"I really don't know clouds at all," whines the industrial-strength-sappy 1969 hit "Both Sides Now." Joni Mitchell, you're not alone.
According to Gavin Pretor-Pinney, author of the new book "The Cloudspotter's Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds" (Perigee, $19.95), too few people treasure the floating puffs of cauliflower in our skies.
Such disrespect prompted the London-born Oxford grad to found the Cloud Appreciation Society in 2004. It now has 5,000 members in 40 nations, and a Web site — cloudappreciationsociety.org — offering poetry, merchandise, photos and more.
Edmund Gast, 74, a retired electronics technician from Hauppauge, N.Y., joined the society because he doesn't "subscribe to the 'clear blue skies' make for a beautiful day edict.
I have always hated clear blue skies. ... Clouds are what give the sky a palette of ever-changing art. I get very annoyed when weathermen (or women) say that the day will be beautiful, with cloudless skies."
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It's evident in the manifesto in his lighthearted book: "We believe that clouds are unjustly maligned. ... We pledge to fight 'blue-sky thinking' wherever we find it. ... Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in (clouds) will save on psychoanalysis bills."
Or does the author need a psychoanalyst?
Pretor-Pinney, co-founder of Britain's Idler magazine, credits cirrostratus formations for helping Christianity become the Roman Empire's religion.
And if you don't already think his head's in the clouds, consider his view of Frankie Lymon's 1956 hit, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"
The author suggests that the singer — who overdosed on heroin at 26 — might have survived if his lyric, "why does the rain fall from up above?" had been answered.
"If only someone had taken this troubled young man aside and explained it. ... I'd have gladly gone through it with him."
Pretor-Pinney says there are 350 billion water droplets per cubic foot in cumulus clouds, while each cloud is equal to the weight of 80 elephants. (Ancient Hindus and Buddhists, he says, considered clouds the spiritual cousins of elephants.) He also does a fun job of putting these clouds in context:
Cumulonimbus: "The towering thunderclouds that scare us senseless," he says, are "the Darth Vader of the cloud world."
Stratocumulus: Like pop diva Cher, he says, it greatly varies its appearance and is "always nipping offstage to appear in a more fantastical outfit."
Nacreous: Sadly, this beautiful formation is the most dangerous. Aka mother-of-pearl clouds, they cause the breakdown of our ozone layer.
Cirrus: Graceful clouds, as Mitchell sang, like "rows and floes of angel hair."
Morning Glory: Glider pilots' best friend.
Cumulus: The sunny clouds that kids love to draw.
Altostratus: The featureless, "boring cloud."
Stratus: These low clouds are the only variety that lower to Earth as fog or mist, so we can walk through them.
Altocumulus: The disc-shaped species (yes, clouds have species) has been mistaken for UFOs.
