Where are......

is

 

Where oh where are the fungi of yesteryear?
This has truly been the worst year for mushrooms in memory. I kept waiting this Fall for that thrill of discovery that permeates one's very existence when coming across, say, a patch of boletes or a cluster of honeys or a white cascading "Old Man" or a barely visible troop of black and gray "trompettes de morte" but no, despite warmer weather and plenty of rain, October turned out to be no better than September or August; the fungi just weren't biting--no florescence! How does this dismal scenario square with the photographs above? The bottom one is by Robert Adams, part of s series of forest images called, inexplicably "Skogen." (That's Swedish for "The Woods")It is a brooding, opaque vision; there seems to be a barrier between the viewer and the forest--do not enter.The other picture is by Jim Bengston my colleague and partner in mixed media crime, who has the most extraordinary eye for penetrating the Scandinavian forest he frequents. Jim's photo is luminescent; it invites you in, there is a slightly dark quality to his work but it doesn't prevail.   It would appear that both of these photos have nothing to do with fungi (in actuality they do because trees and fungi live in extensive mycorhizal relationships under the ground. So even though thee are no mushroom "showing" in these  empty forests, we know they are there
   Thinking of all the walks I've taken in various woods this past year, with nothing (myco-wise) to show for it, makes me wonder what the real purpose or joy is in hunting for mushrooms.
The satisfaction of finding golden chanterelles year after year in the same spots is not to be discounted, but how much better it is when you aren't particularly looking for anything, and suddenly are struck by a flash of sunlight on a green lactarius or a red capped bolete, and the shock is real. There's something about the fortuitous find that trumps everything. The unexpected guest in the form of an unexpected; canterellus cinnibarius in the mossy back yard. Its a little bit like the second movement of Gyorgy Ligeti's Piano Conceto where a very low bass note, just audible, underlying a series of bizarre flute and ocarina sighings, creates an edgy almost scary atmosphere, only to be shockingly interrupted by a blast of brass and percussion, just for an instant, and then again a bit later, but still a remarkable surprise. Even if you know its coming it doesnt disappoint.

Dancing Partners

We went to NY to the ballet, the NYC Ballet. It was a glorious Fall afternoon and I didn't feel like spending it inside the vast theater (formerly known as the New York State Theater and now named the Koch Theater after the billionaire slightly to the right of Rush Limbaugh) but the opportunity to see three Balanchine/ Stravinsky collaborations could not be passed up. The string of collaborative woks that Igor S and George B put together over several decades is unique in dance history. The reason so many of these pieces work is that both artists were at home in the other's discipline-IS knew dance and GB was an accomplished musician. Strav's Apollo is one of my favorites but only for the music-the whole story of the Muses and Apollo is a bit ho hum. Agon, which has no story at all--it's pure, abstract, strictly about itself--seems to me the best of the three "Greek" works. Orpheus starts off well enough, but gets bogged down and since I stole a few things from it for my own "Orphic Memories" I cant deny my debt to it. But Agon is the most memorable. It is icy, pristine, exact-- a dance about dance, and Strav's incursions into serialism actually work here--you  don't notice it.

   During the wild applause at the end of the show I was suddenly struck by the realization that there was another pair, a duo of composer and choreographer, who are due equal billing
     Everyone has been making a fuss about John Cage because he would have been 100 this year-performances and festivals are happening.Cage's great "idea"in music was that of indeterminacy or chance operations, and the notion that anything could be music depending on our openness to it. The other great idea of the 20th century was, of course, Arnie S's "composition with twelve tones (aka serialism) But  these are ideas about music and notl likely to generate much music. I m reminded of Larkin's caveat that a poem must start with poetry, not an idea about poetry.But so much of Cage's music is music and that's the rub because he's not likely to like hearing that.'He and his long time partner. Merce Cunningham are the other great dance partners of the 20th c. but radically opposed to Strav and George. Cunningham's brilliant technique and choreography served as a back drop to Cage's noises or is it the other way around? Either way, the Non intentional nature of the result is uncannily effective--if you go into it. Resist it and you are liable to be bored to the tenth degree.
      IS and GB vs. JC and MC--what anchors or beacons if you will, of the last century's Music and Dance world . Terpsichore herself would be delighted to swing back and forth between them.

In My Own Backyard

Usually in mid to late August I find chanterelles , and plenty of them, in a few selected woodsy spots not far from here.This year, the harvest was meagre to say the least, in fact almost non existent! A week ago upon returning home from week on the Cape (where I searched in vain for the elusive Matsutake),I was delighted to find a small but pretty patch of chants growing in some moss in our back yard-- a small array but we werent picky- this turned out to be the only florescence of canterellus cibarius for the season. My expected woodland cache of these golden mushrooms was a forgotten dream, a fantasy. But these little back yard guys were real (and tasty).

Another backyard discovery was last May when I was trying to come up with a text to set for a commissioned work for chorus. I wanted something that might signify a connection to New Haven or Yale (I even thought about the Wiffenpoof song --to the tables down at Morrys etc..) One day I was walking in the expansive New Haven Green and was admiring the symmetry of the three churches which stand on it, when I thought how these Colonial-Federalist era congregations sustained and nurtured a number of singing master--composers, one of whom, Daniel Read, was a quite prolific publisher and composer of psalm settings; his famous "Windham" ("Broad Is the Road") is still popular in shape note singing societies.
There it was, right in my "backyard" a genuine New Haven source for my piece. Indeed I am sure Read led his choristers in many a robust singing of that particular psalm in one of those actual churches, in my own "backyard." of New Haven.
If you can't find what you desire, try looking closer to home.

Boletus edulis (Sierran)

As if to counter my profound disappointment in this year's meager crop -actually no crop at all-of Morels, the elusive porcini of the Springtime Sierra Nevada revealed themselves to me and my fellow mountain men in a surprising array of fecundity lats week while I was at my hut in the Sierra, These beauties were all over the place, and nice and young, so eminently edible (no pesky maggots!)
I was expecting morels but instead got these plump, perfectly proportioned examples of Sierra Nevadan nuggets and I dont mean gold! Usually when I find these spring time boletes, they are huge and bloated and over the hill--the pore surface (underneath the cap) has turned from creamy white to lurid yellow-green and is crawling with hungry maggots.
We cut up and died a bunch , and the rest we frilled on an open fire- an excellent cooking method I might add as long as you avoid burning them! Make sure you brush them well with olive oil and roast over glowing coals.
I know they dont look very appetising in the photo, but they were still covered with that good old Sierran dirt--once cleaned they were beautiful