Fungus Friday

Fungus Friday: Travelling with the Wassons

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« Mushrooms are different. They are not only raw material for the kitchen, they are a theme for endless discussion. They are ever present in our minds, even when we are not discussing them. »

I am not particularly interested in psychoactive mushrooms, though I get asked about them a lot. They may seem like the central topic of today’s post, but I prefer to think of them as an aside to ethnomycology, a word whose roots make it easy to decipher even if you’re not familiar with it. Mainly, the post is about the delightfully psychedelic world of Brian Blomerth. But let me start from afar…

Like any fandom with a very specific pool of knowledge, mycology has its gatekeepers* and its resident celebrities. A cursory glance at mainstream mushroom literature will quickly yield the name of Paul Stamets, mytho (and myco) -logical figure of authority, intrepid entrepreneur, spiritual guide or hack prone to bouts of pseudoscience, depending on whom you ask.

Parsing social media commentary, one might be forgiven for getting the impression that he’s some sort of cult leader. His fan base is arguably loopier than the man himself, but it’s hard to deny that Stamets likes to take basic facts and spin them into a web of conjecture presented as evidence. Add a tendency to proffer medical advice and present mushrooms (especially of the magic kind) as a panacea, not to mention his brisk trade in heavily watered-down mushroom supplements (check it out here), and the sobriquet of “Elon Musk of Mycology”** no longer seems that harsh. Stamets indeed has a lot of research on psycho-active mushrooms under his belt, and as an active advocate for mycology, he may have inspired a number of people to get interested in the topic… but his messianic persona has long eclipsed his early years as a scientist. I’ll have my mushrooms without a side of semi-religious ravings, thank you.

Moving on to the actual topic at hand (believe it or not, I hadn’t set out to write an essay on Stamets), I recently stumbled upon Brian Blomerth’s Mycelium Wassonii and fell in love with the artwork. Then I noticed that Paul Stamets was somehow involved and had an ‘oof’ moment, but fortunately his contribution is simply a (great, admittedly) 2-page introduction, though he shows up in search results alongside Blomerth with the persistence of a cat who wants to be let out. Besides, small contribution or not, I was clearly not passing up the chance to delve into the internal politics of mycology. This is a verbose post, scroll on to the images if you’re so inclined.

The front cover of Brian Blomerth’s Mycelium Wassonii (2021, Anthology Editions).

Anyway, this graphic novel chronicles the mycological adventures of Russian-born pediatrician Valentina Pavlova Guercken and her American husband Robert Gordon Wasson. When Valentina met Gordon, he was of the opinion that mushrooms were ‘putrid’, but his mycophilic wife’s enthusiasm for picking and consuming them so vividly piqued his interest that the two embarked on a series of ethnomycological field studies soon after their honeymoon in 1927. This culminated in the publication of Mushrooms, Russia and History in 1957. 1955 in particular was a pivotal year. During the Wassons’ trip to Mexico, G. Wasson became the first documented Westerner to participate in Velada, a Mazatec mushroom ritual involving the intake of psilocybin. Both Wassons were deeply affected by their Mexican sojourn. Gordon wrote an account of his experiences for Life Magazine, a photo essay titled Seeking the Magic Mushroom. Six days later, This Week published an interview with Valentina wherein she suggested the use of Psilocybe mushrooms as a psychotherapeutic agent, as well as a potential treatment for mental disorders and a way to mitigate pain in terminal diseases. The brouhaha created by these pieces, as well as the samples the Wassons brought back from Mexico that wound up in the hands of Albert Hofmann (‘father’ of LSD), paved the way to a magic mushroom culture.***

Mycelium Wassonii is remarkably hard to scan, for its tight binding requires cracking it open. Most of the following images were borrowed from Brian Blomerth on his new book on psychedelics and the magical Mushroom Revolution (including pictures of Blomerth and cute doggos!) and a review over at The Comics Journal.

The beginning of Tina and Gordon’s honeymoon.
‘What do you do with this gross thing?’, asks Gordon. Despite her enthusiasm for psychedelic mushrooms for medication and treatment, Valentina was clearly first interested in them from a gastronomical perspective. I can relate.
Valentina tells the story of how, as a child, she was sent out to get some boletes (Boletus Edulis, ‘borovik’ in Russian) by her mother, but she kept bringing back the wrong thing. I love how Blomerth gives his mushrooms little speech bubbles, like they’re saying something in an alien language to the people going by.
After their honeymoon, Gordon, now a convinced mushroom lover (what did you think honeymoons are for?), the couple returns to NYC and their day jobs. Yet mushrooms are never far from their minds (a familiar affliction), and as they compile recipes, the impulse to collect them in a mushroom cookbook grows.
Gradually, the idea of mycophobic societies as represented by Gordon and mycophilic societies as represented by Valentina takes hold, and the cookbook expands into a treatise about mushroom culture. Ethnomycology is born.
While it can be argued that Gordon’s interest in the Mazatec mushroom culture and subsequent publications about it were motivated by his desire to expand human knowledge, it’s undeniable that he behaved in a less than exemplary way from the onset. The Mazatec wise woman María Sabina (pictured above) who allowed him to be part of the sacred ritual did so because Gordon lied to her about a lost son. He also took a picture of her on the condition of never publishing it, but then revealed her name, location and community in volume 2 of Mushrooms, Russia and History, which led to all manner of tragic and violent repercussions on her life.

Blomerth deserves many accolades for this book, above and beyond his colourful and cartoony art. He managed to tease a coherent yet detailed storyline out of a topic that reminds me of a Lernaean hydra – pull on one narrative thread, and many more threads spring up. Unsavoury moments are not glossed over, and yet one leaves with an invigorating impression of mycological passion that connects to a general lust for life. Finally, Blomerth draws mushrooms accurately – one can recognize specific species from his drawings.

Head over to his website for some gorgeous t-shirts. Fans of the above material may also be interested in Blomerth’s other mind-expanding (he, he) graphic novel, Bicycle Day, involving the aforementioned Albert Hofmann.

Returning to the topic of fungal superstars, I recommend David Arora as an examplar of a knowledgeable, passionate mycologist who also doesn’t take himself too seriously.

– How did this whole mushroom thing start?

– I’m not entirely sure… I think I just loved my wife.

~ ds

* In this particular case, said gatekeeping is motivated by nobler motives, namely those of keeping people safe. Some of these fungal newbies throw themselves in headlong, disregarding the very possible and palpably lethal outcomes of misidentification.

** Someone on Facebook coined this term and I had a good chuckle. On an even pettier note, Stamets chose, for his website, a white font on a blue background… and my eyes do not appreciate it.

*** Here I am somewhat constrained by space, as I have already ventured far off the field of actual comics. I haven’t even touched upon the subject of people (proto-hippies?) who travelled to Mexico in order to locate María Sabina and/or magic mushrooms (famously, John Lennon et al.) or the CIA’s involvement with the Wassons.

Fungus Friday: Meet… The Mushroom Man

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Every once in a while, we celebrate the end of the working week with a leisurely walk through fungal pastures. This week’s installment is a bit on the spooky side, so if you are troubled by a little case of mycophobia, an affliction many suffer from, stick around for a spine-tingling experience. Me, I was definitely rooting for the mushrooms 🍄

The cover of this issue promised some mushroom goodies, so of course my interest was piqued, even though it makes no sense whatsoever to have skeletal arms protruding out of a fungus. Tales of Ghost Castle no. 1 (May-June 1975, DC). Cover by Ernie Chan; Tex Blaisdell, editor.

The cover story – 5-pager The Mushroom Man, plotted by David Michelinie, scripted by Martin Pasko, and illustrated by Buddy Gernale – is a tad more mycologically convincing.

Knowing that the fungus fancier is dead right from the beginning depressed me a little bit. However, starting at the scene of the crime to pursue in mushroomy flashbacks makes for good storytelling.
It’s possible for a mushroom to degrade super quickly (see, for example, shaggy manes aka Coprinus comatus that can deliquesce into a puddle of black goo in less than 24 hours after popping up), though 3 hours is pushing it a bit. ‘Nightdreamer’ sounds distinctly psychedelic, so we can take a guess about what kinds of ‘gourmets’ the uncle is referring to.
Did no-one wonder what happened to the uncle?
It’s not a ratty cellar, it’s an appropriately dark and humid cellar, you philistine. A ‘simple matter to tie up loose ends‘? Maybe the police had mycophobia, too, to let the matter drop so easily. One might add that cooking random mushrooms growing in the cellar is not recommended.
Hello, scene from Last of Us.

We are the champignons, my friends! Quite literally, in the case of this money-grabbing, murderous nephew.

~ ds

Fungus Friday: Amanita New Year (To Get Over This One)

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It’s nearly New Year’s eve, and a Friday, which seems like some sort of omen for a gallery of vintage winter postcards featuring toadstools, seeing as Fungus Friday is every bit as tangible as Tentacle Tuesday (go here if you’re late to the tentacle train). The connection between hibernal celebrations and mushrooms might not be an immediately obvious one, but one has to keep in mind that the way we celebrate Christmas is distinctly pagan.

More in reference to mushrooms, it has been argued that Santa Claus actually started out his folkloric life as a shaman who gets high on Amanita* (either by direct consumption, or by drinking the urine of reindeer who have consumed them). When one looks for coincidences, one finds them, but nevertheless it’s worthwhile pointing out that the pine trees we adorn our households with for Christmas form a symbiotic relationship with Amanita muscaria (yes, that iconic red toadstool with white warts that so often stands in for a generic mushroom in many stories), and that Santa Claus’ red-and-white costume follows its colours. For more in-depth analysis, I highly recommend Santa Claus Was a Psychedelic Mushroom (written by Derek Beres, who also coined the great alliteration ‘psychedelic piss’ when discussing reindeer-processed Amanitas).

This claim has been disputed by people (some of whom were foaming at the mouth, and not necessarily from mushroom consumption) who point out that this is rather a case of retro-fitting facts into the storyline. You may accuse me of intellectual laziness, but I actually don’t give a fig about where Santa Claus came from. Of more relevance to me (and this post) is this bit: ‘Fly agaric does not appear in authentic Germanic Christmas cards, they’re New Years cards which use fly agaric as a good luck symbol, alongside horse shoes and four-leaf clovers.’ The Fliegenpilz is indeed a good luck charm in Germany, so that’s quite possible. New Year’s card are certainly germane to this time of year, now that the ecstatic joys of Christmas (ahem) are a week behind us.

Either way, enjoy the array of vintage postcards from the late 1930s-1940s, most of them German. Whatever they’re supposed to symbolize (the ones with writing do mention New Year, not Christmas), to a modern reader’s eyes they’re delightfully weird, and I won’t blame anyone for thinking that some drugs were involved.

The Amanitas-as-good-luck-charm theory seems to be borne out in the following, given the presence of clover, horse hooves, etc.:

I wonder if the kid in white represents the Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa and similar) – its name gives more than a hint about its toxicity. Perhaps ‘Mushroom Grandpa’ should stay away. Pigs are also a good luck charm, so they make more than one appearance in these postcards (though much like the rabbit’s foot, they’re distinctly unlucky for the actual animal, since they get gobbled up…)
Boldog Új Évet is actually in Hungarian, not German, and means Happy New Year…
… and Daudz laimes jauna gada is in Latvian.

Who knew so much revelry was taking place around a couple of mushrooms?

The closest I was able to find is Head uut aastat, which is Happy New Year in Estonian. This post is proving to be quite a language lesson.
Another Latvian postcard. The one on the left is totally sloshed.
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar is in Dutch.

The rest of these are in German:

There is something disquieting about a pink-cheeked child surrounded by dancing mushrooms.
‘Wow, this thing is big and it’s all for me!’
An Amanita drawn by somebody who wasn’t sure what they looked like (hint: it’s not a raspberry).
Weihnacht is sort of like Christmas eve in German-speaking countries. Note that this postcard differs from others in two ways – it features a bolete, not an Amanita, and wishes the viewer Merry Christmas, not Happy New Year (with a bag full of money, apparently).

Happy New Year to all our dear readers, and may your paths be littered with tasty mushrooms in the coming year!**

*Amanita muscaria is considered poisonous, as far as foraging mushrooms go, though it has a long history of being used as a psychedelic/intoxicant by many tribes (namely, by the indigenous people of Siberia). A strong dose causes delirium and a host of other side-effects, which fade after a few days. I might add that some Russians (and god knows Russians will eat whatever mushroom is even remotely edible – I say that with nothing but admiration) consider it a good edible, provided you boil it in water three times or so. I might try that one of these days! I have no interest in psychedelic properties, but plenty of interest in culinary ones.

**Assuming you like them, of course.

~ ds

A Fabulous, Furry Fungus Friday!

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« No wonder psychedelics are threatening to an authoritarian religious hierarchy. You don’t need faith to benefit from a psychedelic experience, let alone a priest or even a shaman to interpret it. What you need is courage to drink the brew, eat the mushroom, or whatever it is, and then to pay attention, and make of it what you will. Suddenly, the tools for direct contact with the transcendent other (whether you call it God or something else) is taken from the hands of an anointed elite and given to the individual seeker. » — Dennis McKenna

Sensing that I’ve been neglecting Underground Comix in our coverage, I thought I’d close out the year with a thematic pairing of a favourite comestible with a beloved cartoonist (and his collaborators).

That’s a pretty fanciful mushroom patch there, boys. I doubt that mushrooms would grow much, if at all, in the blazing prairie sun… let alone that neatly. Artistic licence, then! This is The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers no. 5 (May 1977, Rip Off Press). Cover by Gilbert Shelton and Dave Sheridan.
An old girlfriend of mine once echoed Fat Freddy’s bonehead sentiment: “Ew… mushrooms grow in shit!“, presumably unaware of the role manure has always played in agriculture. She went on to marry a succession of Frenchmen, and given their nation’s appreciation of fungi, I hope she was smart enough to not express out loud that bit of… wisdom.

By the way, Phineas is right, as usual. Here’s more info on the relationship between mushrooms and cow flop, and an ‘easy guide to picking‘…

One Pizza With Mushrooms to Go! first saw print in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers no. 4 (November 1975, Rip Off Press). This is Shelton and Sheridan’s original cover art, which fetched a handsome 43,000 dollars and change when it was auctioned off in 2016.
Ah, roommates. One again, Fat Freddy undoes Phineas’ careful efforts. This reminder of the importance of sterilisation in mushroom cultivation comes courtesy of Messrs. Shelton and Paul Mavrides. It appeared in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers no. 12 (1992, Rip Off Press).
Talk about a roomful of cartooning genius. Meet Mavrides and Shelton and feel your senses reel!

Honestly, it’s been, for many of us, the kind of year when mutant psychedelic fungus overrunning one’s city would come as a pretty good bit of news. Let’s hope for something even better for 2022!

For more Gilbert Shelton on WOT?, just follow this link!

-RG

It’s Fungus Friday!

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Did you hear the joke about fungus? You won’t like it, but it will grow on you.

As promised – though you folks may by far prefer tentacles to mushrooms – I am delighted to present this post about mushrooms both real and imaginary.

First of all why mushrooms? Those who know me are aware of my passion for fungus – it’s a gastronomic interest, as both co-admin RG and I love to cook with them, and also a platonic one, an admiration for their beauty and adaptability. In terms of aliens-on-earth, fungus is surely up there with the extraterrestrial octopus. We are currently on vacation, so this is the perfect moment to both admire some of our finds, and rediscover mushrooms in comics.

Usually people react in one of two ways to mentions of gathering wild mushrooms – ‘but how do you know you won’t poison yourself?‘ or ‘magic mushrooms! yeah!‘ The first question is pertinent, although there’s no need to take that horrified tone, and the second reaction is more than slightly one-track-minded.

Just like in real life, comics fungi come in all shapes and sizes: from cute appearances in the background of a cartoony comic, to psychedelic manifestations of the underground, to horror stories peppered with a slice or two of the deadly toadstool, and everything in between! I’ve tried to go for maximum contrast in this post, and include a little bit of everything. Dive in, like we dove in yesterday into our hedgehog-and-honey-mushrooms-pasta yesterday 😉

Four Color no. 50 – Fairy Tale Parade (1944-1945, Dell). Cover by Walt Kelly. This is kind of an anonymous mushroom of indeterminate species.
A cartoon by Emile Mercier, Australian cartoonist who is best remembered for his work for the Sydney Sun between 1949 and 1968. This particular piece hails from the late ’50s.

Speaking of Mercier, I love this anecdote: « One day, Claude McKay, the editor-in-chief of Smith’s Weekly, took a dim view of an X Emile Mercier had drawn under the upwardly extended tail on a cat. After a few stern words about “dirty gimmicks in cartoons”, the grim-faced McKay instructed Mercier to get rid of the cross. This presented Mercier with a challenge. He was someone who used to say you “have to think funny as well as draw funny” and he was not keen to let McKay’s prudish approach to his cat go unchallenged. Mercier’s solution was to draw a miniature roller blind under the cat’s perpendicular tail. He was in no doubt the blind would draw more attention to the cat’s anus than the X had. Fortunately for him, McKay saw the funny side of the addition and let the cartoon run. Not a man to push his luck too far, Mercier drew all future cats without an X at the base of their tails. »

A page from Re di Picche no. 1 (AGIS, 1969), an Italian comics series created by Luciano Bottaro. Re di Picche means ‘king of spades’, and refers to the protagonist of this series (also the title of the magazine it was published in). Inspired by Alice in Wonderland? You bet! This mushroom appears to be some type of Amanita, a mostly deadly but handsome family of ‘shrooms.
The Plot to Destroy Earth, scripted by Dave Wood and illustrated by Jim Mooney, was published in Strange Adventures no. 183 (December 1965, DC). A man who refers to what is very obviously a mushroom as a ‘crazy-looking plant’ won’t impress anyone with his knowledge of nature… but this fungus-as-parachute interlude is entertaining.
Dr. Dean Cleanbean Deals with Drug Difficulties, scripted and illustrated by Monte Wolverton (Basil Wolverton‘s son!), was the back cover of Dope Comix no. 5 (January 1984). Here we have the very prototypical magic mushrooms, which comes as no surprise.
I promised horror, didn’t I? This is a page from Chapter One, scripted by Mike Mignola and illustrated by Guy Davis, and published in B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs no. 1 (February 2011, Dark Horse).
A splash page from The Mushroom Fan Club by Elise Gravel (2018, Enfant – Drawn & Quarterly’s children’s imprint). I wholeheartedly agree with Gravel – mushrooms come in such a variety of shapes and sizes, that it’s crazy to even consider them as the same thing. Note the mischievous bolete (center, brown cap), probably the King Bolete, a.k.a. Penny Bun – it has a feeling of superiority, and we agree.
Some of our mushroom crop this week. In the usual clockwise order: Lactarius Deliciosus; various Leccinums (or Bolete); Armillaria gallica (Honey mushrooms) and Hydnums (Hedgehogs).

~ ds