"you cannot kill me in a way that matters"
March 2, 2020 1:24 AM   Subscribe

 
I, for one, welcome our ancient fungal underlords.
posted by otherchaz at 1:40 AM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


do not taunt happy fun ball gi
posted by Clowder of bats at 1:49 AM on March 2, 2020 [6 favorites]


I enjoyed the reply in there I can't find now about mycorrhiza where 70% of plant species are in a symbiotic relationship with fungi that basically extend their root system, and some trees can talk to other trees through the uhhhh fungi-fi.
posted by fleacircus at 2:11 AM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]


a tumblr shiitakepost
posted by Merus at 3:26 AM on March 2, 2020 [23 favorites]


This has been around for so long that it's been cross-stitched
posted by phooky at 3:39 AM on March 2, 2020 [6 favorites]


Hey this is cool and scary and I love it. Is there a good pop-sci book about mushrooms out there? Like who is the Oliver Sacks of fungi?
posted by Rock Steady at 5:20 AM on March 2, 2020 [3 favorites]


Rock Steady, take a look at Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets.
posted by mustardayonnaise at 5:30 AM on March 2, 2020 [6 favorites]


Stamets used to be kind of standoffish, but he turned into a real fun guy when he hooked into the mycelial network.
posted by sugar and confetti at 5:40 AM on March 2, 2020 [5 favorites]


Hey this is cool and scary and I love it. Is there a good pop-sci book about mushrooms out there?

When this post comes around (and it's been around a few times now, as Phooky notes), it usually causes me to think that fungi are basically the monster from John W. Campbell's novella "Who Goes There?" - the story Carpenter's movie "The Thing" is based on - but just... slower?

In any case, if you like that line of thinking you'll like "The Things", a fantastic story by Peter Watts told from The Thing's perspective:
It feels almost obscene—an offense against Creation itself—to stay stuck in this skin. It's so ill-suited to its environment that it needs to be wrapped in multiple layers of fabric just to stay warm. There are a myriad ways I could optimize it: shorter limbs, better insulation, a lower surface:volume ratio. All these shapes I still have within me, and I dare not use any of them even to keep out the cold. I dare not adapt; in this place, I can only hide.

What kind of a world rejects communion?
posted by mhoye at 6:18 AM on March 2, 2020 [6 favorites]


Mushrooms might be God and also disprove conciousness
posted by Reyturner at 6:27 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]


Juffo-Wup is the power of life... hot warmth in the cold Void. It flows through all things, binding them together, making them one. You are Non-Juffo-Wup, you cannot understand.
posted by bright flowers at 6:32 AM on March 2, 2020 [9 favorites]




This is the text in one of the images in the first post of the thread:
"I'm studying biotech and every time someone brings up mushrooms our current professor will look either extremely excited or pained and go "Listen... mushrooms are neither plants nor animals nor something in between. They elude all attempts to categorize them. We do not know what htye are. Some are immortal. Some produce life saving substances. Some are so closely related to humans that eating them might cause an allergic reaction against your own body. I cannot teach you about the mushrooms."

When I was little I refused to eat mushrooms, cold cheese or yogurt because they felt like eating a living thing and no one could explain to me what they were or assure me that they weren't living. So, I feel vindicated now.
posted by bleep at 6:58 AM on March 2, 2020 [5 favorites]


"Mushroom" is a ridiculously wide range of life. They're the fruiting bodies of the Basidiomycota phylum of fungi. Our phylum is chordata, vertebrates.

So to say "wow there's so much variety in mushrooms," is valid, but we've got so much variety among fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds...
posted by explosion at 7:08 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]


In college I knew a chap who wanted to be a mycologist. His vanity license plate was "FUN GUY"
posted by chavenet at 7:28 AM on March 2, 2020


https://badgerbadgerbadger.com
(Page has no sound for me but I’m on an old device. YMMV.)
posted by neuron at 7:47 AM on March 2, 2020 [3 favorites]


I assumed "You cannot kill me in a way that matters" was a pop culture reference, but apparently it was invented especially for mushrooms.

Also, is there an embroidery kit for sale?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:53 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]


I need a tattoo of a mushroom and the phrase "You cannot kill me in a way that matters" for real though.
posted by Young Kullervo at 8:01 AM on March 2, 2020 [10 favorites]


So anyone else remember the books "Hiero's Journey" and "The Unforsaken Hiero" by Sterling Lanier? (If you're not familiar, just skim the Goodreads reviews for the first one and then click the BUY button)

They were set in a far-future, post-apocalyptic Canada, where a psionic priest rides a telepathic combat moose through a malevolent fungi forest. Also, a bear boon companion. (Dude, 1973 was weird.)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:23 AM on March 2, 2020 [6 favorites]


Mushrooms are awesome. The twitter replies make it very clear that, even though I know almost nothing about mushrooms, I know even less about contemporary humans.
posted by eotvos at 8:24 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]


Been there, done that.
posted by valkane at 8:42 AM on March 2, 2020


I've always known the truth about mushrooms ever since H.R. Pufnstuf.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:26 AM on March 2, 2020


Fire and Mushrooms, Tattoos and thunder: Seeing Around The Bend of human history in etymology and archaeology
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:35 AM on March 2, 2020




the sacred mushroom and the cross

What the hell was that?
posted by wenestvedt at 10:50 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]


PDF for the mushroom border cross-stich. I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to add the quote.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:18 AM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


I read (saw?) a great quote years ago about mushrooms (the fruiting bodies) and the interviewee was asked about the great unanswered questions about them. He answered "Why here? Why now?"
posted by jquinby at 12:42 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


I need a tattoo of a mushroom and the phrase "You cannot kill me in a way that matters" for real though.

This will mark you as a member of the Mushroom Nation, and they will come calling.
posted by um at 1:08 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


As a reader of xkcd and a follower of The Magic School Bus Rides Again, I'm very familiar with both the "alive" nature of mushrooms and the mycorrhizal fungus networks.
posted by turtlebackriding at 1:23 PM on March 2, 2020


Ever since I learned it some time in the last few months I've found it mildly unsettling in its counterintuitiveness that mushrooms sauté much better, absorbing less oil and browning more quickly, if you steam them first. Like, what are those delicious fuzz buttons up to, you know?
posted by invitapriore at 2:53 PM on March 2, 2020 [3 favorites]


If mushrooms are so mysterious and powerful, how is it that Smurfs have been so easily able to harness them for building their Smurf civilization?

Mushrooms ain't shit.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:13 PM on March 2, 2020


If mushrooms are so mysterious and powerful, how is it that Smurfs have been so easily able to harness them for building their Smurf civilization? Mushrooms ain't shit.

Michael Pollan pretty effectively destroys this misconception in The Botany of Desire, where he describes how it is really mushrooms that have harnessed the fungus-cultivating behavioral tendencies of Smurfs. This assures widespread spore dispersion and will lead to their eventual status as dominant lifeform in Smurf Village.
posted by compartment at 6:56 PM on March 2, 2020 [7 favorites]


also their little smurf hats are concealing their cordyceps growth
posted by um at 7:06 PM on March 2, 2020 [5 favorites]


You can live inside of fungus but there isn’t mush room.
posted by dephlogisticated at 7:24 PM on March 2, 2020 [8 favorites]


This looks like as good a place as any to drop The Fungus by John Brosnan, a book I can’t say I enjoyed necessarily, but it definitely left an impression on me.

(Warning: tvtropes link)
posted by Mister Moofoo at 10:58 PM on March 2, 2020


I've never wanted to get a phrase stick-and-poke tattooed more in my LIIIIFE.
posted by nerdfish at 1:35 AM on March 3, 2020


We all know that Gus is Fun and Sam is Square.

Also, NOBODY wants a Cold Hot Dog.
posted by Chuffy at 9:31 AM on March 3, 2020


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