I've learned a lot today and it's not even 10:00 am!
First, I learned that Broken Pencil, a review magazine that I've been sending my stuff to for a while now, has reviewed (favorably!) the first issue of The Butter Lamb News. This is good to hear. I've spent a lot of money on postage to mail my magazines north of the border, but I haven't heard a peep in return. Now I know BP is not only receiving them, but actually reading them. Huzzah!
Second, I thought BP was a Canadian magazine, but now I see from their website that they have a United States address in Buffalo, NY -- my hometown!
Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to that Broken Pencil for the kinds words about The Butter Lamb News and encourage those of you who haven't had the pleasure to check them out. The BP website is designed quite nicely.
And by the way, issue #4 of The Butter Lamb News will be out in a few months. Stay tuned!
And Speaking of Reviews ...
In addition to Broken Pencil, The good folks at Xerography Debt have given some reviews of The Butter Lamb News as well. Here's a run down:
THE BUTTER LAMB REFERENCE LIBRARY exists to proclaim the good news of reference books as a source of trustworthy information to challenge misconception, confront willful ignorance, and provide answers to an astonishing array of questions be they serious, silly. or something in between I picked this up at bedtime to read for 5 minutes, but I couldn't put it down until I was finished, more than an hour later, Joe publishes letters and zine reviews, but the main focus is on dictionaries and other reference books, which he compares and reviews He always has a column on new words. This issue had really interesting articles about paragraphs and protesters. -- Markell Raphaelson West, Xerography Debt issue #53
Regular readers know I love obsessive zines. This falls into that
category. This is "The Official Publication of the Dictionary
Appreciation Society of Laurel, Maryland and the Butter Lamb Reference
Library'. It is an entire zine devoted to dictionaries! New words, old
words,and the politics of etymology. it is all here. I loved this.-- Davida Gypsy Breier, Xerography Debt issue #52
Joe has mentioned his love for dictionaries in his other zine ALTERNATIVE INCITE, but I didn't really understand how much he loved them until I received THE BUTTER LAMB NEWS #1: THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE DICTIONARY APPRECIATION SOCIETY OF LAUREL, MARYLAND AND THE BUTTER LAMB REFERENCE LIBRARY,. Joe's mission with this new project is "to procaim the good news of reference books as a source of trustworthy information to challenge misconceptions. confront willful ignorance, and provide answers to an astonishing array of questions be they serious, silly, or something in between. loe writes about how the pandemic is changing how artificial intelligence is being trained to interact with (or completely ignore) dirty words how an artist is fighting to end misogyy he words people search for in online dictionaries in dictionary entries, and more There's a ton of great stuff in here. Checkit out! -- Kris Mininger, Xerography Debt issue #51
Here's something new from the editor of ALTERNATIVE INCITE. the zine devoted to encouraging creativity, And guess what? It has plenty to do with creativity as well. When you were in school [or at home doing your homework) and someone said that you should look it up. you probably pouted just a bit because you didn't want to slog through a dictionary, right? Well, who would've guessed? Dictionaries can be fascinating things, so Joe may be opening your eyes to an entirely new world here! We begin at the literal beginning: dictionary forewords, which almost nobody reads but they should. My favorite piece in the zine is "Say What? New Words and Phrases. New words and phrases are entering the language all the time, since let's face it, language isn't static. lncluded in this article are cheugy, pfilug, and phubber. If I may make a public suggestion here to Joe, how's about looking in the opposite direction in some future issue and presenting archaic words that still hang around the language? (I personally have always liked
yclept, for which you have to go back to Medieval times]). Finally, there's a listing of new additions to the Butter Lamb Reference Library Collection, which makes sense because there are more different kinds of references than you might expect. And so - surprise! - here's another zine review wherein I suggest that you get a copy of this as soon as you can.--
Fred Argoff, Xerography Debt
issue #51
