Day 18 — Penicillium + puns

I present to you today, an ode to the perhaps [definitely?] the greatest of all fungi on earth. This might seem a somewhat cheesy comment but I’ll let you decide once you’ve read. 

The Factoid is finally pulled out of the drawer after holding off on it for, oh 17 & 1/2 days.

[Disclaimer: As with yesterday’s entry, this poem was written on the correct day (Saturday) but was unable to get it online owing to snowballs careening down hills, sports events, & other exhaustions.]

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Case Study: the Penicillium family #5: Fungi’s Most Fantastic?

[please click to enlarge image]

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Day 18 Factoid – This Really Did Happen (Maybe)

A Joke Repurposed

A Scot, an Aussie, an Englishman,
& a mushroom walk into a bar

The bartender says, “You three look like hoots
But you” (staring at the shroom) “gotta go!”

To which the mushroom whines
“C’mon mate, I’m a fungi too!”

[C’mon yourselves, surely you’ve been 
expecting this to pop up somewhere.]

Day 17 — grans + accents

Today is my grandmother’s birthday anniversary. I’m pretty exhausted at the end of this week so a light playful bit of silliness for gran.

The Poetic Factoid came about because I’m listening to audiobooks with lots of cool facts but which are really irritating in one specific way.

[Disclaimer: As with yesterday’s entry, this poem was written on the correct day (Friday) but was unable to get it online owing to knock-on effects, meetings, & other exhaustions.]

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grandmother mycelium 

without getting all Mushy
in honour of your earth-day
         I wanted to say you were

always the Champignon of grans
always around for Morel support
really knew how to in-spore joy
always calm & kind nothing ever 
         seemed to Truffle your feathers

you were cute as a Button
         completely cap-tivating
the true star of forest & field
may your day be rich golden
         & autumnally earthy in joy

mycelium love is like my-mum’s-mum’s love
         above below & all around us : everywhere

there’s no mushroom for doubt
         you were & always will be sp-awesome

PS I turned out alright too
         not to toot my own Trumpet

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Day 17 Factoid — Some audiobooks are hard to listen to owing to:

the perils of pronunciation

many Americans pronounce fungi 

as ˈfən-ˌjī or fʌndʒaɪ 
         [as if they’re enjoying a dance]
instead of ˈfən-gī or fʌŋgi 
         [hanging round an amusing male]
like right minded English-speakers do

but then, many Americans are also nutters

Day 16 — petroglyphs + mushroom heads

There is a fair bit of rock art around the world depicting mushrooms (& indeed, even mushroom caused euphoria). This one is in the Arctic regions of Siberia & has particularly interesting carvings of mushroom heads.

The Factoid proves via a google search, other kinds of mushroom head are available.

[Disclaimer: As with yesterday’s entry, this poem was written on the correct day (Thursday) but was unable to get it online owing to backlogs, meetings, & other exhaustions.]

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The Pegtymel Petroglyphs
A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. 

i.
white quartz scratches 
on the faces of over
350 dark stones
fine white lines on
bedrock background
in arctic Siberia 

ii.
arms spread wide
legs slightly bent 
at the knees
humans performing 
a shaman dance
ancient magical ritual

iii.
just your average 
Neolithic art gallery
depicting hunters of bears
whales, deer; sailors; 
traders; artists; &
recreational drug users 

with mushrooms for heads

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Day 16 Factoid – Other Types of Mushroom Heads Exist

Slotted Mushroom Head Screw 
Solid Percussion Fasteners Half Round Button Type GB867 Standard

Not all mushroom heads
Attend mystic gatherings

Some are quite sensible
Practical things

Such as Slotted 
Mushroom Head Screws

Diameter range : M1 – M12 (metric)
Length range : 3mm – 200mm (customized)

Threads: UNC, UNF, ISO, Metric, Imperial, 
Full, Half, Coarse, Fine, Reverse.

In a variety of steels (carbon, stainless, alloy, 
As well as nylon, brass, titanium, aluminium alloy)

Likewise a range of Platings (Zinc Chrome
Powder Sherardizing  Copper Composite )

Silver Cadmium Gold Zinc-Nickel Alloy Electroless Nickel
Blue Zinc Plating Yellow Zinc Plating

Electrophoresis Baking Paint  Rustban Coating
Zinc-Aluminum-Magnesium Teflon (PTFE) etc etc 

(whole lot of coatings possible)

Day 15 —  Psilocybin + Psilocybe 

The Festival of Grief has been subdued again this year which is surely a positive sign. Healing perhaps has arrived. The text is a compilation / reinterpretation / reworking of many people’s descriptions of what taking psilocybin felt like for them. I found the content both online in various forums & chats as well as in my printed books.

The Poetic Factoid is borderline abuse.

[Disclaimer: As with yesterday’s entry, this poem was written on the correct day (Wednesday) but was unable to get it online owing to painting, meetings, & other exhaustions.]

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Psilocybin 

you say it feels like : you’re losing your sense of self : shedding it : that it blows your mind : puts all things into perspective : clears your thinking : connects you with the universe : expands who you are : what you know : what you could be : unravels obstacles & obstructions : achieve transcendental introspection : omniscient understanding of self : the most profound lesson you learn is : how : to be your true pure self

you say it : reduces social anxiety : helps overcome severe trauma, PTSD, & extreme depression : the trauma of growing up in an evangelical church : kept you clean from cocaine & heroin for 15 years : your self loathing’s disappeared : losing your inner hate was a miracle : freed you of so much baggage : got your life back on track : become more focused, more functional : removed your mum’s end of life pain

you are kinder, more considerate, patient, peaceful : you are growing old with grace : with more joy : delight : you feel compassion for everything in existence : find every moment fascinating : see the complex synchronicity : hear for the first time : the beautiful song of the cosmos 

shows you there is infinitely more than meets the eye : allows you to look at everything in a new light : teaches perspective : to live life in such a way : it allows you to reach the highest state of consciousness possible : to achieve that infinite goal of divinity : death no longer scares : death is simply a new beginning of something ended 

formerly you were : a dry river bed : now feel full & flowing : you are the universe : & the universe is you : the stars rush towards you : swallow you up : you travel back in time : to the Big Bang : you are the Big Bang : you are everything : you talk to God : you sit with Buddha under the bodhi tree : you walk with Jesus on a beach : you speak to dead relatives 

all i seek : is three minutes : with my beautiful babies : to know you’re all okay

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Day 15 Factoid – Sometimes Names Can Be Unkind 

Psilocybe (genus name)

relatively modern word
coined in the 1950s
using modern Latin
from the Greek psilos 
meaning bald
& kubē meaning head

not quite sure 
how i feel about this

Day 14 — Triptastic + naming systems

This was a challenging poem to write because it took on a tone & indeed life of its own which was not what I was intending: trying to imagine myself as a species of mushroom. Things quickly went awry when some of the phrases demanded more like them, then counterpoints to them, then it just kept going. Slowly & surely spreading into what it is. A strange yet compelling little creature.

The Factoid is both a joke and a deadly serious accusation; a lightweight little pome which is also doing a lot of heavy lifting.

[As with yesterday’s entry, this poem was written on the correct day (Tuesday) but was unable to get it online owing to online courses, meetings, & other exhaustions.]

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[please click to enlarge image]

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Day 13 Factoid – Scientists Need to Pull Their Collective Fingers Out

Binomial Oversight

there is no
fungi named 
after me           yet

Day 13 — a song of noble rot + ice

Based on a true story (& abetted by my long abiding love for sweet dessert wine). Did it stem from this event? I can’t say. But it’s nice to acknowledge one of the fungi kingdom’s less glamorous members. 

The Factoid comes from an episode of Jancis Robinson’s Wine Course (first screened in 2003) & which has stuck with me to this day. One day …

[Disclaimer: This poem was written on the correct day (Monday) but was unable to get it online owing to online courses, meetings, & other exhaustions.]

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[please click to enlarge image]

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Day 14 Factoid – Some Crazy Germans Make Wine From Ice

Eiswein

Take good grapes
Free of rot
Do not pick them

Wait till winter
Till they all freeze
Then quick as you can

Get everyone out
With frozen fingers
Grab them all at once

Crush. Ferment. Drink.
Get very silly. (Hic.)
On that very sweet juice.

Something I’ve never tried
But would like to
(The getting silly mainly)

[Happy to let someone else do the rest]

Day 13-20 ~ INTERLUDE ~ a week of overload

The past week has been overwhelming on a number of levels in a range of my daily activities. Inevitably during a NaPoWriMo, one gets a period of just keeping your head above water & this was it for me.

I wrote every day, that wasn’t the issue. But I could never find time to upload what had been written. Particularly because Monday & Tuesday being replacement poems for the Saturday/Sunday poems which didn’t adhere to the pattern I had hoped to maintain. Foolish or otherwise, that’s what I wanted to try & achieve. But because the Case Studies require even extra preparation (being laid out as they are in a graphic design program first & then screenshotted into a pic so their format can fit the way they’re designed which WordPress is incapable of replicating directly into their code) I was never quite able to catch up until yesterday/today when I’ve finally got all 7 complete, queued up** & ready to post one after the other.

I’ve joked previously that writing the poem is the easy part, the time consuming bit is actually formatting/posting/uploading it to my blog, Facebook etc …

** I’ve scheduled one an hour till I’m caught up

Day 12 — the third kingdom + nice mice

Today’s poem is about a phrase I’ve not read a lot in my research but it’s one I like (it’s a possible volume title). The pome I don’t think is quite there yet (at least it doesn’t do exactly what I wanted it to) but I’m tired & it’s getting late.

The Poetic Factoid is yet another reason we shouldn’t give scientists money to research things.

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The Third Kingdom 

since 

infancy we are taught
all about our world’s 
wonderful flora & fauna

yet 

there are three F’s 
three kingdoms of life
fungi’s always forgotten

why?

fungi are the glue 
holding earth together
turning waste to nutrients 

&

every plant is linked
intrinsically to fungi via
mycorrhizal symbiosis 

even

our human bodies
are shared with as many 
as 200 fungi in & on us

they are in every sense the keystone kingdom

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Day 12 Factoid – Fungi Affects Rodents in Alarming Ways 

friendly fungi

i.
Candida albicans added to the guts 
of mice made them more resilient
to bacterial infections blah blah blah 

ii.
more disturbingly — fungi-mice 
became more sociable (more so
the higher the ratio of gut fungi)

iii.
there is no evidence yet
this study can be extrapolated
to surly humans (thankfully)

Day 11 — triple threat: art + science + quirks

Sometimes a work of art hits you hard in the feels (as the yoof never say). This gorgeous illustration appeals to me in so many wonderful ways: mushroom, rain, gastronomy, humour, verse, silliness, anthropomorphised British woodland creatures. It’s a grab bag of excellence from start to finish. 

The Poetic Factoid is, I’ll admit it, a little odd (out of left field even) & is the only result I could find when entering the search terms “mushroom” + “moles” into the wonderful web of the world. 

Plus there’s even a Bonus Poem inspired by today’s Poetic Factoid. Win-Win-Win for poetry lovers.

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Page 37 [Picture Perfect]

First encountered the delightful 
image in a meme which reads:
“What is your retirement strategy?
Bro, I just want to be a well-dressed 
mole enjoying tea under a mushroom.

What with my snug fitting gold vest
Hot beverage. Picnic basket. Biscuit.
All while dry & watching the rain.
Add a book or four into the scene
& I would literally feel it was heaven.

Yet my blessed life was made even better 
when upon searching for the source
discovered it in a book of nonsense verse:
A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up & Tied His Horse 
To Me my own second-hand copy promptly ordered.

The joy upon realising it was cropped 
from an even greater whole was a buzz.
A bedraggled fox & wet rat standing
beneath a broken brolly in a stream
as cats & dogs tumble down overhead.

Ah, lovely Devon . . .
Where it rains eight days out of seven!

Rain on the green-grass & rain on the tree,
Rain on the house-top, but not on me.

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Day 11 Factoid – Investigation Into Interdependence Between Moles & Mushrooms Reveals Odd Relationship of Convenience

Myco-talpology
the science of mushrooms & talpid moles

Four Japanese scientists 
                          have discovered
it’s possible to locate underground 
mole nests 
                   by the aboveground 
fruiting of  Hebeloma danicum 
       or Hebeloma sagarae

They say: hyphae 
                           of these mushrooms 
       colonise mole latrines 
near nests           forming ectomycorrhizas 
       with their host trees’ roots

Via this strangely specific 
                                        symbiosis
the hyphae & roots      absorb
   transform, & translocate 
                                      nutrients 
from mole excretions
thereby cleaning 
                             the mole’s habitat. 

*NB note the language used in this poem is heavily based on Naohiko Sagara, Nobuko Tuno, Yu Fukasawa, & Shin-ichiro Kawada’s abstract to their paper: Mushrooms arising from the mole latrine reveal the life of talpid moles: proposals of ‘myco-talpology’ and ‘habitat-cleaning symbiosis’ published in The European Zoological Journal.

Link: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.22.513302v1.full

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Day 11 BONUS POEM – Written After Skimming the Full Paper (all 63 pages including 17 Figures, Charts & Graphs)

Quirky Researchers

The fact there are such people in our world
Who dedicate years of study gathering data
About a myriad of arcane & distinct topics
Fills me with such a rush of joyful satisfaction 
For every researcher & their glorious quirky passion.

Day 10 – superstitions + myths

Another poem that (the concept of which) has been bubbling around my brain for a few days. Again it might’ve been a better “introductory” pome but we get what get when we gets it.

The Factoid is actually an assembly of 5 Mushroom Myths, to which I could easily have added another 5 more. But five seemed the right number so I picked the funnest ones.

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superstitions abound because

i. popular
they alarm : in (as archaic storytellers would say) : ye olden days : simply : by suddenly appearing : & equally so : disappearing : into nothingness : more often than not : as if out of nowhere : oftener in odd : unusual : otherworldly : or magical forms : some humanoid in shape : some suggestive : complete with earthy intoxicating smells : foul unpleasant smells : gaudy colours : extravagant colours : glorious colours : colours which change when touched : or cut : bawdy designs : gorgeous  designs : even some which light up the dark : bioluminescence : being almost the last straw : of our ancestor’s sanity

they appear : in fairy rings : aka : dimensional portals ; midnight transportation to realms of the Fae : time travel ; where one night’s revelry inside : equates with a hundred years back home : & the deaths of all your family & friends : crushing one causes ; the curse of bad luck : predicting lifespans : or amphitheatres ; where only the pure-hearted ; can enjoy ; ethereal music & exotic dancing : scorch marks ; created by overheated dragon tails ; or worse ; wild witches dance in them ; & in their swivels summon devils : as architects of immortality

they grew : where lightning had struck earth ; or fallen stars lodged : they were made of : the blood of dragons : seeded by the Devil : or any one ; of a number of gods ; some benevolent ; others more perverse  

they were : the work of witches : portals for fairies : gifts & curses from the divine : reflections of our desires ; our doubts : some even translocate us : within our own minds

ii. personal
whereas i believe : the ongoing obsession : love/hate : philia/phobia : fondness/fear : fixation : infatuation : call it what you will : between fungi : & us : is because we recognise : at a sub liminal level : we realise : in the sub strate : of our souls : we acknowledge : at our deepest sub conscious core : we would not be here : without that first ancient collaboration : between fungi & plant : five hundred million years ago

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Day 10 Factoid – There’s A Lot Of Mushroom Misconceptions Around

5 False Myths About Mushrooms

1. If Animals Eat Them…
Animals eat many things I would not put 
near my mouth. (My dog’s diet is a perfect 
case in point.) Learning to identify mushrooms 
is far more reliable than trusting a moose.

2. Cooking Makes Mushrooms Safe
Try if you like but no matter how thoroughly 
you cook various poisonous mushrooms
many/most toxins do not break down 
with heat/any type of cooking. So no go, Joe.

3. Color Indicates Toxicity …
Not all brightly coloured mushrooms are toxic 
& plenty of dull coloured ones are safe to eat.

3i. Any White Mushrooms Are Safe To Eat Myth
No, white is not alright. Think this & it 
might be your last thought. Some of the most 
toxic mushrooms around are pure white 
& would love to kill you if they could.

4. All Toxic Mushrooms Taste Bad
That all poisonous mushrooms taste bad, bitter, 
or sour is baloney. Reportedly the death cap tastes
excellent. How do we know? It doesn’t always kill 
immediately — liver failure & other organ damage is also possible.

5. Cooking With A Silver Spoon Identifies Toxic Mushrooms.
Supposed sulphur-containing toxic mushrooms 
will not cause silver spoons to blacken or tarnish. 
All it means is if you survive your meal, 
you might have to polish your silver again.