magpie's

Although many of its contributors are card-carrying members of the professoriat, a significant number are artists and some are "independent scholars," a discreet euphemism for defrocked academics; trust-fund autodidacts who've disappeared down the rabbit hole of their obscure obsessions; intellectual omnivores with a magpie's eye and a hummingbird's attention span who Want to Know Everything About Everything (a cardinal sin in an age of intellectual niche marketing).

Boing Boing 2009

Schiff has a magpie's eye for detail; her Cleopatra, as a result, is hung with shiny bits of history.

Stacy Schiff's new biography of "Cleopatra," reviewed by Maria Arana Marie Arana 2010

The room was fetid and beyond cluttered like a giant magpie's nest and smelled like a combination of chicken noodle soup and body odor.

21 Praises to Tara Michael K. White 2011

Ru, a magpie's nest of news and analysis that presents a well-informed view of the inner workings of this secret state.

State Security, Post-Soviet Style 2010

Though I love clean lines too, my house is cluttered with things I've collected for years -- books, paintings, pottery -- I've got a magpie's penchant for shiny objects.

Stuff 2007

His poems do not merely explicate Cornell, they match the old magpie's creations.

Gifts That Keep On Giving 2008

Like the leaf-litter that nourishes a rain forest, veteran reporters assemble a steaming magpie's nest of trivia, facts, rumours, and their own experiences to take facts and assemble them in a cohesive truthful pattern which, if it can't convey the whole truth, will give the reader a recognizable sketch portrait of it.

Archive 2008-08-01 West End Bob 2008

My admiration of the magpie's bright shiny tail turned to slight disgust/pity/uncertainty as to what might be lurking in my own gutters.

Snippets and bike musings jinty 2006

It seems to me like the dove stealing the magpie's nest.

Archive 2006-06-01 Sun Bin 2006

It seems to me like the dove stealing the magpie's nest.

Chinese statecraft, Three Kingdoms, Middle East and Ma Ying-Jeou's secret plot Sun Bin 2006