone who celebrates the expression 'sparrow fart' more than New Zealanders. They’ve put it on a postage stamp. “If you wake up at sparrow fart, are away with the fairies, get stuck in boots and all, or are prone to throwing a hissy fit, you are, like the latest issue of New Zealand Post stamps, a classic Kiwi,” the New Zealand Post [Office] said on July 4, 2007. “The new stamps have an added twist—people can rub off the black mark to reveal the definition of the expressions.” (The other ones mean throwing yourself enthusiastically into an activity, traveling far away, and losing your temper.)

“Post Stamp General Manager Ivor Masters said, “[W]e developed the list by going through loads of books and dictionaries and then whittled the list down to what we felt were still most commonly used. There are many more out there and this list is the tip of the iceberg.”

“When I contacted Mr. Masters two years later to see how the sparrow’s fart stamp was doing, his office responded that the issue had sold very well to both collectors and regular stamp users, but since the stamps were sold as a full sheet, ‘it is impossible for us to identify sales of the ‘sparrow fart’ themselves. We did receive a couple of letters with reference to sparrow fart but no more letters than other stamp issues. The term sparrow fart is quite common in New Zealand and I would say it’s generally accepted as part of our language.’ In other words, hardly anybody objected.”



iFART, THEREFORE I AM

iFart screen
Joel Comm and his notorious (some say wonderful) invention, the iFart, are featured in the "iFart, Therefore I Am" chapter in Did Somebody Step on a Duck?
  “Hey Jim,

I and my team members are big iPhone fans. When we heard that Apple was making the SDK available, we immediately had a meeting and began whiteboarding ideas. We filled that whiteboard in no time! But one idea made us all laugh and that was iFart. We agreed that it could be a massive hit. The rest is history.”
—Joel Comm

    For more on Joel and the amazing tale of his iFart App, check out the “iFart, Therefore I Am” chapter in Did Somebody Step on a Duck?








 



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