More Fungus

I’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding my last post. I’ll try to answer them here.

It’s been incredibly frustrating trying to find specific information. I don’t even know its common name, much less the scientific one. People just call it “the fungus.” Most people don’t seem to know much about it, or even care — except for the people who actually grow the stuff, but they contradict one another wildly.

In fact, Dortmund (a German guy who’s pretty big into the whole scene here) assures me that it isn’t even really a fungus at all. But he won’t be more specific.

It is usually edible, even the glowing parts. I’ve heard that it might be mildly toxic, but that you’d have to eat a truckload to get sick. Dortmund, on the other hand, says that it’s not only non-toxic, it’s actually nutritious. He claims to eat nothing but. And he looks pretty healthy. He says that this stuff was the original and only food of humankind, before we were corrupted by the plow.

But I’m not sure I can trust Dortmund. He seems a little unstable — he’s homeless — but he can grow fungus like nobody’s business. He helped me with my first batch, showed me how to rig up the swabs and how to fix the poles on our decaying rooftop. You have to stay up with the poles all night and sway them back and forth through the night air. Dortmund spent the whole night with me on the roof, laughing at odd intervals and telling me jokes in German, and I swear you could actually see the spores accumulating on the swab. (Not really, but it seemed that way.) Those were the spores that gave me that first spectacular batch, and I’ve often wondered if Dortmund’s influence had something to do with it. He continues to drift on from rooftop to rooftop, and fantastic growth seems to follow him wherever he goes.

Meanwhile I bumble on. I’ve spent many a sleepless night up on the roof, swaying the poles; I’ve spent a fortune on growth medium; and no results. I’m beginning to suspect that I’ve been played the fool.