Quack Quack BANG!!! It's fake news?
Say it ain't so, Rhadamanthus! An update on everyone's favorite exploding duck--if he is, that is.
You may remember the sad tale of Rhadamanthus, the award-winning duck who gorged on a hearty breakfast of yeast for his morning meal on Sunday, January 2, 1910. As a reminder, I first shared this story with you last fall in my Time Machine Breaking News stories of yesteryear.
Perhaps this yeast-gorging on the part of Rhadamanthus was a hangover cure for species anas platyrhynchos who over-imbibe their favorite fermented waterfowl mash during a New Year’s celebration at their local franchise of The Reedy Pond Bar & Grill. However, this is strictly conjuncture on my part.
Regardless, when the owner of Rhadamanthus, Farmer Silas Perkins happened upon his stellar mallard, a most unexpected series of events unfolded in quick order, as reported by an anonymous ink-stained wretch who covered the 1910 Iowa poultry beat:
Whilst I assumed that the tragic story of Rhadamanthus and Farmer Perkins was a sad footnote in history—particularly in the history of prize-winning waterfowl and their human keepers—I was flabbergasted to learn that the early 20th century account had legs—or in this case webbed feet. I engaged in a few Google searches with the base keyword of “Rhadamanthus” alternately coupled with terms “+ duck,” “+ exploding + duck,” and “+ exploding + duck + yeast.” Remarkably—and most unexpectedly—the search which yielded the highest number of results was simply “yeast + exploding duck.”
The mind boggles. Just 80,000 hits south of three million results and in roughly the same amount of time it takes to blink an eye. Even poor Farmer Perkins, whom, as you will recall from the story, could only blink one eye after the aforesaid misfortunate fulmination of the doomed Rhadamanthus in his post-yeast consumptive state, could accomplish that palpebral feat.
The story of Rhadamanthus and Farmer Perkins was to be found on a veritable plethora of websites. Reddit. Meh. Boing Boing. A few Substacks. 博客來 of Taiwan. The Salem Congregational Chapel, an English house of prayer which describes itself as “a small, independent evangelical church in the middle of the beautiful Lancashire countryside, inbetween Clitheroe, Colne, Barnoldswick and Gisburn.” And also a sanctified place of good Christian worship that comes with a side curiosity in the subject of exploding ducks.
Granted, many of these Google hits were unrelated to the tragedy of Rhadamanthus and Farmer Perkins. They included websites devoted to fermentation of alcohol; recipes for pre-killed-then-cooked-and-ultimately-devoured poultry; many a guide to preventing and/or treatment for rip-roaring yeast infections; and a TikTok link with the quaint title “Throwing Explosive Tennis Ball Into My Loud Neighbours Room” (Spoiler Alert: Despite its implied intrigues, the resulting TikTok offering is nowhere near the realm of immensely delightful and utterly enchanting entertainment that such a sobriquet suggests.)
Should Poetic Licenses Ever Be Revoked? Well….
And wouldn’t you know it: I am not the only one to wax poetic over the sorrowful tale of Rhadamanthus and Farmer Perkins. The Canuckian duo of writers Gary Barwin and Lillian Nećakov combined their Great White Northern talents to create a book-length poem Duck Eats Yeast, Quacks, Explodes; Man Loses Eye, which is described by the publisher as forthwith
Now, an excerpt from said book. Click on the picture to better read the stanzas and view the illustrations.
Far be it from me to pillory other chroniclers of Rhadamanthus and Farmer Perkins, but come now. I’ve seen computer coding that makes more grammatical sense than the gobbledygook which unfolds in the “vibrant discussion” between Poets Barwin and Nećakov. Sometimes scribbled words in search of an idea, let alone a sentence, need to remain within the confines of a Mead Notebook, never to see the light of day. The real world isn’t some dank and dingy dive saloon wherein you receive a multitude of finger snaps upon every reading of ponderous verse you cobble together, as though an inebriate audience comprised of a teeming crowd of less than one half of one score are approving judges for your coveted Nobel Prize in Literature.
Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
But wait—there’s more. It seems a modern-day Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein covering the waterfowl beat have brought to light new information regarding Rhadamanthus and Farmer Perkins. (And no, I am of no relation to Carl Bernstein. Our shared surname is the Jewish equivalent of “Smith,” “Garcia,” “Lombardo,” “McCarthy,” “Brando,” or any one of thousands of generic patronymics.)
Just who is this dutiful researcher? I refer, of course, to Snopes, the internet’s most reliable fact checker and hoax debunker. (The Snopes explanation of their methodology and transparency is linked below.)
Snopes is no-nonsense in their assessment of the Rhadamanthus and Farmer Perkins story:
Could it be? Might the story of Rhadamanthus and Farmer Perkins be less grounded in reality but more akin to the reportage behind Jacqueline Kennedy’s demand that certain salacious details be removed from William Manchester's The Death Of A President? If you’re familiar with that tale, you know what I’m talking about. I’ll link it below. Said story was originally published in the May 1967 issue of Paul Krassner’s counterculture magazine “The Realist.”
Be forewarned: Krassner’s excerpt of the material excised from Manchester’s book involves Lyndon Baines Johnson’s unusual and unexpected actions on the flight back to Washington DC from Dallas after President Kennedy’s assassination. It is most assuredly not for genteel ears. Nor is it true. But it sure is good.
Rubber Ducky, You’re The One
In the end, what can we learn from this deep dive into the past and the possibility that “fake news” is a time-honored tradition and not just some knee-jerk babbled mantra from a paranoid and once-recent President of These United States (and hopefully just once)?
Perhaps the lesson here is that we believe what we want to believe. Or maybe the anonymous chronicler of this story lacked the imagination of a Paul Krassner. Rather than riff on the assassination of President William McKinley and the subsequent elevation to Chief Executive by McKinley’s vice president Theodore Roosevelt, the plucky reporter instead went for a story of exploding ducks and cycloped farmers. But—to paraphrase a line from the original reportage—there are no telltale marks around this metaphorical pan of yeast of a story to give us a clew.
Thus, we are left with a mystery. Could Snopes be correct on the physics of demonstrable duck detonation? While their logic is sound, they could be wrong. There’s always the possibility that the case of Rhadamanthus was a fluke manifestation of yeast-gobbling poultry popping into pieces.
Dear reader, I leave the question to you. That’s what the comment section is for. Theorize away!
Story links:
A video book review of Duck Eats Yeast, Quacks, Explodes; Man Loses Eye by Gary Barwin and Lillian Nećakov. Make of this what you will.
Thanks for reading The Typewriter's Collage. Connect with me at Twitter/X, Bluesky, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram. Be sure to take a peek at my website, www.arniebernstein.com.
The 1910 poultry beat? Lol