Full on its crown, a fig's green branches rise

September 22, 2018 12:59 PM

Murdered man's body found after tree 'unusual for the area' grew from seed in his stomach.
posted by Cash4Lead (25 comments total)

This is a remarkable story, but modern standards of copy editing sent me in the wrong direction.

Incredibly, the dead man had been taken into a cave with two others and both of them had been killed by dynamite that was then thrown in after them.

Okay, I thought, the two others were killed but he survived somehow. Oh, this is a new "both" that means, "all persons or things previously identified." Gottit.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:07 PM on September 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

That's downright mythic. I noticed there's no picture of the tree though. Did they kill it in the process of excavating the bodies? Seems like they'd almost have to.
posted by tavella at 1:14 PM on September 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

That's nuts!
posted by srboisvert at 1:37 PM on September 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

Did they kill it in the process of excavating the bodies?

See if any more trees try to report crimes.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:03 PM on September 22, 2018 [31 favorites]

https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Wasps-Stranglers-History-Redemptive/dp/1603587144

Figs are pretty mythic, but I wasn't expecting a true crime story.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:20 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Bones writers are no doubt extremely disappointed that this story happened after their show ended.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:24 PM on September 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Jesus, if you try to manage the cookies that The Mirror serves automatically through the tool they provide, you have to click 260 separate affiliates to deny them the opportunity to track you.
posted by klangklangston at 2:24 PM on September 22, 2018 [24 favorites]

I was kind of jarred when I saw that what's been presented as a murder is actually part of the discovery of the several thousand missing people from the fighting due to the occupation of northern Cyprus, and glad to see that later in the article this was covered.

I don't know whether that means they'll be doing more tree surveying, or whether this was something that was already being done. I've met Forensic Archeologists, and presumably this is the kind of thing that's very much in their ballpark.
posted by ambrosen at 2:37 PM on September 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Another reason not to eat figs.
posted by Splunge at 2:42 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Reminiscent of many an old folk song:

On William's grave there grew a red rose
On Barbara's grew a green briar..

posted by Nerd of the North at 2:43 PM on September 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

The Bones writers are no doubt extremely disappointed that this story happened after their show ended.

There was a Bones episode where a woman was found buried under a tree after it blew over in a storm.
posted by shoesietart at 2:47 PM on September 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

excuse me no this is clearly season 4 of hannibal
posted by poffin boffin at 3:08 PM on September 22, 2018 [19 favorites]

Reminiscent of many an old folk song:

And the only tune that the fiddle did play
Was "Oh, the Dreadful Wind and Rain"
posted by Foosnark at 3:22 PM on September 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

"Okay, I thought, the two others were killed but he survived somehow. Oh, this is a new "both" that means, "all persons or things previously identified." Gottit." -- posted by ricochet biscuit

I think it's like

(a) (bc) where:
a is the set of individuals who went down and
bc is the set of individuals who went after.

Thus both is both sets of a + bc.

OK I got nothin.
posted by symbioid at 3:59 PM on September 22, 2018

It’s like the movie Alien, only with a tree. And much slower.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 4:34 PM on September 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yet the dynamite also blew a hole in the side of the cave, allowing light to flood into the darkened interior which in turn allowed the fig tree to grow from the man's body.

Insane. I hope the archaeologist responsible is able to make their career on this. Also, I really want to see the title of the eventual paper.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:35 PM on September 22, 2018

Figs are pretty mythic

Confirmed.
posted by Fig at 5:46 PM on September 22, 2018 [15 favorites]

Yet the dynamite also blew a hole in the side of the cave, allowing light to flood into the darkened interior which in turn allowed the fig tree to grow from the man's body.

Up to 200,000 people were displaced in the conflict.

That's some dynamite.
posted by saturday_morning at 6:00 PM on September 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Jesus, if you try to manage the cookies that The Mirror serves automatically through the tool they provide, you have to click 260 separate affiliates to deny them the opportunity to track you.

and if you read the story without clicking either manage or accept, it just starts sending info anyway
posted by eustatic at 6:35 PM on September 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Did they check for piggies nearby?
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:00 PM on September 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

I seriously want this to happen after I’m dead and buried. In a few years, I want my friends to have a party and make pizza with prosciutto and decomposing Slarty stomach figs on it.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:54 PM on September 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

This is bringing a whole new meaning to the folk tale of watermelons growing in your stomach if you eat the seeds. Time to fear eating fig seeds now
posted by vespertinism at 10:01 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

SO is just reading R. Powers’ The Overstory - this felt like reading her an extra minichapter, from what she’s let on about it.
posted by progosk at 4:42 AM on September 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Jesus, if you try to manage the cookies that The Mirror serves automatically through the tool they provide, you have to click 260 separate affiliates to deny them the opportunity to track you.

and if you read the story without clicking either manage or accept, it just starts sending info anyway

I, like all good net citizens, use Noscript cranked to maximum get-off-lawn, so I didn't see anything. What I did see is that fthey have a menu and some kind other thing that are both white, and make the first line at the top of the page look moth-eaten until you scroll a bit. So, I think this Mirror thing is just basically programmed by squirrels.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 5:50 PM on September 23, 2018

Incredibly, the dead man had been taken into a cave with two others and both of them had been killed by dynamite that was then thrown in after them.

Okay, I thought, the two others were killed but he survived somehow. Oh, this is a new "both" that means, "all persons or things previously identified." Gottit.

Okay, on further reflection, I think this sentence means that he was brought in already dead where two others had already been killed by dynamite. Where the dynamite that blew the hole in the wall fits into this I do not know. There may be more context in the original article, but after my briar patch experience trying to escape two days ago, I am not going back to the site.

The Mirror may as well frame their stories as lateral thinking puzzles. “The Green family lives in a red house and has half as many pets as the Brown family, but the sum of the ages of their children is equal to twice that of the White children.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:35 PM on September 24, 2018