The Urban Pantheist

There’s one person’s LiveJournal that I’ve read for the past few years. It’s really two people—they’re a couple and they live in Boston and they foster pit bulls. For some reason I clung onto them five or six years ago. I don’t know how I found them, but I check in on both of them all the time. I sent the guy a book he was saying he wanted. I hoped he'd write on his blog, "A mysterious stranger sent me the book I wanted," but he never did.

That was Fiona Apple, interviewed in 2012 (and excepted in the oh no you didn't lj comm). The sad truth is that the book never arrived--I had a mailbox at a check cashing place for over 10 years, and then they stopped having mailboxes. I switched to a UPS store for a few years before I realized that I didn't make a zine anymore, and I didn't really need a special place for receiving mail from strangers. Somewhere in that span of time, the book was sent but lost in the postal void.

Fortunately, a short time later, I posted asking if anyone reading my journal was in Los Angeles, since I was going to be visiting. I got a VERY suspicious email from someone claiming to be Fiona Apple, and it caused me to wrack my brain trying to figure out who was trying to gaslight me. After a few emails back and forth, I became convinced that she was who she said she was.

Which was fortunate for me, because Fiona was exceptionally generous, providing opportunities for my father, brother, and I to be entertained at the Largo theater in Hollywood. We even got to meet Fiona backstage:



ANYway you've probably read most of this before, and what I'm trying to get around to saying is, Fiona got me the book again.



Thanks Fiona! So happy to have you in our life, and at our cottage.

It may not be as lovely as some of the mushrooms that appear in summer and fall, but Exidia recisa is among the loveliest mushrooms that typically appears in the winter. Translucent, gelatinous, and the color of maple syrup, this mushroom appears on dead twigs blown down in winter rainstorms. In dry weather it dehydrates to a black crust, but can swell back up and resume releasing spores if it gets wet again.

Attempts to give it a common name are surprisingly clumsy, considering how common the mushroom indeed is. "Willow brain" is evocative, but the fungus can grow on a variety of trees; "Brown witch's butter" misses the mark, texturally speaking. The field guides tend to be maddeningly brief when discussing this fruiting body--it often gets a single line at end of the description of another similar-looking or related species.

On the question of edibility--something that occurs to hungry foragers this time of year, when pickings are slim--I have a story I tell my students. I showed a friend--one who is reading this on livejournal and tumblr--how to identify the mushroom when dry and reconstitute it, and she has eaten a great deal of them. And she's still alive.

This is Don, he works at the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory. I didn't know this when he came along on the Urban Nature Walk at Great Blue Hill. All I knew was that he knew his way around the hill well, so I let him lead the way. When we got to the top of the hill, there was the observatory. He led us in and showed us around.

The instrument he is touching is a Campbell–Stokes sunlight recorder. There was another one on the roof of the observatory. It consists of a crystal ball mounted in a bracket that holds specially shaped strips of paper below. When the sunlight hits the crystal, it focuses on the paper, burning a line across as the earth rotates. You can see a bunch of the papers in the lower part of the photograph.
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My friend dedhamoutside and I co-led an Urban Nature Walk in the Dedham Town Forest (previously seen here). This sign is relatively new. On the one hand, it's nice for the town to recognize the Town Forest; on the other, now it's more visible for use and abuse. We set out with the intention to find mushrooms and other living things!

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My dad came to visit on Sunday. Unbeknownst to him, an old LJ friend was also in town, so our mission was to meet up. First Dad had to love on his Charlie a little.

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At the end of the last Urban Nature Walk my friend dedhamoutdoors suggested we walk near Little Wigwam Pond (this is pronounced "little wiggum pond" in order to differentiate locals from carpetbaggers). A couple days later she said she found sundew plants there, and I said "sounds good! you're leading!" or words to that effect.

This first picture shows the group exploring life along the train tracks.

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We had a great big group on today's Urban Nature Walk at Ponkapoag Pond! I can't remember the last time we had 10 people together on a walk. Great showing, especially considering the weather was damp and raw.

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It was quite a nice surprise to hear my story of being covered with peacock lice repeated on the Caustic Soda Podcast! If you would like to hear all about lice, with a balance of good science information, dumb jokes, and grossness, listen here. Thanks to lj friend wirrrn for immortalizing my tale of bird lice in my beard.

I am indebted to my friend Ale (pronounced Allie) for suggesting the Cedar Grove Cemetery for our October Urban Nature Walk. It's large, beautiful, and unique. It borders the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester on one side and the Neponset River on the other. It is well-planted with sugar maples and other plants that are aglow with autumn colors (including the Boston ivy shown here).( Read more... )

Alexis and I set off for New York City, the first time the two of us traveled there together. I was quite skeptical about traveling by car--traffic, parking, etc. We were on our way to buboniclou's wedding, where Alexis was going to be the photographer.
( Read on only if you want to hear me whine )