Werner Herzog: [On the jungle] Kinski always says it’s full of erotic elements. I don’t see it so much erotic. I see it more full of obscenity. It’s just - Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn’t see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and… growing and… just rotting away. Of course, there’s a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don’t think they - they sing. They just screech in pain. It’s an unfinished country. It’s still prehistorical. The only thing that is lacking is - is the dinosaurs here. It’s like a curse weighing on an entire landscape. And whoever… goes too deep into this has his share of this curse. So we are cursed with what we are doing here. It’s a land that God, if he exists has - has created in anger. It’s the only land where - where creation is unfinished yet. Taking a close look at - at what’s around us there - there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of… overwhelming and collective murder. And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle - Uh, we in comparison to that enormous articulation - we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban… novel… a cheap novel. We have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery and overwhelming fornication… overwhelming growth and overwhelming lack of order. Even the - the stars up here in the - in the sky look like a mess. There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment.

Hey thanks!

The project they put me on concluded like two days after i finished the training (lmao) so now I’m waiting to be reassigned but hey i made $70 on the assessment tasks!

Good shit though, also I’ve never done a job that made me feel like I’m taking part in some cosmic eldritch ritual beyond my understanding quite like this one

No problemo, happy to share!

I’ve been learning little bits about the deep fungal mysteries and there’s so much cool stuff happening with our freaky little not-animal not-plant disturbingly genetic overlap with humans buddies!

I was just reading that a few kinds grow around here! Aside from the (seemingly) easily distinguishible poison sumac i think they all produce a similar edible fruit. I’ll have to do some more reading and start keeping an eye out for it. Foraging is awesome though, I’ve been stoked on mushrooms mostly but i also have a list of plants to check out that seems to keep expanding. Check out these ghost pipes i found growing out of a very old tree stump the other day:

It’s a really cool little plant. The absence of chlorophyll is the reason they’re translucent. Instead of doing their own photosynthesizing, they steal energy from trees through the mycelium of associated mychorrizal fungi, which makes them epiparasites

i’ve got a computer in my pocket and i still feel naked

For sure! Candy often has citric acid too, i think malic acid is maybe more commonly found in like apples and stone fruits or something? (Fruitwise that is- you’re definitely right that it’s also in candy). People call iced sumac tea indian koolaid for what turns out are extremely obvious reasons; it tastes like black cherry koolaid mixed with the fruit punch one. Just a real nice sorta tart berry flavor.

I got a bag of sumac flakes and the Middle Eats guy is correct, it does indeed make a tasty drink. It also elevated my poppyseed dressing/pumpkin seed/pine nut salad to the next astral level. Bought it on amazon (it was “the spice way” brand if anyone cares) but I’m gonna try to find it for cheaper somewhere local because i wanna use this stuff all the time. Next time I’m gonna sprinkle some coarsely chopped lemon balm from the garden on it too and it’s going to be fr*ggin’ insane.

They’re putting ads in the fortune cookies to make the frickin’ proles pay

lmao

I saw one in person for the first time a couple weeks ago around here and boy howdy they really do look dumb and extremely out of place in a way that i think cannot be fully captured by images.

Oh yeah that’s frustrating, similar case with one of my parents. Hope he feels better in any case

you would not believe your eyes

You could check out the epley maneuver. Basically there are crystals in your inner ear that allow you to balance and perceive acceleration and if they end up in the wrong place you feel vertigo. Rolling off a level surface in a very specific way can help get them back where they belong, you can watch demonstrations on youtube. It’s also amazing how much difference a sudafed can make sometimes, hayfever allergens have been really bad around here the last few weeks and sinus pressure can easily cause vertigo.

I’ve heard they lose their zap when stored ground but I haven’t tried. I’ve made hot oil with whole ones a few times and ground them to mix into chinese takeout. They grind easily in a mortar and pestel, probably more cost effective too. You should definitely try em out though. It’s a really interesting element to add into stuff. It’s like an electric version of capsaicin spicy.

under that circumstance i’d be pleased to regard him as the host with the most

lmao

Ayyyy thanks for mentioning that outlier link, really really appreciate it. I’ve been doing the training stuff the last few days. I did a few of the training tasks the first day i was accepted but since then it’s been a single (training) task per day, as if it only refreshes once every 24 hours. Is that what “onboarding” was like for you too?