I know fuck-all about diamond doves. Is that even what they’re actually called, where they’re from? I just remember seeing them in cages at the pet store. Picture a pigeon but smaller and pastel. Very nice-looking. If you could get one to be hand friendly, I bet they’d be very pleasing to hold. Are they just a fancy pigeon breed? I don’t think so? I have a vague impression most fancy breeds are the usual size or bigger, not that smol. Could be wrong.
Anyway, diamond doves makes me think of Diamond Dogs by David Bowie, which was kind of a cheap rip-off a Rolling Stones song. Turnabout’s fair play and the Stones did a transparent ripoff of Diamond Dogs called Saint of Me. I wonder could I hum one of these tunes well enough that yewchoob’s algorithm can auto-detect and copyright flag it? Suck up my non-existent ad revenue to pay the RIAA some fractional pennies?
The last time I went to the pet store, they didn’t have diamond doves anymore. Did they get busted for trafficking protected animals? Did they go extinct in the wild? Did they just become too pricey or inconvenient in some way? Goodbye diamond doves.
My favorite pet store animal is the bearded dragon. Problem is, the ones in the store are literal babies. I’m given to understand adults are a foot long and produce copious stanky shits. The moar u kno.
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lol i meant to queue this but accidentally fucking posted it. it’s pretty weak sauce, so i’ll let it stand as a bonus post.
i am doing one post a day just to help make sure the network has more than PZ and Mano in the sidebar. it ain’t much but it’s what i can do. on occasions when i’m being more ambitious, i’ll post more.
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According to Wikipedia diamond doves are an Australian species (Geopelia cuneata). The conservation status is “least concern” (except in Victoria, at the southern edge of its range).
A web search finds a claim that they’re the second smallest pigeon species. In aviculture, due to their small size, they are honorary finches.
They’re still in the aviculture trade. For example this US supplier offers a lot of colour forms of diamond dove. It recommends that you refrain from handling them because of their delicate nature.
https://www.strombergschickens.com/live-birds-eggs/pigeons-and-doves/doves/diamond-doves/
aww! poor delicate guys! if i ever get a pet pigeon it’ll be the hardier kind. i want a pet i can pet.
“Cheap ripoff” is kind of harsh, though Bowie was not averse to “ripping off” Jagger and the Stones (witness the story about the album cover artist for *Diamond Dogs*). If you’re talking about the song’s striking similarity to “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I like it),” the evidence is that Bowie and Jagger wrote that song together; there’s even a demo version where you can hear Bowie’s voice with Jagger’s, though in the final version Bowie has been largely erased (except maybe he does some of the handclaps). Bowie always openly admitted that “Diamond Dogs” and “It’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll” were basically the same song; in concert he would sometimes start singing the Stones song so his fans could hear the connection. (I’ve never heard “Saint of Me,” though; I’ll have to give that a listen).
Not to self-promote, but…..there’s more details about both the connections between the songs and about the album cover story in my 33 1/3 book about *Diamond Dogs*: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/david-bowies-diamond-dogs-9781501336584/
brilliant! self promotion is dandy when it’s extremely relevant information. i’d forgotten which stones song dogs sounded like which is the reason i didn’t name it. that was the one alright.