Sunday, August 24, 2008

Stinkhorn

Saturday I went to the Albuquerque flea market with Joyce and Kathryn, and I bought this pan:



Saturday night I made this bread in it:



While the bread was baking, I checked some blogs I try to keep up with. I saw a picture that finally, after many years, created a good connection to something I learned over 20 years ago. First, my own ancient photo with the notation that's on the back of it:




I realize the photo looks a little like Bigfoot or an alien, but I had no camera in 1982 with which to take a good close-up. The speciman was about 5" high.

A few years after I took that photo, I came across this page in my favorite big brown American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.:


In case that's not legible, it says
stinkhorn: any of several foul-smelling fungi of the order Phallales, such as Phallus impudicus or P. ravenelli, having a thick, cylindrical stalk and a narrow cap.


There that photo sat, stuck in that dictionary, until yesterday, when I saw this, on Rue's blog:


I showed Joyce Fetteroll and her daughter, Kathryn, who said my loaf of bread looked kind of like that too (and while working on this I saw that Schuyler has reported a similar incident).

If you go to Rue's blog, brace yourself for a little embarrassment. Her photos are more, uh... explicit than mine.

Here is another piece of connecting trivia, though. The brown dictionary in which I have kept that photo for over 20 years is the famous 1969 edition in which "the f-word" appeared. Here, from my own personal copy of the most controversial dictionary entry in my lifetime:



Keith asked if I didn't remember once at a campout in the Jemez mountains a similar mushroom growing up about 18" in about an hour and a half. I don't remember. He's either remembering seeing it with someone else, because he's old, or I was there and can't remember because I'm old.

Newsflash (or the flash of a connection).

Holly just came in and asked what I was up to. I said I was working on a blog post about mushrooms that look like penises.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Are you going to quote that Sublime song?" She spoke a line and said, "Oh, that's about penises shaped like mushrooms." She offered to sing it for me.

Well she told me to come over and I took that trip
And then she pulled out my mushroom tip
And when it came out it went drip, drip, drip
I didn't know she had a GI Joe kung-fu grip

"Is that too nasty for your blog?" she asked.

Some days maybe so. Today, no.

5 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh, Sandra, that is hilarious!

    Rue's picture does look like a penis, oh the connections you made after all of these years...

    Holly's song is funny too :)

    Thanks for sharing that, not to nasty today, LOL!!!

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  2. connections from my thinking you wrote "underwear" on the last post and now we have penis mushrooms and the dictionary is quiet funny

    when we were doing school at home we made a volcano that would be right at home in your post-

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  3. I've had a good laugh this early am.

    Thank you.

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  4. I'll I can do is laugh!
    I've had one of those stinky penis shaped mushrooms grow in my yard. When I saw it, I was like; "What the heck is that?" There were flies swarming it! YUCK!
    Now I know, it was a Stinkhorn. Good name for it!

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  5. We have these growing here and the smell is just AWFUL! Thanks for such a funny post. I really need something to smile about today.

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