The Mincing Mockingbird: Guide to Troubled Birds by Matt Adrian (2012) – An authoritative illustrated compendium to be consulted in the event of an infant or small child being torn apart by a murder of crows

I love birds. I love art. And finding a book that combines the two with humor, well, I had to give it a shot! This little volume of supposed Field-Guide entries of North American birds is actually a collection of brash and irreverent essays that sometimes include bird characters and headshots of the psychos described. It is darkly humorous, yet definitely not for everyone!

Right off the bat, I’ll say that, with its racy stories and flagrant cussing, it’s not a book I’m recommending. It’s gratuitous, and author Matt Adrian could have accomplished the same humorously irreverent feel of this book without adding in all the garbage, but it’s the choice he made. He’s got his market in mind, and only rarely will someone like me stumble upon it. Probably for the best.

The book is “profusely illustrated” with paintings by the author, which I loved. I’ve attempted drawing and painting birds on my own and I know that each species has a personality worth capturing, and Adrian absolutely did. His exploration of the psychosis that’s behind each of those personalities, however, is something I’ve never considered.

Some of these paintings are headshots of the birds with a statement below that relates to the essay. Others are more artistic renderings, headshots still, but headshots plastered onto an off-colored wallpaper background (often paisleys) with a statement (of fact or fiction, one cannot tell). My favorite (posted below for review purposes only) hopefully gives a sense of the type of humor you’d find throughout the book, though this is perhaps the most innocent of jokes.

This book does serve as an inspiration to me that my efforts in drawing or painting could someday form themselves into a publishable collection, so long as the story can tie the pieces together. Like with Hope for the Flowers (1972) and Frederick and Eloise (1993), such creatively artistic books get my juices flowing at the possibilities. I’m an amateur, of course, and it’ll probably never happen, but the thought’s inspiring and make me want to sit down and sketch, or to bust out the watercolors and see what happens.

It’s sad whenever I see someone as talented as Adrian thinks that he needs to hit below the belt of propriety just to be noticed or taken seriously. It’s like almost any standup comedian lacing his otherwise innocent jokes (about food or kids or life in general) with vulgarity and sex. It’s unnecessary, yet it obviously comes from that place of darkness inside the heart that wants to relate to the darkness in others. Thankfully there’s an answer to such darkness, if only people would hear it.

©2023 E.T.