Happy Birthday - Mick Jagger

    As of today, Mr. Jagger has spent 28,490 days on this planet,  a couple of hundred more than President Joe Biden. The President is only eight months older than the singer, but I think you will agree that he looks more elderly. Although the office of the presidency has a way of aging quickly those within it, Mick has always looked much, much younger than those of us who are about the same age as he is. 

   Proof of that is found in this cartoon from almost forty years ago. It was sent to me back then by a friend who was, by the way, at the LSE about the same time as Jagger. That was long ago when baseball hats were worn frontwards by baseball players and Fedoras or Homburgs were worn by those more mature. Even though in the early '80s we were all only in our late '30s, most of us had already begun to look more like the gentleman in the cartoon and less like Jagger. The cartoon has aged well, don't you think?

 

Man About the Same Age as Mick Jagger

   The Stones are about to begin their NO FILTER tour and Mick will probably be glad to have a break from domestic life. His youngest child is only four and he has seven others. It is surprising that he hasn't aged more than has.

The Bonus:

  I doubt if the Stones are touring because they are broke. One of Jagger's ex-lady friends was L'Wren Scott. She committed suicide in 2001 and left $9 million (US) to Mick.

 The cartoon appeared in The New Yorker, Dec. 14, 1981. 

Canadian Content:

   In the same issue of the 1981 New Yorker, this advertisement appears. 

Unfortunately, the Stones have decided not to play in Vancouver.

Professor Bloom's Memory

 

   It has been too nice outside to stay inside blogging, so I imagine that my imaginary readers are growing restless. Some of them may remember that the subject of "memory" is one of the few themes found in this blog, which is produced by someone with a poor one, and they may yearn for another profile of someone who has one that was very good. Well, here it is.

   Harold Bloom is a well-known literary critic and professor who died in 2019. Apparently he will not be bored, wherever he is, since he took with him to the coffin an entire canon which was stored in his memory. In the obituary it is noted that "Bloom claimed he could recite "the whole of Shakespeare, Milton's Paradise Lost, all of William Blake, the Hebraic Bible and Edmund Spenser's The Fairie Queen." He apparently could read four hundred pages in an hour and remember what he read.
 
   With some irony it should be noted that attempts are being made to erase Bloom so he will not be remembered by those who study literature in the future. He was, after all, the Dean of the DWEMs, who thought that those included in his The Western Canon, were the ones who really counted. Additional support for his cancellation is offered by those who learned that he also courted some of the coeds he taught at Yale and NYU. 

   I know about Bloom's memory because I read this recent piece: "Poetry and the Art of Memory," by Stephen Miller, The Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2021.  It was Mr. Miller who read the Bloom obituary and thought if Bloom could remember that much, he could attempt, at age 79, to improve his own memory by memorizing 30 poems in five languages. "I made my task relatively easy by choosing to memorize poems with no more than four stanzas. So far I've learned poems in English, French, Spanish and German. I'm working on a poem in Italian." In passing, he mentions that he recently recited, while waiting at a red light, Wallace Steven's "The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand-Man."

Sources:
I did look at the obituary, but it is difficult to quickly learn more about Bloom's memory since most search results lead to another book he wrote, Possessed by Memory, which I have not read and would not remember. Mr. Miller does mention "The Book of Memory: A Study Of Memory in Medieval Culture," by Mary Carruthers, but I haven't read that either. 

The Bonus:

If, like me, you don't think you are up to the task of remembering 30 poems in five languages, you could start with the short one in English that Mr. Miller already remembers.

"The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man," 
One's grand flights, one's Sunday baths,
One's tootings at the weddings of the soul
Occur as they occur. So bluish clouds
Occurred above the empty house and the leaves
Of the rhododendrons rattled their gold,
As if someone lived there. Such floods of white
Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind
Threw its contorted strength around the sky.

Could you have said the bluejay suddenly
Would swoop to earth? It is a wheel, the rays
Around the sun. The wheel survives the myths.
The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.
To think of a dove with an eye of grenadine
And pines that are cornets, so it occurs,
And a little island full of geese and stars:
It may be the ignorant man, alone,
Has any chance to mate his life with life
That is the sensual, pearly spuse, the life
That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.

For other guys with good memories, see the following. I promise I will continue to search for some  women with big memories.  In alphabetical order:
Chimen Abramsky.
Professor Chomsky
William Empson (includes C.S. Lewis)
Professor Porson 

Fruits & Nuts

 

   It is an odd thing that I am posting anything related to pomology. I rarely eat fruit, except for strawberries at this time of year. I don't think I have had an apple or banana over the last decade. Now that I think about it, my consumption of fruits is mainly in liquid form.  Fruits are attractive, however, and that is perhaps one reason why they often appear in paintings. That gets me to our subject for today.

  Just as I would have thought it unlikely that I would be writing about fruit, I would have thought it even less likely that I would recommend to you a collection found in the U.S. Department of Agriculture - a collection of watercolors of fruits and nuts.  It is well worth a look. You will no longer have to rely on pinterest for pictures of pomegranates. Here is what you need. 

 The link is found here: U.S. Department of Agriculture - Pomological Watercolor Collection. Wikipedia provides a good description: Pomological Watercolor Collection. 

   A book based on the collection has just been published by Atelier Editions: An Illustrated Catalog of American Fruits & Nuts....   I learned about it from a review which, as you will see from the title, is ecstatic: "These U.S. Agriculture Department Paintings of Fruits and Nuts Are Actually Stunning," Jacqueline Landy, Washington Post, May 25, 2021. 
"Published by Atelier Editions in Los Angeles, it has an orange cover with handsome black typography. It has a fascinating introduction, a good index and glossary; it even smells nice. But the best thing about it, undoubtedly, is the pictures. They’re pictures of fruit. And nuts. Made by hand. In watercolor. Hundreds of them have been selected from more than 7,500 paintings, drawings and lithographs from the Agriculture Department’s Pomological Watercolor Collection....And oh my goodness! They’re beautiful.... On a technical level, the pictures are virtuosic. What I especially like is that, despite the scientific approach, aspects of personal style sneak into each illustration. Sometimes the artist focuses exclusively on the shape and color of the fruit itself, which can produce striking results. For instance, two vertical rows of bright red Coletto plums by an unknown artist in 1888 have an intensely abstract aura."

  For a good article that explains the importance of such botanical illustrations see: "How to Trademark a Fruit: To Protect the Fruits of Their Labor and Thwart “Plant Thieves,” Early American Growers Enlisted Artists," Daniel J. Kevles, Smithsonian Magazine, August 2011. 

The Canadian Angle

   I happened to notice that the introduction to An Illustrated Catalog... is provided by Adam Leith Gollner, "the Canadian musician and author of The Fruit Hunters." According to the Wikipedia entry, Gollner played in the bands, We Are Molecules, Dessert and Hot Pickles. 

   The USDA Pomological collection is searchable and there appear to be 144 images relating to Canada.  Most of them were done by three women, but none of them turned out to be Canadian. To learn more about these female botanical illustrators see:

Debora Griscom Passmore (1840-1911)

https://specialcollections.nal.usda.gov/guide-collections/deborah-griscom-passmore-watercolors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Griscom_Passmore

Amand Almira Newton, (1860-1943) (granddaughter of Isaac Newton)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Newton_(illustrator)

Ellen Isham Schutt, (1875-1955)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Isham_Schutt

To read an Ontario pamphlet on the subject from the late 19th century see:

Orchards and Vineyards of Ontario:The Premier Province of Canada, 1897

Sobriety May Be Overrated

 Ammo for Alkies

  

    I read a book review this morning that provides me with an opportunity to break free from a minor case of "blogger's block" which, like many cases of "writer's block", is symptomatic of nothing more than nice summer weather. This will be kept short and I will make clear that the sage wisdom offered is meant for those who: 1) prefer not to be sober; 2) like to consume alcoholic beverages; 3) need a better rationale for doing so; 4) need one quickly for the approaching holiday and 5) want to feel less guilty when leaving the LCBO store or pub. 

  If you incline toward intoxication, you would have been intrigued, as I was, by the title of a review that reads: "A History of Getting Hammered, and Why Some of Us Should Keep Doing It," by Zoe Lescaze, New York Times, June 19, 2021. I realize that those of you on the far right side of things, think that the New York Times is not to be trusted, so I will quickly add that the book under review was written by a university professor. I suppose that doesn't help much for those of you in that category, but I will quickly add again, for my Canadian readers, the fact that the professor resides at a respected Canadian university (UBC.) The title of the book is, for us boozers, as compelling as the title of the review; it is: Drunk: How We Slippped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization.  The author is Professor Edward Slingerland and he is a Distinguished University Scholar, whose skills are appreciated in different departments, even in different faculties. He is also a PHILOSOPHER, so if you buy this book, you will be looking at an academic treatise that helps you justify your alcohol consumption, plus you will be the only one at the beach not reading a book by James PATTERSON.

  

   Happy hour approaches, so I will now turn this over to the reviewers and sources, and highlight the bits that you need if you are drinking too much and don't have time to actually read the book. 

   After noting that, even Frederick the Great of Prussia recognized "that beer was a uniquely powerful bonding agent, and key to morale,"the reviewer, Ms Lescaze, goes on to offer the following points:

For thousands of years cultures around the world have “implicitly understood that the sober, rational, calculating individual mind is a barrier to social trust,” Edward Slingerland writes in “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization,” an effervescent new study that’s equal parts anthropology, psychology and evolutionary biology. Drawing on recent experiments, Neolithic burials, eclectic myths and global literature, Slingerland teases out the evolutionary advantages and enduring benefits of getting blitzed. It’s a rowdy banquet of a book in which the ancient Roman historian Tacitus, Lord Byron, Timothy Leary, George Washington, the Chinese poet Tao Yuanming and many others toast the merits of drowning Apollonian reason in Dionysian abandon..."

"For our ancestors, inebriation was especially essential, “a robust and elegant response to the challenges of getting a selfish, suspicious, narrowly goal-oriented primate to loosen up and connect with strangers.” This is why hunter-gatherers likely began producing beer and wine before bread...."

“It is no accident that, in the brutal competition of cultural groups from which civilizations emerged, it is the drinkers, smokers and trippers who emerged triumphant,” Slingerland writes: Human society would not exist without ample lubrication..."

Disclaimer Alert

   I realize it is a little late and I should have provided this warning at the beginning.  But, in my defence, I only realized that such a warning is now required, when I saw one at the beginning of a CBC report about an upcoming quilting convention in Moose Jaw.  I did not risk reading on, in that case and am not sure what was upsetting, or who was being offended.  Perhaps the quilters simply forgot to ask the Indigenous for permission to temporarily occupy their space. 

   I hope you have not been made anxious or traumatized  by what has been written here so far, but I suggest you have a drink if you want to continue.

An Additional Warning

   Everyone now is rather 'touchy' and as a society we are tending toward temperance, so to protect myself and Professor Slingerland from those such as the MADD people, it should be noted that excessive alcohol consumption has been associated with some health concerns. Even my drinking buddies know that and practice moderation in some matters and generally avoid butter on their toast and salt on their eggs. The professor acknowledges this issue:

Slingerland is adamant that chemically induced communion is just as valuable (and perhaps particularly necessary) in modern times, but he does address alcohol’s more obvious medical and economic costs, the devastating effects of addiction and the subtle, pernicious ways in which drinking can alienate and exclude outsiders. Some readers might find the treatment cursory given the gravity of these issues, but Slingerland simply argues that they have been well documented, whereas serious scholarly work on the value of intoxication is surprisingly scant. As a result, poor alcohol stands “defenseless” against doctors and government policymakers who paint it as pure vice. Slingerland takes up the cause with all the chivalry of a knight-errant, and his infectious passion makes this book a romp as well as a refreshingly erudite rejoinder to the prevailing wisdom.

   Additional information is provided by the publishers, Hachette Book Group, where this blurb is found: 

A "entertaining and enlightening" deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization—and the evolutionary roots of humanity’s appetite for intoxication. (Daniel E. Lieberman, author of Exercised)

  Another review is found in the New Scientist and this is found in it:

Slingerland, a philosopher at the University of British Columbia in Canada, has a novel thesis, arguing that by causing humans “to become, at least temporarily, more creative, cultural, and communal… intoxicants provided the spark that allowed us to form truly large-scale groups”. In short, without them, civilisation might not have been possible.

See: "Drunk Review: Could Alcohol-induced Creativity Be Key to Civilisation?" June 2, 2021.

   See also the review in the New York Journal of Books:

Slingerhand does not defend alcohol, but he does point out that it has positive benefits from the past to the present. Alcohol serves as a disinfectant (including for water) and as an anti-parasite medicine, including anti-fungal protection.

“Drunken words are spoken straight from the heart” and Slingerhand devotes much space to the many different dimensions of social drinking. “Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.” “The political function of alcohol is practical as well as symbolic.”

   For more, go directly to:

The Wikipedia entry for Professor Slingerland.

The UBC website.

The website for the book:  

The Bonus:

Professor Slingerland has authored other works including: Tying Not To Try. Perhaps he is a better professor than some found on the other side of campus. Our granddaughter is enrolled at UBC. Maybe I will encourage her to stroll over there when an actual visit is allowed. 

In Trying Not To Try, Edward Slingerland explains why we find spontaneity so elusive, and shows how early Chinese thought points the way to happier, more authentic lives. We’ve long been told that the way to achieve our goals is through careful reasoning and conscious effort. But recent research suggests that many aspects of a satisfying life, like happiness and spontaneity, are best pursued indirectly. The early Chinese philosophers knew this, and they wrote extensively about an effortless way of being in the world, which they called wu-wei (ooo-way). They believed it was the source of all success in life, and they developed various strategies for getting it and hanging on to it.

Warehouses

 

Good News or Bad?

   Good news is rather rare these days, but some has appeared in our local region. There have been many positive headlines about the construction of new warehouses and the potential arrival of Amazon in our area. Here is one of them along with a few opening sentences:

"A Windfall and a Shakeup; An Amazon Centre Would Bring Money and Force Retailers to 'Up Their Game'," Norman De Bono, The London Free Press, May 28, 2021.

An Amazon packaging and distribution centre landing on London's doorstep would be an immediate windfall for the local economy, say retail industry observers.

The building of what may be a massive, e-commerce hub, buying a host of support services, generating tax revenue and paying workers wages all would be an injection of cash locally.

But its long-term impact on the retail sector, as it pushes consumers even faster into the e-commerce economy, will bear watching as it may hurt brick-and mortar shops slower to embrace e-commerce.

Questions could be asked about this 'windfall' and how tight our embrace of e-commerce and Amazon should be, but I am more concerned about this headline: 'Amazon Plans to Expand Southwestern Ontario Footprint with 2 London Warehouses: The Company Says There, Will Be 200 Warehouse Jobs Available, 130 Delivery Drivers." (CBC News, May 27, 2021.) The jobs may be good and the 'windfall' may last, but surely the Footprint will last even longer and be difficult to erase. 

The 403

   The news is even more euphoric in The Brantford Expositor. The reasons for that are easily spotted as one drives from London to Hamilton. You may recall that before the 403 was completed the drive took longer, but was certainly more scenic. On the east side of Brantford the fields are now full of warehouses and it is likely the ones between Woodstock and Brantford will be as well.  Soon we may dread the drive along the 403, just as we much as we dread seeing the HTTP 404 message on our computer, as a symbol of what has been lost.

   My objection is not an aesthetic one, it is agricultural in nature. Should prime agricultural land, which is a rare commodity in Ontario, be turned over for such a purpose? Would we not be better off growing crops, rather than constructing warehouses? And, given what has been made obvious by the pandemic, wouldn't we be better off making things ourselves locally rather than distributing goods made by others far away?

Sources: 

   I will not attempt to skew them, in favour of my position. If you want to read some positive articles you can start with The Brantford Expositor. For example: "New Warehouse Centre Backed by City Council," Oct. 7, 2020 and "Growth in Warehouse Industry Continues," where it is noted that:  In the county, warehousing and distribution employs approximately 1,400 people and represents about five per cent of all business in Brant. By way of comparison, agriculture represents 13 per cent, retail nine per cent and manufacturing seven per cent. (April 13, 2021.) I did note at the end of one article where it was mentioned that "Supply Chain Management" was being taught in support of such developments that:  “It is generally accepted that global supply chains have reduced costs and increase the range of options available to businesses and consumers alike. However, businesses, academics and policymakers have tended to underplay the risks associated with this process of globalization.”

There is also one article to be found about some Indigenous opposition: "Activists Support Protecting Land for Future Generations," TBE, May 8, 2021.

   For a recent article from the United States, questioning the covering of the land with warehouses see:

"A New Crop in Pennsylvania: Warehouses: Huge facilities have sprouted up in and around the Lehigh Valley, fueled by the astonishing growth of e-commerce. Some residents say the area’s landscape and long-term economic health could be threatened.

Michael Corkery - May 26., 2021, The New York Times. 

“They are coming here and putting up shiny new warehouses and erasing pieces of history,” said Juli Winkler, whose ancestors are buried in the Maxatawny cemetery. “Who knows if these big buildings will even be useful in 50 years.”

Developers are very confident in the industry’s growth, however, particularly after the pandemic. Big warehouse companies like Prologis and Duke Realty are investing billions in local properties. Many of the warehouses are being built before tenants have signed up, making some wonder whether there is a bubble and if some of these giant buildings will ever be filled.

“People are calling it warehouse fatigue,” said Dr. Christopher R. Amato, a member of the regional planning commission. “It feels like we are just being inundated.”

   See this site, presented by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture: Prevent Ontario's Food and Farms From Disappearing Forever. 

"Food Growers Issue Urgent Plea to Preserve Ontario's Shrinking Farmland Base," Doug Schmidt,  Windsor Star, May 28, 2021  

Amazon is Everywhere: On June 11, this article is found in the Times Colonist - "Amazon Rumours Continue to Swirl in Langford and Sidney," by Darren Kloster.

The Bonus:

  Jeff Bezos is taking a trip on July 20 to the edge of space. Someone just paid $28 Million to have a seat next to him for the ride, which will take less than 28 minutes. 

Marine Mucilage in the Sea of Marmara

 

Sea Snot

   Having recently offered you an acronym for our time (S.W.I.N.E.), I provide above a term for our time. It floated to the top in some headlines over the last few weeks. It is unfortunate that the Students Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything are not more concerned about subjects like Sea Snot. Apparently included within their curriculum for condemnation are only those topics related to identity, race and gender. Or perhaps it is just that such environmental issues are too distressing to discuss and might trigger gloomy thoughts about our future. (I have noticed, by the way, that the CBC now prefaces, even the most benign story with this sentence: WARNING: This story contains details some readers may find distressing.) Consider that before you continue on.

   I was distressed during the first week of June to read about the catastrophe in Sri Lanka, which I always thought would be a highly desirable destination, except for the identity and racial problems, but now the beaches certainly are best avoided. All you need to know is found in the title of this article from The Guardian on June 4: Sri Lankans Face Up To 'Unmeasurable Cost' of Cargo Ship Disaster: Fishing Communities Fear for the Future As Oil, Plastic and Toxic Chemicals Devastate Ecosystem. Five days later, more marine pollution is spotted farther to the East, in the Sea of Marmara. I chose to show you the map rather than the Snot.

   Here is the headline which includes the phrase with which we are likely to become more familiar: "Turkey Launches Massive Effort to Vacuum up Thick Layer of 'Sea Snot' Choking Its Coast," Washington Post, June 9, 2021. Here are some details:

Thick layers of the viscous, slimy mucus colloquially known as “sea snot” have been wreaking havoc along Turkey’s coastline for months, choking harbors and clogging up fishermen’s nets while suffocating marine life. Scientists say that untreated sewage, agricultural runoff and other forms of pollution are responsible for the phenomenon, but that warming water temperatures caused by climate change appear to be making it even worse. The unappetizing muck has become a source of national embarrassment and rising anger. On Tuesday, Erdoğan vowed to designate the Sea of Marmara, which is between the Black and Aegean Seas, as a conservation area. Meanwhile, government officials launched a massive cleanup operation, using tanker trucks with suction hoses that park along the shoreline and effectively act as giant vacuum cleaners. Similar methods have been used to remove toxic blue-green algae from waterways in Florida.

   Although the phrase was new to me, I was surprised that Wikipedia all ready has an entry and not under a more pleasant euphemism. I did go searching, however, to find the first use of the odious words together and found them in this article from 2007, which locates the pollution closer to home. Given that it is the first use that I could find and since this reference is not found in the Wikipedia entry, here it is along with the first few paragraphs.

   "Say Hello to Sea Snot," Abram Katz, New Haven Register, August 19, 2007:

Aug. 19--DIDYMO is heading this way like a belligerent life force from a different planet. It clogs fast-moving, cold rivers with mats of material that literally wipe out the bottom of the food chain. Streams once rich with species of fish, plants and other organisms become aquatic deserts.

No one knows how to stop it.

The culprit, Didymosphenia geminata, is not from another world or even a different country. Didymo has been here for ages.

Lately, it has been expanding its range and changing its preferences for low-temperature, nutrient-poor, water. Biologists fear that other micro-organisms could make similar changes.

Meanwhile, didymo has been found in the northern reaches of the Connecticut River, in Vermont. A boater found a strange clump on a rock and brought it to local biologists for identification. Didymo had arrived.

There's no way to stop it, or even slow it down, biologists said.

So get ready for what is, colloquially, but incorrectly, called "sea snot."

The Bonus: 

   I doubt if you need more snot sources so I will skip to the bonus and provide you with an apercu, since I haven't offered one in a while - Apercu #3. It comes in the form of a rather tasteless bon mot offered by the British footballer, George Best. Warning - If you are a member of the herd of S.WI.N.E. it will likely put your knickers in a knot.

Mr. Best apparently offered this comment about his life: "I spent most of my money on women and drink. I wasted the rest."

Once again, doing due diligence on your behalf, I found this variant in the Wikipedia entry for Best: When asked what happened to the money he had earned, Best quipped: "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds (women) and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."

Among other inappropriate utterances by him, one finds:

"I used to go missing a lot -- Miss Canada, Miss United Kingdom, Miss World..."

"In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life."

Ta-da!

Mission Blue - an organization that is attempting to do something for our oceans.

Mission Blue inspires action to explore and protect the ocean. Led by legendary oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, Mission Blue is uniting a global coalition to inspire an upwelling of public awareness, access and support for a worldwide network of marine protected areas – Hope Spots.

   

A Murder of Crows

 

The Crows of Vancouver

   We have children living in Vancouver and when visiting them we always notice the crows. They are seen on the lawns and the picture above taken at one son's house, could have been duplicated at the other's. They are even more noticeable at the end of the day when thousands of them, like many other commuters, head for the suburbs. In the crows'  case, the destination is an office park in Burnaby where they will perch and poop. 

   We have been unable to visit because of the pandemic and when we were last there we had to leave prematurely because of the pandemic. I thought of the crows because of a recent article profiling Mr. Fidel Eligan, an immigrant from the Philippines, whose job it is to clean up after the crows. He is a fine fellow who gets up very early to ride his bike to Burnaby where, "the slight senior dons a hazmat suit, straps a 15-kilogram tank to his wiry back and spends hours spraying the lobbies, hallways and staircases his company is subcontracted to clean." Because of the pandemic, Mr. Eligan has been unable to visit his family back in the Philippines so "he has opted to take on an overtime shift disinfecting the buildings in the same office park each weekend." He remarks that "Maybe no crow, maybe me, no work," he says with a chuckle on a recent morning. "I enjoy the crows." The last sentence in the article is this one: "I'm always happy," he says of his life." We should all be so happy. 

   You may have read the article and know about the crows of Vancouver. If not, I will provide some good sources about them below. The subject will now change to the title - The Murder of Crows.

Nouns of Assemblage or Terms of Venery

   Oddly enough, there is not one term to refer to for a collection or group of things. The two above are often used along with, "Nouns of Multitude", "Group Terms" or "Collective Nouns", the last of which also has a more specific grammatical meaning. The need for such terms was noticed long ago and many of them were developed by those out hunting who required words for their descriptions. What does one call a large ???? of pheasants. That is how 'murder' came to be applied to crows, 'bouquet' to pheasants and 'skulk' to foxes. To learn more about all of this, turn to An Exaltation of Larks or, The Venereal Game by James Lipton. Venereal terms in this instance, generally refer to hunting and not what you are thinking. 

   Apart from the real 'nouns of assemblage', etc., there are imaginary ones invented by people such as you. The ones related to lawyers are likely to be unprintable in this family-friendly blog, but here are a few for those in the medical profession: "A Brace of Orthopedists", "A Rash of Dermatologists", "A Pile of Proctologists", and "A Smear of Gynecologists". One could go on, for example: "A Flush of Plumbers," "A Piddle of Puppies," "A Wince of Dentists" or A Column of Accountants." Assemble your own or invite a 'Batch of Buddies' or 'Circle of Crones' over to play a game which involves the creation of colourful venereal terms. 

Sources:

   For the article about Mr. Eligan and the Burnaby crows see: "How Do You Clean Up After a Murder of Crows," Mike Hager, The Globe and Mail, April, 5, 2021. A related video is found on YouTube.

   For additional information about the Vancouver roosts see:

"Crows of Vancouver: The Middle Way Between Biophobia and Biophilia," Christine Thuring. 

"Here's Where the Crows of Vancouver End Up Roosting Every Night," Bob Kronbauer.
The UBC Botanical Garden reveals "Why Are Crows Ruining my Lawn?"

   There are also roosts closer to home. For example:

"Ontario Towns Caw Over Noisy Crows," CBC.

"A Night Spent With Woodstock's Crow Man," Chatham Daily News, Tara Bowie.

It's Not Just Your Imagination: Why a Murder of 10,000 Crows Takes Over Ottawa in the Winter," PostMedia News, Jan.19, 2017.

  The always interesting Atlas Obscura contains a good piece: "An Ostentation of Peacocks, and Other Flowery Ways Medieval Hunters Grouped Birds," Eric Grundhauser, Nov. 24, 2015. 

   For another good article, with pictures and examples: "Collective Nouns for Birds: Why We Call It a Murder of Crows, Murmuration of Starlings and a Conspiracy of Ravens?" Paula Lester, Country Life, Jan. 13, 2020. 

For books, in addition to An Exaltation of Larks see:

A Conspiracy of Ravens: A Compendium of Collective Nouns for Birds, Bill Odie.

A Charm of Goldfinches and Other Wild Gatherings: Quirky Collective Nouns of the Animal Kingdom, Matt Sewell.

A Murmuration of Starlings, Steve Palin.

and

 A Barrel of Monkeys: A Compendium of Collective Nouns For Animals. (Like The Conspiracy of Ravens, this one was assembled by the Bodleian Library.)