More From Matt's Dictionary of Failed Ideas:

L'Homme Armé (lit., "The Armed Man"): A journal dedicated to sharp-shooting and early music, the official publication of the shortlived NRA (Neumes and Rifles Association). This was founded in 1988 by the amalgamation of the Little Gooseneck, Wisconsin, Gregorian Schola and the left-leaning Robert La Follette Duck and Target Club. Originally intended to encompass only plainchant and archery, the Assocation soon expanded to include firearms and seventeenth-century Italian chamber operas as areas of interest. A production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in 1993 brought critical acclaim from several postmodernist literary reviews in New York, though some thought the inclusion of AK-47s in the orchestra pit a trifle gauche. Brown Bess tower muskets, it was claimed, would have been far more appropriate.

This marked the beginning of a schism which finally culminated in a disastrous 1995 performance of Torrejon y Velasco's La Púrpura de la Rosa, the first opera to be written in Latin America. The aria "En Poco Nos Ha Enganado" was interrupted by arquebus fire, and visiting expert Paul McCreesh's priceless conductor's harpsichord sustained a direct hit by a four-pounder falconet. A roving band of unemployed Sandinistas arrived in the middle of Act III to finish off the carnage.

Three days later, the organization disbanded, several leaders joining the monks at Solesmes, and another faction founding the Peoria branch of the Tupamaros. A splinter group of the Peorians leaft them in 1996 over a dispute concerning the use of the organistrum in twelfth-century Spain, has since established itself in Indianapolis as the Lower Indiana Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Party and String Quartet. Some of its members later defected to the John Birch Society's sackbut and cornett ensemble in 1998. Still another group founded the Georg Wilhelm Telemann School of Firearms Maintenance in Van Tassel, Wyoming. A fourth faction led by former corresponding secretary Dwight Armonk founded the Society for Creative Anarchism, which dedicates itself to anti-globalization mob violence and incredibly stupid-looking imitation armor. At the moment, most of them work at the Starbucks at the corner of 14th and Washington in Seattle.