Birds, Books, and “Punk Rock Girl”

Admit it: you’d soon miss ’em if I ever just stopped posting these blathers on various strange topics. 🙂 

So here’s the latest glimpse into what goes on in my mind:

A pair of barn swallows (they’re adorable) built a nest on our front porch light. these are the front-yard birds, to make a distinction between them and all the backyard birds: about a zillion sparrows and finches, plus a pair of rock doves (Malcolm, because of Mirrormask, and Stevie, because she’s a white-winged dove). As far as I can tell, it’s because the words “front yard birds” have more-or-less the same inflection as the words “Punk Rock Girl” that I’ve had, at odd moments, the one line I remembered from the song of that title running through my head. I heard it once, when I was a teenager. I think it was my friend Sara who had me listen to it; she and her boyfriend Peter were the Dead Milkmen fans.

Because of the “information overload” in my brain (not true overload, just lots and lots of facts and trivia bits and connections between ’em), thinking of this song results in a string of strange mental tangents ending with a skeptical, “Yeah, sure they’re cousins.” (It’s not my fault. Blame some guy named Neil — not the one you’re probably thinking of, although I cannot honestly say the Neil has no connection whatsoever to what I’m blathering about — for writing something in which he mentions once a fictional band called the Dead Delivery Boys. Blame the person who posted something about the Dr. Seuss book Fox in Socks on Facebook where I’d see it. (See? Not my fault that I originally mispronounced guisel the same as Seuss’ real surname.)

So now you may want to know about the other birds referred to in the title of this post… Well, there’s a small falcon. (Small, I said. *shakes head*) And a raven, if only by implication — he doesn’t actually show up until far too late in the latter half of the series, dammit… These make more sense if you know name translations and whatnot, but as a talking egg said, I am not here to remedy your zoological ignorance. He actually said that to the “small falcon.” Or to the “fox” cousin of same. I’m both slightly embarrassed that I don’t recall exactly anymore and too lazy to want to look it up… but not so lazy that I’m not gonna look it up. Please excuse me… *leaves to look it up… comes back* I love having most of my books out on shelves where I can find them. Decided to grab one of our copies of N. Randall’s book, too, while I was at it, so I can quote the exact passage mentioning the Dead Delivery Boys: “Who, for instance, could listen to the Dead Delivery Boys?” That’s it: the line in a book that makes some weird song from the 1980s stick in my head for reasons that have nothing to do with the song itself. And yes, Humpty Dumpty’s comment about zoological ignorance was said to Merlin, not Rinaldo. This is in a scene in the beginning of Roger Zelazny’s Sign of Chaos, in case you had not yet figured out that I’m blathering about Amber novels and whatnot. So unlike me, isn’t it? 🙂

Wanna know something hilarious? When I went to YouTube to get the link to the video for “Punk Rock Girl,” one of the top recommended songs in that column on the right was Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” (Well, I think it’s funny.)