Even if no one is plunging his head into it — drawn by the famous stench — there are too many signs.
It seems important to get the full misshapen phallus (amorphophallus) in the picture, in which case...
... a closeup feels cut off...
August 30, 2015
It's hard to photograph the corpse flower.
Yesterday, at Olbrich Gardens.
Even if no one is plunging his head into it — drawn by the famous stench — there are too many signs.
It seems important to get the full misshapen phallus (amorphophallus) in the picture, in which case...
... a closeup feels cut off...
Even if no one is plunging his head into it — drawn by the famous stench — there are too many signs.
It seems important to get the full misshapen phallus (amorphophallus) in the picture, in which case...
... a closeup feels cut off...
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54 comments:
Don't Bobbitt that corpse flower.
It needs a really large bee.
Olbrich is about 5 and a half miles from home, and it was an overcast, cool day yesterday. We combined walking and using BCycles to get over there and back. Quite an effort to get to something smelly, especially odd for a person like me who has almost no sense of smell left. But actually, I'm happy to smell anything, including bad smells. It's kind of a big deal to me. Even the feeling that I might be smelling something matters.
Later, I was sitting in one of the outdoor gardens, on an Adirondack chair with a snoozing bumble bee on the arm. Suddenly, the bee squirted a 4-inch long jet of liquid out of its rear end. It was quite an extravagant spray. I had my iPhone, so I researched the phenomenon and learned that the bee was "pooping." That's what the internet said in the garden yesterday.
Jinx on bee, rh.
You didn't need a three hour wait like in Denver?
It can't smell that bad if that guy can stick his head right in it.
I was thinking about that Adam Gopnick essay on gun ownership (no, I didn't read it). Is there a decent enough argument to be made about a safeguard against government oppression and personal safety? Sure.
But for me, living in my tiny, little Universe, I think that's largely beside the point. I know some people who own guns (I don't). Expensive guns. And they love having them. Different kinds of ammo, and the gun safes, and the gun cases, and the padded shirts, and the Barbour everything, and the . . . well, you get the idea. And they never go hunting. And they seldom go shooting. And the membership at the range goes almost entirely wasted. It's enough that they walked into Cabela's, stepped up to the counter, and said "Yes."
It's not exactly an affectation. More like a symbol. A substitute for sociality, the only barrier to entry being how much money you're willing to spend.
So I think of gun ownership as a luxury thing, same as a Harley, a boat, a Turbo Carrera, or one of those road bikes with all the lycra and the cleats and the crash helmet with the GoPro. You know the type. You see them on a Sunday morning. They load the bike on the back of their car and then drive it to the parking lot beside the paved trail that used to be a railroad track along the river. They take 20 minutes gearing up. And then they spend the next half-hour frightening the elderly pedestrians, the young mothers with their little kids in their little strollers, the little kids on their toy bikes, and the people trying to walk their dogs. Then it takes these Sunday morning pavement cyclists (they never ride on the road -- too dangerous!) another 20 minutes to pack everything back up, all the while they're chugging a half-gallon of bottled water as if they're about to die from dehydration. It's fucking 75 degrees out!
Hey! You guys want to go get breakfast?
Don Draper is the one who sold them on all that.
And Don Draper is the guy who said that happiness is the thing you feel just before you need more happiness.
Could you smell the flower?
Since the theme today seems to be death, here's an interesting story via Drudge:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/6613428/Secrets-of-MI6-spy-found-dead-in-bag-revealed.html
Sorry but I just don't get all the shriveled penis imagery here. Ok, the flower has a huge... Pistil? or stamen? I don't know about the anatomy of a corpse flower and have no intention of looking it up.
Why do we care?
To paraphrase somebody, when all you have is a, uh, well whatever you have, everything you see looks like a penis.
Or something.
@Althouse, how long have you had adnosmia? While researching the devil's brew that EPA dumped into the Animas River I discovered that adnosmia is a symptom of cadmium poisoning, and since you lived in Delaware (home of DuPont) and northern NJ I was wondering whether you had ever thought to have yourself tested for cadmium. Also you have a BFA, and cadmium is in the dust from chalk colored with cadmium-based pigments (reds, oranges, some yellows).
Anyway, be glad you couldn't smell the danged thing. One bloomed in a local horticultural garden and I couldn't get near it without having the feeling that I was going to vomit.
I keep thinking of Audrey gobbling the dentist and belching out his shoes or his glasses or his shoes and his glasses in the original b&w Roger Corman Little Shop of Horrors. Back in the day before spots swallowed up Saturday afternoon programming and the local station ran fright movies instead. Mostly Frankenstein and Dracula stuff, but some Sherlock Holmes, too. Good times, good times...
Does the Botanical Gardens employ a Corpseman to care for the Corpse Flower?
"sports", not "spots", duh.
Must be corpse plant week. Stinky Phil opened on Friday.
"Sorry but I just don't get all the shriveled penis imagery here. Ok, the flower has a huge... Pistil? or stamen? I don't know about the anatomy of a corpse flower and have no intention of looking it up...."
I put a link on the word, the name of the plant, that means misshapen phallus. I didn't come up with that but I do find it funny. Why does it bother you?
About the cadmium, yes, I have been exposed to a lot of that over the years, but ehat can I do?
Ann Althouse said...
About the cadmium, yes, I have been exposed to a lot of that over the years, but ehat can I do?
Don't smoke or eat oysters, and get tested. If you really have Cd poisoning (which is damn rare), chelation therapy might help.
[w]hat can I do?
Talk to a real doctor? At the least your renal function needs to be monitored.
I don't know about it all being in your head. This looks pretty phallic to me.
Here's something from JAMA:
A patient with cadmium poisoning may show disturbances in liver, kidney, and bone marrow function as well as the classic pulmonary symptoms. In addition there may be marked mental irritability. Cadmium intoxication was treated successfully with the oral administration of edathamil calcium disodium.
That irritability may explain your responses to some of my comments, like about wearing shorts when the temperature and the humidity are both above 90. (Just being facetious again!)
I checked the UW hospital web site and they do not do chelation therapy. You'll have to discuss where you can be tested, how you should be monitored, and whether to try for the Mayo Clinic.
Well it doesn't bother me, I just think our current cultural fixation on sex is a bit off the rails.
I suppose the plant was named in the 1800's before the current obsession in the culture with all things sexual.
Of course now it appears that the diversity Nazis are all about reversing the sexual revolution. We may enter a new 'Victorian' era where people go back to having sex through the vents in their nightgowns.
Serves them right.
It can't smell that bad if that guy can stick his head right in it.
That specimen isn't in full bloom, and may never be because corpse flowers are notoriously difficult to cultivate. Secondly, the stench isn't constant even when the flower is fully developed. It starts getting really bad about sundown and peaks late at night, then the intensity drops off to a minimum around dawn, evidently because the pollinators it seeks to attract are nocturnal.
If and when that particular amorphophallus blooms nobody, even Althouse with her cadmium-fried nose, will be able to stick his head in the bowl of the flower. Just staying in the same building will be a challenge.
Interesting sidebar: Back in WWII British botanists studied the Amorphopallus titanium and related species with the aim of producing a weapon. It was discovered that the "perfume" of the corpse flower is so powerful that it even can penetrate the kind of gas masks used at that time. The idea was German general is much more valuable as a captive than a corpse, so how do you force him out of his bunker? The answer they were after was a way to make the bunker stink so terribly that surrender would be preferable to staying inside.
Ohio party flower in bloom.
About the cadmium, yes, I have been exposed to a lot of that over the years...
Exposure to cadmium isn't a normal occupational hazard for an academic lawyer, so I assume it may have come from your earlier interest in painting. There are literally thousands of commercially available artist's paints that contain cadmium compounds, but unless you eat them in mass quantities Remulac-style they are generally safe. However, some artists like to make their own paint, and that can be really problematic.
There's an interesting book called Napoleon's Glands by the late Arno Karlen. It's a collection of essays about the role of biology in history. One chapter is devoted to Francisco Goya, who started his career as a rather undistinguished court painter in the service of the Spanish Hapsburgs, but who late in life became one of the greatest artists of all time. Karlen speculates that Goya's brain was affected by his preference for cinnabar red, a brownish red pigment made from mercury sulfide. Mercury poisoning usually produces mental symptoms resembling madness, and there is in a fact a specific condition called mercury psychosis or erethism. Psychosis is generally bad, but artistic minds sometime experience a burst of creativity before the disease finally cripples the mind completely. There are many examples of this phenomenon, Van Gogh, Munch, Gaugin, Rothco, maybe Goya was among them. Goya ended catatonic and physically helpless due to a stroke, but for a brief period (1819-1823) he was a genius of protean proportions, perhaps a mercury-enhanced genius. (And this may be bullshit if the Quinta del Sordo had only one storey when Goya lived there.)
evidently because the pollinators it seeks to attract are nocturnal.
I've always been told uses the stench to attract flies. I'm not aware of flies being nocturnal. I do see a lot during the day.
I've always been told it uses....
aaarrrggghhhh!!
"I'm not aware of flies being nocturnal. I do see a lot during the day."
They're harder to see at night.
@Quaestor, we don't know for a fact that Althouse has had cadmium poisoning; she knows that she's been exposed and that's it. Her early years were spent in northern NJ and Delaware, the latter state in the hip pocket of the DuPont Corporation. During the time she was growing up the various corporations were pretty lax about disposing metallic waste (the EPA would not be established until she was 20 years old). She should get herself checked while she has good healthcare benefits. Having recently retired and gone on Medicare, I urge her to do so sooner rather than later.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/corpse-flower-set-to-bloom-overnight-at-denver-botanic-garden
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-corpse-flower-is-about-to-bloom.html
My phone has a linked favorite/bookmark to the July 30th, 2013 Althouse post about a corpse flower blooming. It's how I access the site when going mobile, to keep it moving.
WHAT DID YOU/YOUSE DO TO MY ENVIRONMENT TO DELAY THE BLOOMING A MONTH????
Just pay me. Don't think. No no no no no.
Pay up. C'mon, you know you're guilty.
So earn your repentance now through me in order to save the world and maybe, if just for a day, not feel like a world-killer.
'Amorphophallus' means 'shapeless phallus.'"
This doesn't make me happy.
Amorphophallus should mean phallus' changes through time of a plant's lifespan not changes betwixt generations. Like one going from 8 to 28 years old vs. talking about different people.
"Denver Botanic Garden said Tuesday..."
Corporations are people?
What the hay?
I grew up in NJ and hear fine.
I didn't paint red, yellow or brown though.
Don't lick the tips of the brushes.
Cadmium yellow is the Indian red of the masters.
There is a sky-writer over Seattle, and the message is "Black Lives Matter".
There must be some serious money pushing this inherently racist agenda...and a lot of white guilt.
madAsHell said...
There is a sky-writer over Seattle, and the message is "Black Lives Matter".
I was watching that from a bar in the U District.
Winds took away 'black' before 'lives' could be spelled. 'Lives' went away before 'Mattered' showed up.
I am sure there will be a Photoshopped version with all the words cropped together and available to the media before the morning.
My favorite (ernest) response from a bar patron smoking on the sidewalk: "What does "Lack Lives" mean?"
I am Laslo.
I am Laslo.
I was watching that from a bar in the U District.
All my suspicions are confirmed. We are neighbors.
The next message is "Surrender, Dorothy."
Apparently an important pollinator of these giant arums are carrion beetles, which are nocturnal.
madAsHell said...
There is a sky-writer over Seattle, and the message is "Black Lives Matter".
There must be some serious money pushing this inherently racist agenda...and a lot of white guilt.
__________________
Bill Gates or one of his micro-flaccid co-founders?
rhhardin wrote...I grew up in NJ and hear fine.
Althouse is not anacusic; she accuses just fine.
re: "Signs, signs, everywhere signs..."
Unfortunately, signs were Saul Alinsky's emotional trigger: link.
It's really too bad that Saul never underwent a "road to Damascus" conversion. Paul Alinsky would have been a totally different mentor for Hillary Rodham and our modern politics would be profoundly different for it today.
I am weary of the NPR crowd's giggly, smirking, winking fascination with this flower and with all things phallic. Every damn year we have to put up with this story in the local and national media.
It's like cowboy poetry and boontling and hog calling and about a dozen other dopey stories.
"Exposure to cadmium isn't a normal occupational hazard for an academic lawyer, so I assume it may have come from your earlier interest in painting. There are literally thousands of commercially available artist's paints that contain cadmium compounds, but unless you eat them in mass quantities Remulac-style they are generally safe. However, some artists like to make their own paint, and that can be really problematic."
I used cadmium red, cadmium orange, and cadmium yellow for years, and I cleaned my paintbrushes with turpentine, then soap and water, and then put them in my mouth for final grooming. That's one of the things I learned in art school. I know it's the dust that's the main problem, and I never worked with the powdered pigment. I did use pastels, so they are pretty dusty.
This was all more than 10 years ago, mostly more like 20 to 40 years ago.
Yes, a flower is a sex organ. What did you think they were for?
Although the best time to visit the Olbrich is on a bitter cold winter day, so one can compare and contrast with the tropical micro-climate in the dome.
"It's hard to photograph the corpse flower".
Don't kill yourself trying.
The Mayo Clinic has this page about anosmia.
As usual for a medical info it doesn't go into detail about the likely causes, but two things drew my attention. There is no mention of cadmium or cadmium compounds, but zinc deficiency is listed as possible cause or contributing factor. Secondly, the only chemical-exposure factors listed are "insecticides and certain solvents."
Cadmium is one of those heavy metals that has virtually no role in biology, so it's hard to get exposed to it through the diet, and it is sufficiently rare in nature that environmental exposures are also rare and not usually a health concern. The exception being a case of mass-poisoning in Japan in 1912. Cadmium-polluted water caused thousands to develop what came to be called Itai-Itai disease (Itai = It hurts), an extremely painful condition of the bones and kidneys. Cadmium doesn't seem to directly effect the nervous system. Instead it concentrates in the kidneys, where it may contribute to renal failure, nephrolithiasis, bladder cancer, and prostate cancer. No source I have found connects cadmium to anosmia.
No commercially available Insecticide contains cadmium in measurable amounts, however DuPont does make a whole line of insecticides (organophostates and alicyclic organochlorates mainly), but these are very unstable compounds that breakdown rapidly in the environment. Those who have problems related to insecticides are mostly persons who apply the chemicals to crops or who work in commercial pest control.
The Mayo Clinic anosmia page does cite "certain solvents" as problematic. Turpentine is a solvent, but it it has been used medically for centuries. Human tolerance for turpentine is really high, so I can't see how sticking an artists brush in the mouth could convey a toxic amount.
The problem with anosmia is that it doesn't typically manifest itself in isolation, it's usually a symptom of something else that's pretty obvious... Did you ever bang your head?
I never worked with the powdered pigment.
When I wrote about some artists who make their own paint I was thinking of those practical art historians who study the methods and techniques of the old masters. These artists try to replicate paint as it was made before the advent of industrial chemistry, generally speaking artists' paints as the existed prior to ca. 1850. These historians are acutely aware of the severely toxic nature of many of these pigments (cinnabar, Paris green, Antwerp blue, Naples yellow, witherite, etc.) and take precautions, or should.
I more I've looked into this issue the less convinced I am of a "cadmium connection" to your anosmia problem.
My dad has had anosmia for some years now and I've wondered if maybe there is a genetic susceptibility since he is unusual in a number of ways: He was a red-head (all gray now since he is 80), left handed, never ticklish. Could be environmental stress as well--he was an Air Force pilot and thus subject to lots of odd conditions.
A more common cause of anosmia than Cd is Zn from nasal products.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15283486
Fritz wrote: A more common cause of anosmia than Cd is Zn from nasal products.
A very interesting article, particularly in light of the association of zinc deficiency with anosmia. The active ingredient in Ziccam spray is zinc gluconate, a dietary source of zinc that has been shown to be effective against the common cold when taken in throat lozenge form. Though they deny the research results regarding zinc gluconate nasal spray, the makers of Ziccam paid $12M to settle 340 lawsuits in January 2006.
However, I am concerned by the way Fritz has composed his comment. It implies that cadmium is a cause of anosmia, though not as important a cause as nasal sprays containing Zinc. I haven't found any documentation connecting cadmium with loss of smell.
If Cd is not a a cause of anosmia at all as you assume, Zn is a more common cause. . . Q.E.D.
Cd is similar to zinc chemically. If a Zn deficiency is responsible for anosmia (which I have not seen, but will take your word on), it's possible that CD could cause anosmia by out-competing active sites where Zn is a necessary co-factor.
If Althouse's anosmia is due to licking paintbrushes, you'd think there'd be a long long history of anosmia and artists. Were any famous painters anosmic? There is a long history of tasteless art, but anosmic artists?
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