An Exhaltation of Larks

I've been working at Entertainment Weekly this week, and they have a wonderful library of all things lexicographic. The sweetest and most fascinating book I've discovered thus far is An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton. This book has gathered all of the collective nouns used to describe congregations of any stripe you can imagine, called "terms of venery." (A noun that means both the art of hunting and of pursuing sexual pleasure. Also means the act of intercourse and the hunted game itself.)

Here are a few of my favorites (birds seem to have the best):


A Passel of Brats

A Tissue of Lies

An Unkindness of Ravens

A Murder of Crows

A True Love of Turtledoves

A Cowardice of Curs

A Stud of Mares

A Sloth of Bears

A Singular of Boars (my Chinese zodiac sign)

A Mutation of Thrushes

A Charm of Finches (the Gold variety of which is Iowa's state bird)

Probably more to come....

Pantsburg!

Here's the something nice I promised.

That's the name of my band. Without the exclamation mark. We recently played our first show. Here's a link to some photos and a nice little story about the other bands we played with and all that:


http://opsound.org/opsound/events/opmixparty2.html

And here's a picture, if I can figure out how to post it!

If pic doesn't appear, try this link:
http://www.geocities.com/sloecat/pantsburg/band.html

"Failure is not an option"

This was said by the Bush administration about our policy in Iraq. My feelings are mirrored by an editorial I heard on WNYC: "The war in Iraq is already lost." (I'll have to branch out from quoting WNYC, lest I become repetitive.) The day we went in there with no real purpose stated is the day failure showed its face. It makes me sad and it disgusts me.

I mostly feel this way, I suppose, because my uncle fought in Vietnam, and the government does next to nothing for those who are killed or tortured for it and its idea of "freedom" or "democracy" or "terrorism" or "weapons of mass destruction" or whatever convenient fable is on hand—based upon my uncle's experience, anyway. He was a grunt, was a victim of Agent Orange, told me that his platoon would receive government-issue packs of marijuana cigarettes, since they all knew how bad it was and there was nothing they could do about it. Anyway, I just pray for a swift end to this horror.

By the way, has any more been discovered about Nicholas Berg and the details leading to his death? That is one of the most horrific stories I've ever heard, but I feel like it needs to be talked about as much as possible to remind people of what an inhumane and truly evil thing war is. (Reminder about who Nick Berg is for those who are bad with names: He's the man who was decapitated in the al Qaeda/Iraqi video. His head was sawed off as he begged for mercy. That's barbarism. That's what happens in war. It turns people into deranged beasts.)

I apologize for the gloom, but that's where my head's at when I hear the news. I'll post something nice sometime—really, I will.

The reason I'm here

is named MJ from Test-Run Librarian http://testrunlibrarian.blogspot.com/. She's a pal of mine from New Orleans. A good one. She's all rock and roll and smarts.

That's my shout-out. She's the only thing I really like about Florida. : O

BHL

Um...hi. I've never done this before. A blog, that is. I barely have enough discipline to clean my house or do my laundry in a regular fashion. But this seems like it could be a cool thing to do while I'm working and there's nothing coming in.

What's been interesting to me lately? NPR. There's a fantastic show on WNYC hosted by Brian Lehrer in the morning that everyone should listen to at least a few times if they can. (Brian has his own blog! Check it out.)

This morning Brian was talking to Bernard Henri-Levy, who was speaking with great candor about the war in Iraq (I love how people are finally starting to do that!) and the deluded concept of war in the western worldview—how we see it as cause for heroism, courage, etc. He's been in war zones that get little to no attention in the west, places like Sri Lanka, Sudan. Leave it to the French to be the only ones to be unafraid to tell it like it is, and say so with passion. On the show, he sort of lost control in a tirade about how out of touch people who romanticize war are and how sick the constant killing really is and called those who start these wars "bastards"! It was exciting to hear. Yay, BHL!

One of his books:

Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

http://www.semcoop.com/detail/0971865949

Wow. Here's a totally different perspective from the Guardian: Bernard Henri-Levy as media whore:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,977498,00.html

Any way you slice it, fascinating guy.

PS: My other fascination of late: revisiting the book On Writing Well by William Zinsser.