Probably should have named March To Mycology but here it is. You can practice for your next performance!
Herbal First Aid Workshop Saturday June 3, 10am Van Cortland Park
When: Saturday June 3, 10am
Where: Jerome Avenue and 233rd St, North West Corner of the intersection
What to bring (only what you have available, don’t stress over what you don’t): Brown paper bag, 1 orange, water bottle that has a spout, gauze, Ace bandage wrap, oversized t-shirt that’s disposable, steri strip (optional), first aid kit
No registration necessary – free and open to non-members – please share with anyone interested!
Description
Your first aid needs can be met with plants around you. This workshop will discuss variety of emergency situations you can encounter during a hike, long backpacking trip, camping or a day at the park.
You will be introduced to fundamental herbal care concepts, the necessary shift in thinking, wound and infection management using herbs.
This workshop will be taught by NYMS Community Partnership Coordinator Journei Bimwala, who is an afro-roots clinical herbalist, certified holistic health coach, educator and forager.
Come read with us! June’s Book Club Reading: Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, June 24
We are excited to announce our June Book Club reading of Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life! This “gorgeous” “masterpiece” is “ripe with insight and erudition” and will remind you that “fungi are, like the Universe, sublime.” In honor of LGBTQ Pride Month, you can purchase the book here to support your local independent bookseller Bluestockings Bookstore!
This in-person discussion of Entangled Life will be led by Charlie Dibe, a film producer, longtime member of NYMS, and avid mycophile and bibliophile! We recommend reading the entire book but, in the interest of time, we will be focusing on the first three chapters, particularly Chapter 3, “The Intimacy of Strangers.”
BONUS: Attendees will be treated to IMMOREL — special complimentary new sparkling mushroom teas by NYMS member, book club attendee, and myco-tea maven, Charlotte Rogg! You are also very welcome to bring your own beverage or snack.
All are welcome — myco-newbies, generalists and specialists! Come join us Saturday 6/24 (3-5 pm) in a gorgeous setting for an informal and inspiring in-person discussion of a now-classic in the myco-canon. Please email Maya at culture@newyorkmyc.org to RSVP!
In person part 2 discussion of Tsing’s Mushroom at the end of the world, June 4
Thanks to everyone who came out for our inaugural book club discussion of The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. If you have not yet purchased this, we encourage you to order it at this month’s featured AAPI independent bookseller, Yu & Me Books, in NYC’s Chinatown. Due to popular demand, the SECOND in-person discussion will be Sunday, June 4th, 3-5pm. This will provide an opportunity for a deeper dive in the book’s chapters beyond the first 50 pages (and a second chance to join in for those who missed the May 20 event.) You are welcome to bring your own snacks or beverages.
If you want to attend but are unable to get the book, please email culture@newyorkmyc.org so we can get you the reading. Spots are limited so all who wish to attend should please RSVP culture@newyorkmyc.org.
All are welcome — myco-newbies, generalists and specialists! Come join us in a gorgeous setting for an informal and inspiring discussion on a “brilliant book… a delight to read”… an “anthropological and environmental study” with the “flowing prose of a well-crafted novel.”
Mark your calendars! 2023 Summer + Fall scheduled walks
The club has walks every weekend of the year, but only in the summer and fall do we schedule them ahead of time, so people can plan out their season.
On weekends where there are no scheduled walks we will organize pop-up walks, details of which will be shared a few days beforehand.
A few things to know about our scheduled walks:
- We meet when public transportation arrives, where public transportation arrives (station, bus stop etc)
- Walks often last 5-6 hours
- We may cancel or move walks in case of thunderstorms or extremely dry conditions
- The exact details for the following walks (including any changes) will be announced by email a few days before the date
Members are asked not to pick in the walk areas in the two weeks before the walk.
We thank Dennis Aita, the club’s walks coordinator, for organizing these walks!
Come read with us! Announcing the launch of the NYMS Myco Book Club
We are excited to launch our new Myco Book Club for NYMS members! For the inaugural reading, and in honor of May’s AAPI Heritage Month, we will be reading The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing which can be purchased at this month’s featured AAPI independent bookseller, Yu & Me Books, in NYC’s Chinatown. The in-person discussion will be Saturday, May 20th (rain date Sunday May 21), 3-5pm at the big table in the back pergola of the beautiful and serene Elizabeth Street Garden (entrance on Elizabeth Street between Prince and Spring). Delicious mushroom kimbap rolls and shiitake cookies (all vegan and gluten-free) will be provided courtesy of our member myco-culinary artist, Kate Ray! You are also welcome to bring your own snacks or beverages.
The discussion will be led by NYMS member Katina Rogers, who is a writer, educator, and independent scholar, and has taught this book in her graduate course on power, precarity, and care.
If you want to attend but are unable to get the book, please email culture@newyorkmyc.org so we can get you the reading. Spots are limited so all who wish to attend should please RSVP culture@newyorkmyc.org.
All are welcome — myco-newbies, generalists and specialists! Come join us in a gorgeous setting for an informal and inspiring discussion on a “brilliant book… a delight to read.. with the flowing prose of a well-crafted novel.”
I????NY
Fungi do a lot for us – they delight, feed, educate and inspire us. So what can we do for fungi? Many species of fungi are under threat but don’t receive any kind of protection or conservation. Of the 1,300 species listed as endangered in the US none are fungi. Fungi are invisible to policymakers.
We need to give fungi the spotlight they deserve – and a great way of doing so is is by designating a State Mushroom.
Please use the hashtag #I
NY
The club has spent the last few years working hard to get bills into both the New York State Assembly and Senate to declare Lactarius peckii the New York State Mushroom. They are now ready to be passed!
But representatives will only pass them if they feel that constituents are passionate about the issue. We need you to let your representatives know that you want these bills passed – now!
Doing this is easy and takes less than two minutes
Step: 2: find out who your state senator is
Step 3: click through to their pages, find their contact email and email them a copy of the following letters – there’s one letter for the Assembly and one letter for the Senate (feel free to personalize them!)
That’s all!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FOR YOUR STATE ASSEMBLY MEMBER
Dear Assembly Member [NAME]
As a constituent and member of New York Mycological Society I urge you to support Bill A1919 Designating Lactarius peckii as the official state fungus of the state.
Though often overlooked, fungi are vital to the health of ecosystems and are beautiful and fascinating.
We have put forward Lactarius peckii because it is common in wooded areas throughout the state, including in the parks of the five boroughs of New York City.
The mushroom was first described by Gertrude Simmons Burlingham in 1908. A native New Yorker, Burlingham is a notable figure in North American mycology. She named this Lactarius for Charles Horton Peck, the New York State botanist from 1867 to 1915, who himself described over 2700 species of North America fungi.
Lactarius peckii is neither edible nor poisonous; it is noteworthy because it serves a vital role in maintaining a healthy and vibrant forest ecosystem through its symbiotic (mycorrhizal) partnership with trees. If Lactarius is present it means the forest is healthy.
I urge you to support Bill A1919, and in so doing, assert New York’s appreciation of our great forests and parks and the need for their protection.
Passage of this bill would make New York one of only six states to have a state fungus. Let’s be at the forefront of this movement!
Kind regards
YOUR NAME
______________________________
FOR YOUR STATE SENATOR
Dear Senator [NAME]
As a constituent and member of New York Mycological Society I urge you to support Bill S1854 Designating Lactarius peckii as the official state fungus of the state.
Though often overlooked, fungi are vital to the health of ecosystems and are beautiful and fascinating.
We have put forward Lactarius peckii because it is common in wooded areas throughout the state, including in the parks of the five boroughs of New York City.
The mushroom was first described by Gertrude Simmons Burlingham in 1908. A native New Yorker, Burlingham is a notable figure in North American mycology. She named this Lactarius for Charles Horton Peck, the New York State botanist from 1867 to 1915, who himself described over 2700 species of North America fungi.
Lactarius peckii is neither edible nor poisonous; it is noteworthy because it serves a vital role in maintaining a healthy and vibrant forest ecosystem through its symbiotic (mycorrhizal) partnership with trees. If Lactarius is present it means the forest is healthy.
I urge you to support Bill S1854, and in so doing, assert New York’s appreciation of our great forests and parks and the need for their protection.
Passage of this bill would make New York one of only six states to have a state fungus. Let’s be at the forefront of this movement!
Kind regards
YOUR NAME
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We are so close, but unless you help us give it this last push we won’t get the bill across the line.
We thank Eugenia Bone, Vicky Tartter for their tireless work over the last three years and Mical Moser for assistance during a critical period. We also want to thank Maya Han for the very cool original logo concept and Phyllis Ma for turning it into an actual logo.
Feel free to share this email with anyone who might be interested!
Thank you very much!
2023 Myco Film Festival
Photo of Trametes betulina and original design courtesy of Phyllis Ma.
NYMS 2023 MYCO FILM FESTIVAL
SAVE THE DATE! SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1 AT SVA THEATRE, NYC!
Founded in 1962 by the visionary multidisciplinary artist John Cage, New York Mycological Society has had a long relationship with the arts. Over the past decade there has been an efflorescence of visual work, including film and video, on the mycological world. We are excited to announce the first NYMS Myco Film Festival scheduled for Sunday, October 1, 2023 at SVA Theatre in New York City and streaming online in a virtual film fest later in October 2023.
Join us for a fabulous evening of fiction, documentary, animation, and experimental films showcasing the fascinating world of fungi and exploring mycology in bold new ways, far beyond popular culture’s fixation on magic mushrooms!
IN-PERSON FESTIVAL DATE: One day screening on Sunday, October 1, 2023 (tickets on sale in September)
VIRTUAL FILM FEST: dates TBA, end of October 2023
If you are interested in participating or donating your mycological foods or beverages or other products as an in-kind sponsor to this fantastic event, please reach out to us at filmfest@newyorkmyc.org !
NEMF 2023 Samuel Ristich Foray — Help Needed
The Northeast Mycological Federation is busily preparing for this year’s foray that is to be held at Soyuzivka in Kerhonkson, NY September 14-17, 2023.
NEMF is a group of mushroom clubs in an area extending from Québec through New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. The sole function of the Federation is to hold an annual foray.
The Covid pandemic shut us down completely in 2020 and in 2021 we held a virtual foray. In 2022 our foray was in Jolliette, Quebec as guests of the hosting club, the Cercle des Mycologues de Montréal.
This year the hosting clubs are the Mid-Hudson Mycological Association, the Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association, the New York Mycological Society and the Long Island Mycological Club. https://www.nemf.org/nemf-2023/nemf-2023-home/
Today I am turning to the Society for help in hosting this foray.
These are some areas of responsibility:
- Do you have a guest room to house a faculty member? The location should be in the Kerhonkson area.
- We are hosting the Friday night social, an evening meet-and-greet held after the evening program. We will be serving light prepared finger food. Drinks are provided by Soyuzivka. Any ideas for mushroomy (or not) snack items that can simply placed in bowls distributed around the room? There is no prep area so this needs to be kept extremely simple. There is funding for these provisions.
- We can use people to pitch in to help with the registration table during reception hours, Thursday afternoon, evening, Friday morning, Saturday morning.
- The foray needs emcees to introduce faculty presenting their programs Friday and Saturday, mornings and afternoons.
- We need Walk leaders to check foragers onto the buses and take attendance at walk’s end.
- The sorting and display areas require people to manage clutter, signage, materiel, and to shuttle identified collections from the sorting tables to the display room.
- Clean-up detail.
- Technical, A/V type expertise would be really helpful.
- And a biggie: I have volunteered to lead a beginners microscopy workshop. We will need loaner microscopes and knowledgeable people to serve as assistants. The emphasis in this class is to de-mystify the microscope for the intimidated beginner.
Please indicate your interest in any of these chores to Paul Sadowski pabloski1@verizon.net
Wanted: Community Partnership Coordinator for NYMS
We’re actively recruiting for the role of Community Partnership Coordinator.
The focus of the position is to create and nourish relationships with communities and other organizations.
Just like fungi don’t exist in a vacuum, the New York Mycological Society wants to be part of a mycelium with other organizations that are focused on nature, conservation, community and education. We want our club to reflect the beautiful diversity of New York City and introduce ourselves to more New Yorkers, especially to communities that are currently under-represented in our membership.
This role was created two years ago and has been held by Sneha Ganguly, who did a fantastic job building and nourishing relationships with other organizations and organizing a series of very popular outreach and partnership events.
Sneha will be supporting the club in a different role this year (exciting news to come) and we are now looking for a new person to step into this position.
This is the perfect opportunity for a self-starting community organizer who is passionate about promoting fungal and cultural diversity and taking on a role of great responsibility within the club.
This role is supported by a scholarship!
If this sounds interesting to you, check out the full job description.
Applications are due by March 11, 2023.
We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we strongly encourage BIPOC, LGBTQ+ individuals, and differently-abled persons to apply.
We look forward to hearing from you!
-Sigrid Jakob
President, NYMS