"How Friedrich Engels’ Radical Lover Helped Him Father Socialism."

That's a headline. What are you picturing? I asked Meade, and he had the same misimpression I had: So Friedrich Engels was gay.

What portal of cultural change did we just pass through that, upon hearing a man had a lover, we pictured another man? It came more readily to mind that a man had a male lover than that a woman was involved in the Marx-Engels intellectual project.

But the article — at Smithsonian — doesn't portray the "radical lover" as much intellectual help. Slogging through it, I see that Mary Burns's help came in the form of house and sex work. (Engels didn't believe in marriage.) The article pushes us to perceive intellectual contribution in her connecting him to the lives of those in extreme poverty.

Had the headline suggested that kind of help, we'd surely have pictured a woman.

As it is, the headline's "father" metaphor invites us to picture sexual interaction that produces a pregnancy. Within that metaphor, Engels ought to be the female partner, since he's the one who goes through the equivalent of pregnancy and childbirth. The intellectual work product is the baby. Even though pregnancy requires man-woman sex, if we visualize Engels as the pregnant one, we expect a male partner.

I got to that article via Joe Malchow at Power Line, who gives his post a sharper headline: "Friedrich Engels Was an Entitled Jerk."

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Bolus.

Some readers enjoyed my use of the word "bolus" 2 posts down. (A "feminist blog is committed to chewing things into a bolus of feminism....  When the evidence is flimsy, lubricate the bolus with the notion of the subtlety of the oppression. It might be swallowable.") That's not a word that would have come naturally to me if I hadn't read Mary Roach's cool book "Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal," so let me provide you with a reading:

The study of oral processing is... about the entire “oral device”: teeth, tongue, lips, cheeks, saliva, all working together toward a singular unpicturesque goal: bolus formation. The word bolus has many applications, but we are speaking of this one: a mass of chewed, saliva-moistened food particles. Food that is in— as one researcher put it, sounding like a license plate— "the swallowable state."

I don’t think the scientists are uninterested. I think they may be disgusted. This is a job where on any given day, you may find yourself documenting “intraoral bolus rolling” or shooting magnified close-ups of “retained custard” with the Wageningen University tongue-camera...

Humans, even physiologists, don’t like to think about food once they’ve begun to process it. The same chanterelle and Gorgonzola galette that had the guests swooning is, after two seconds in the mouth, an object of universal revulsion....

ADDED: From last April: Holus-bolus.

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Feminist blogger suspects that the AP meant to say "this smoking slut totally had it coming."

You may remember this story from yesterday, which I blogged here, about the NYC ad executive who leaned against her balcony railing in a way that made her date say "You know, you shouldn't do that." She said "I do it all the time," and then the railing collapsed, and she fell 17 stories and died. When should a death make the news and why? I know why I chose to blog that one: It was such a striking reminder of the way death might come at any time, and one's confidence that death won't come because it hasn't come yet — I do it all the time — is a delusion we live by and might die by.

I'm not afraid to lie down at night and sleep — I actively seek the loss of consciousness on those occasions — because I always wake up in the morning. That's happened every time so far anyway. And yet, every day, there are — lying in beds all over the world — dead bodies of human beings who surrendered consciousness to sleep the night before, assuming it would work out the same way it did all those other times.

How many will get AP stories written? None, unless they happen to be famous. The railing giving way is dramatic, especially because it happened to someone we can see did not expect it, who had that youthful sense of invulnerability, and the fall came from a great height, the death was instant, and there was an onlooker to make the experience come alive for us vicariously.

Like any blog, a feminist blog must feed on the available news stories or die of starvation, but a feminist blog is committed to chewing things into a bolus of feminism. So here's the Slate's XXfactor blog, and the determination has been made that the falling woman story is bloggable, which has to mean that it's fodder for feminism. Extracting 4 facts from the opening 2 paragraphs of the AP story, L.V. Anderson writes that the "implication" is that "this smoking slut totally had it coming."

A reader is left with the distinct impression that if [Jennifer] Rosoff hadn’t invited her date inside, hadn’t gone outside to smoke a cigarette, and hadn’t defied the advice of the wise and logical man she was with, she would still be alive. According to the AP story’s subtext, the problem wasn’t that Rosoff’s balcony railing was shoddy and unsafe—it was that Rosoff defied gender norms by being unmarried at 35, by being sexually liberal, and by insisting on making her own decisions instead of deferring to men’s logic.

Defied gender norms! Oh, come on.

You may accuse me of overreacting...

Anderson knew readers would call bullshit, but what's she supposed to do? Her assignment is to find feminist fodder and chew it up into a bolus of feminism, something we're supposed to swallow. She switches to I know this sounds like bullshit mode because she knows it sounds like bullshit.

... but the minor details that journalists choose to include or exclude from their reporting are one of many subtle ways that oppressive gender norms are perpetuated. 

Is that straight out of her notes from a Women's Studies class? This platitude is the platform for many a feminist blog. Scan stories for minor details relating to gender, then highlight them, and make grandiose statements about the perpetuation of oppression. When the evidence is flimsy, lubricate the bolus with the notion of the subtlety of the oppression. It might be swallowable.

Do I think the AP reporter assigned to this piece (incidentally, a woman) intended to undermine the reader’s sympathy for Rosoff and suggest she was asking for it? Of course not. But the fact that totally irrelevant details about Rosoff’s love life and cigarette habit made it into the lede and nut graf of an ostensibly unbiased news article—and that no editor stopped to ask, “Hmm, why is this information here?”—just goes to show how deeply ingrained sexist attitudes can be, even among professionals who pride themselves on their objectivity.

Bloggers don't have editors. A blogger has to self-edit. And Anderson is sort of self-editing here by imagining the readers' skepticism. But she counts on us accepting that the details are "totally irrelevant" and therefore only evince sexism. And that just goes to show how deeply ingrained the belief in deeply ingrained sexist attitudes can be. The railing against which Anderson has leaned so heavily — which feminist blogging calls upon her to do all the time — gives way. It's so shoddily constructed that any alternative explanation for the inclusion of the details pulls out the railing and sends Anderson tumbling.

And here the details create a vivid picture of a young woman in the midst of life who isn't thinking at all about death, and death suddenly takes her. She's on a first date, she's having a smoke, she's enjoying her luxurious abode looking out on the big city, she's openly dismissive of the man's fear of death, and she's inviting that man into her style of being truly alive, and that's when she dies. It's a stunning story of life and death. Yes, there's some "victim-blaming" here, but that's not necessarily a feminist problem. That cuts straight to everyone's fear of death: Would I have leaned on the railing? Have I ever leaned on railings at great heights? I don't want to die, so not leaning on railings must go on my How not to die checklist as I go forward in my life which, thus far, has not included my dying, and yet, somewhere, up ahead, there's that railing that's going to give way for me, and I too will plunge, headlong into the eternal unknown. 

I laugh out loud when I see that Anderson chides reporters for not "scanning one’s writing for traces of chauvinism," which, she says, "requires a little time and humility," but is "not exactly hard." Instead of seeing how she might take the time and have the humility to scan her own writing for traces of bullshit about chauvinism, she offers her idea of how AP should have put its opening paragraphs. Even though she admits that her version is much duller — "less salacious" — she's pleased that "it conveys the fact that Rosoff’s death was a tragic accident, not an instance of cosmic justice."

If you don't want the theme of cosmic justice, don't use the word "tragic." As we human beings tell each other stories — in theater or in the news — we experience depth of feeling when the details seem to tie together and have meaning. Why do we read about things like this at all? Anderson meant to say that her version of the story is better because it conveys the fact that Rosoff’s death was a random accident, which makes it a worse story. It's more of a police report, or notes for the tort litigation against the owner of the apartment building.

But Slate's feminist blog isn't about random accidents and building design defects. It is committed to getting us excited about the subtle perpetuation of the oppression of women. Ironically, Anderson herself fully intends to do what it is the feminist blog's mission to do: Take the stories of the day and retell them in terms of cosmic justice.

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Did the Pope say "allow ourselves to be smitten" by the love of Jesus?

Last night's "Smitten by his love" post brought email from ddh:

Your suspicion that the Pope did not say "smitten" is correct. After an introductory paragraph in Portuguese, the Pope switched to his native Spanish and said, according to the Vatican:

Pero la Cruz invita también a dejarnos contagiar por este amor, nos enseña así a mirar siempre al otro con misericordia y amor, sobre todo a quien sufre, a quien tiene necesidad de ayuda, a quien espera una palabra, un gesto.

I translate this sentence as:

But the Cross also invites us to let ourselves be infected by this love, it teaches us always to look at the other person with mercy and love, especially to the one who suffers, the one who needs help, the one who awaits a word, a gesture.

So, what he really said was "contagiar" or "to be infected." By the way, most native Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish without great difficulty, although not perfectly. I think for English speakers the effect is akin to listening to a Robert Burns poem.

Who is in a position to confirm whether the effect of Spanish on native speakers of Portuguese is like the effect of Robert Burns poetry on native English speakers? Perhaps no one, but I like the analogy anyway. It's poetic.

Also poetic — or so it feels to me, in translation — is the Pope's invitation to expose ourselves to contagious love. Love as disease is a very old metaphor. Lovesick. Fever. But here the idea is an outbreak, an epidemic of love spreading everywhere.

In English, "contagion" feels — at least to me — more positive than "infection," though "infection" is used positively in phrases like "infectious laughter."

Consulting the (unlinkable) OED, I see that one old meaning of "infect" is: "To instil in (someone) an opinion or belief, esp. a pernicious one, as heresy or seditious views. Of an (esp. pernicious) opinion, belief, etc.: to persuade, win over (someone); to seduce. In early use also in a good or neutral sense."

1559   J. Whyte Serm. in J. Strype Ann. Reformation (1824) I. vii. 154   Books..full of pestilent doctrines, blasphemy and heresy, to infect the people.
1588   ‘M. Marprelate’ Oh read ouer D. Iohn Bridges: Epist. 26   Being infected by him with the true knowledge of the gospell.
1660   Exact Accompt Trial Regicides 55   The end of your Speech is nothing, but to infect the People.

This metaphor is important in the understanding the value of freedom of speech. Are we susceptible to infection or does exposure build up our resistance to what is harmful?

There's no verb like "infect" for the English word "contagion," which hampers the translator of "contagiar." But I assume that the Spanish word the Pope used traces back to the Latin word that led to "contagion" and that is  con- together + tangĕre to touch. "Infect," by contrast, comes from the "classical Latin infect-, past participial stem of inficere to dye, to stain, to impregnate, to imbue, to taint, to poison, to affect with disease, to corrupt < in- in- prefix2 + facere to make, do, put.")

That "impregnate" makes me ideate about things Popes say against the use of birth control and the similarity of opening oneself to the contagion of love. But let's not get distracted. The concrete image within "contagion" is touching, and "infection" connotes putting in. That makes "contagion" sound like what women do, and "infection" seems like the way of the man.

But the Pope said "contagiar," so let's look at "contagion," which has as its oldest meaning "The communication of disease from body to body by contact direct or mediate." Figuratively, we see it defined as "Hurtful, defiling, or corrupting contact; infecting influence," a usage that goes back to Chaucer in the 14th century:

c1386   Chaucer Second Nun's Tale 72   My soule..That troubled is by the contagioun Of my body....
1776   Gibbon Decline & Fall I. xxi. 591   His mind was tainted by the contagion of fanaticism.
1836   C. Thirlwall Hist. Greece II. xiii. 190   The contagion of these vices undoubtedly spread through the nation.

A second old figurative use is "Contagious or spreading moral disease; moral corruption," and then, in a positive way, closest to the Pope's meaning, "The contagious or ‘catching’ influence or operation of example, sympathy, and the like."

1781   Gibbon Decline & Fall II. 117   The contagion of loyalty and repentance was communicated from rank to rank.
1863   A. P. Stanley Lect. Jewish Church I. xviii. 397   A contagion of goodness, of enthusiasm, of energy..almost impossible to resist.

ADDED: Some attention should be paid to the idea of "invitation." God/Jesus/the Cross does not infect or produce contagion on its own. Its action is to invite. We have to accept the invitation to get the contagion/infection. It's voluntary. The human mind counts. But if you allow yourself to be touched/impregnated, then you will have something that surpasses the rational mind. These images are very helpful in thinking more generally about freedom of speech and the right to receive the speech of others. Censorship represents the fear of contagion, but if you see the speech as an invitation and the human mind as capable of deciding which beliefs to accept, contagion is less fearsome.

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"Each post you make seems to invite conversation, yet allowing none, creates a constipation of thought."

Emails a reader who — when the comments were on — commented under the pseudonym Salamandyr. I'm blogging this because I think poop is funny. And because I've already used the tag "excrement" once this morning, quoting Greil Marcus's famous question — reviewing Bob Dylan's "Self Portrait" — "What is this shit?"

So Salamandyr's saying "Turning off comments was a dreadful mistake that I hope you'll reconsider."

[Y]our writing style invites comments.  Each post you make seems to invite conversation, yet allowing none, creates a constipation of thought.  

Yeah, that was the problem. Too much pooping in the comments! Why would your complaining about constipation convince me to reopen? This is Althouse, not Shithouse. But some people didn't seem to notice, didn't care, or had their own delusions of redesigning the place.

Previously, even if I choose not to type out my comments, the ability to, invites me to think about what you wrote, to consider it in more detail, to create a dialogue with your post.  This oftentimes made your post all the more memorable.  

And the difference now is what? That when you think the thoughts the post prompts, the fact that you could put it in writing, next to my writing, and now you can't, impedes a mental process that never emerged in writing anyway? To stick with your metaphor, if it's constipation, you've got constipation in both situations, and what's bothering you is that there's no toilet available.

Then what the commenters wrote in response to your post, made it even more memorable.  Every comment reinforced what your writing [sic], made it that much more prominent.  

That's where you are wrong — wrong in a way that crucial is to me, as I explained right here. If you take the trouble to read that, tell me — or tell your constipated brain — whether you saw or took the trouble to look for the 15 topics and whether you think there's the slightest chance that if the comments had been open, the commenters would have explored them and, if some did, whether the writing about the 15 topics would outweigh the writing about how Bob Dylan's voice is bad and I write about Bob Dylan too much. See why I'm not feeling "reinforced"?

I might spend an hour reading your post, reading the comments, thinking about how they relate to your post, whether they successfully rebut your point, support it, or were irrelevant....

Now, that sounds constipated. It's dangerous to sit on the pot that long. Don't you know that's what killed Elvis?

If you choose not to re-open comments, I'm sure your writing will change, become more declarative, less inviting....

You're sure? Why are you sure? Do you need to deposit your answer to those questions to benefit from thinking about them?

Whatever you choose, I'll probably still read you.  You are smart, educated, and have interesting opinions.  But without comments, I find myself visiting your site less often during the day, and spending less time there when I do, and spending less time considering your posts.  

Good! Keep it moving. It's much healthier.

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Visible mending.

The beauty of this gives it great potential as a metaphor.

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"The young men I knew in that fraternity did not strike me as the hyper-sexualized testosterone containers that articles like this basically imply they are."

Writes Marc Tracy in TNR (referring to that big NYT article "Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, Too.") Tracy continues:

Some had girlfriends; some wanted them; some didn’t. Sometimes, it is true, they just wanted (or claimed just to want) to get some. They watched lots of Pardon the Interruption. A few were probably gay. (The heteronormativity of the “women’s story” is another subject entirely.) I am positive that at various times some felt uncomfortable walking under the imprecation to “Play Like a Champion Today,” and felt pressured to do just that, and felt ashamed at failing. My anecdotal evidence admittedly dates back several years; other than that, it is exactly as authoritative as the evidence the article marshals.

Kate Taylor, the article’s author, said Tuesday that she did interview some men, though not as many and not as rigorously, and that an earlier draft of the article poured all of those quotes into one section, which then got cut. “Obviously what men want and how men feel is a critical part of the picture, and in my fantasies it might have been a pair of articles, but that wasn’t possible,” she lamented.

In her fantasies, she wanted a pair. Grow a pair.

Now, why wasn't it possible? I'm guessing this kind of journalism is food for women, and men won't stomach this kind of quote fest of fussing over sex without relationships. The women in Taylor's article acted like they were up for no frills sex, but all this blabbering is the frilliness, and it's for the ladies. You may not have a relationship with your sex partner, but you're talking and reading about whatever it is you're doing outside of the time spent doing it. That is a relationship (of sorts). It's even a dysfunctional relationship. So let's talk all about it... for 5,000 NYT Magazine words and 800 comments.

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What is the sight of one hand hidden? The zen koan of a NYT headline.

I'm getting a late start this morning. Only yesterday — ah, yesterday! — I had my first post up at 6:21. It contained the memorable Drudge headline "Big Sis Wants to See Under Your Clothes." Today, the blog didn't get going until 8:45 (and that's Central Time). If I wanted a cover story — a story that you can't see under even with your National Surveillance X-Ray Robot Eyes — I'd say I needed to meditate for hours upon encountering — on the front page of the NYT — the equivalent of the old what is the sound of one hand clapping? zen koan.

Having achieved oneness, what is its sound? In other words, how does it reverberate? How does it go out into the world and function? If we're just being "one" with our own hand, what have we accomplished? If it's all about our own private experience, it's nothing but a hand job!

Are you ready now for the headline? It's: "In Second Term, Obama Is Seen as Using 'Hidden Hand’ Approach."

If it's a hidden hand, how is it seen? Some unnamed entity/entities are seeing, but they are hidden by the hidden hand of the headline writer using the passive voice. The passive voice is evidence of the unseen hand of another hand job for President Obama.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

The leaves of the newspaper are trembling with the wind that passes through, and thus do we "see" the unseen. But what is this wind? The underlying article, written by Peter Baker begins like this:

In the nearly two weeks since Egypt’s military seized power, President Obama has promoted a better federal bureaucracy, given a medal to George Lucas of “Star Wars” fame and had former President George Bush to the White House for lunch. What he has not done is publicly address the violent upheaval in Cairo.

Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.

That is not to say Mr. Obama is uninvolved. In the privacy of the West Wing, away from the cameras, he has made calls to leading figures in the Arab world and has met with advisers trying to influence the crisis. But his low public profile on issues like immigration, Syria and health care underscores a calculated presidential approach that admirers consider nuanced...



... and detractors call passive.

When we see nothing, how can we know that the person who would be expected to act is choosing to act by not appearing to act, in some deliberate "hidden hand" approach? Quite aside from whether that is a wise and workable approach, is it even something he's doing? Peter Baker cites no inside sources for the proposition that Obama claims to be using a "hidden hand" approach. The old inside phrase was "leading from behind," and it would be interesting to analyze a shift from "leading from behind" to "hidden hand." (Is the hidden hand goosing the behind?)

Peter Baker's quoted sources are — I kid you not — Jim Newton, author of "Eisenhower: The White House Years," and Dwight Eisenhower's granddaughter Susan. These are the seers seeing.

Some compare Mr. Obama’s approach to the “hidden hand” style of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who often steered events behind the scenes without being public about his role....

Some... If you use the notoriously shifty sentence subject "some" you'd better have at least 2.

“In those senses, Obama does appear to me to be taking a page from Eisenhower’s playbook,” Mr. Newton said. “What I don’t know, however, is how aggressively Obama is working out of view on these matters. The essence of Eisenhower’s hidden hand, of course, is that there was real work going on that people didn’t know at the time. If that’s true now, then Obama really is emulating Ike. If, on the other hand, he’s simply doing nothing or very little, that would be passivity, not hidden-hand leadership.”

Susan Eisenhower, a granddaughter of the late president, said it might be too soon to tell. “Eisenhower’s hidden-hand means of meeting his objectives was not really evident until his papers were opened, many decades after he left office,” Ms. Eisenhower said.

So Susan Eisenhower is not even seeing the hidden-hand. She's just talking about how hard it can be to see what is hidden. And Newton — who must be thrilled at the invitation from the NYT to push his book — is (as I see the unseen) responding to Baker's effort to get him to endorse the hidden-hand theory that has no theorists. And he doesn't. The Newton quote is studded with weasel words: appear... if... if... 

What unseen things were seen by the some who saw none?

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"President Obama gave a speech Monday instructing Americans not to be so 'cynical' about government."

I had to do a double take at the date. Yeah, Monday. Yesterday. Didn't he already do that malaise cynicism routine already? (Answer: Yes, in May.)

But here we go again.

President Obama.... then explained that the major problem with government is that it does not run as efficiently as "one of the most inclusive and most successful campaigns in American history." His own....

If that's supposed to make us feel less cynical, it's not working on me. A campaign is about trouncing the other side. The metaphor is military. (The original meaning of the word refers to an open field, and then the idea is of the army operating out in the field.)

And speaking of metaphor...

"What matters in the end is completion. Performance. Results...." Mr. Obama continued. 

Conquer that territory.

You're making me cynical. You're making me laugh. But you're making me cynical.

***

Actually, the original image of a military "campaign" wasn't really about conquering these fields. The (unlinkable) OED says:

The name arose in the earlier conditions of warfare, according to which an army remained in quarters (in towns, garrisons, fortresses, or camps) during the winter, and on the approach of summer issued forth into the open country (nella campagna, dans la campagne) or ‘took the field,' until the close of the season again suspended active operations. Hence the name properly signifying the ‘being in the field,’ was also applied, now to the season or time during which the army kept the field, and now to the series of operations performed during this time. In the changed conditions of modern warfare, the season of the year is of much less importance, and a campaign has now no direct reference to time or season, but to an expedition or continuous series of operations bearing upon a distinct object, the accomplishment or abandonment of which marks its end, whether in the course of a week or two, or after one or more years.

And in the changed conditions of modern political campaigns, there's no longer a particular season. It never ends. But Obama wants a campaign model for the government that must be done after the election campaign is over. It's confusing. It's often been said that Obama wants an endless political campaign. But Obama speaks of completion. So there is the idea of an end. What matters in the end is completion. It will end, but it will end when the goals are accomplished.

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"After more than 40 years as the Bridge to Nowhere, it is brilliant news that this infamous landmark has finally been completed..."

"... and will serve as a vital link in Glasgow's network of walking and cycling routes."

And yet, as a metaphor, it is no longer useful.

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Naked Bob Dylan Robot has something to say about the meaning of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat."

As channeled by betamax3000:

Well, you look so pretty in it
Honey, can I jump on it sometime?

The Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat Represents the Stylish Repression of the Sexual Urges of the Hat-Wearing Woman -- the Hat is a "Pillbox", thus referencing both Birth Control and Containment --, and How those Urges Create a Corresponding Attraction in the Male, as the Leopard-Skin Pattern Stimulates Animal Urges. This Becomes More Obvious in the Following Lines, where the Titular Hat is Compared to A Mattress:

Yes, I just wanna see If it's really that expensive kind
You know it balances on your head
Just like a mattress balances
On a bottle of wine
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat

That the Mattress is Balanced On a Bottle of Wine Implies that the Man is Contemplating the Use of Alcohol to Achieve the Goal of "jump(ing) on it sometime."

However, this Desire Remains Unrequited, as Evidenced in the Following lines:

Well, if you wanna see the sun rise Honey,
I know where We'll go out and see it sometime
We'll both just sit there and stare
Me with my belt Wrapped around my head
And you just sittin' there
In your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat

Notice that they Will "Sit and Stare": there is No Jumping Upon the "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat". Furthermore, The Man Now Has a Belt Wrapped Around His Head, Indicating Restraint of His Hat-Jumping Thoughts, and -- Possibly -- Implying a Restraint Around His Phallic Head. Meanwhile, the Woman is "just sittin' there" and there is no further mention of a Mattress.

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Your Morning Slime Mold.

1. Great title for a newspaper, don't you think?

2. What did you wake up to this morning?

3. We've discussed slime mold on this blog before, remember:

Oh, it's slime mold. Dog Vomit Fungus! Remember? I mentioned it here once, you know, that day when I deliberately vomit-blogged. But I've never seen it in my yard before, even though I have seen -- and photoblogged -- some pretty impressive fungus, fungus that makes you think not of vomiting, but of one of those other bodily activities.

4. Meade says he remembers and claims to have participated, and I said it was before his time. (If you click the first link at #3, you'll see it was 2006, 3 years before I met Meade.) He says: "In the comments." I look. "Ah, yes! You're the first commenter":

Meade said...

Is that fresh mulch? Might have come with that. Could be worse - you could have stinkhorn mushrooms... you know - Phallus impudicus.

5. "In Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg), the psychologist Dr. Krokowski gives a lecture on the phallus impudicus:"

And Dr. Krokowski had spoken about one fungus, famous since classical antiquity for its form and the powers ascribed to it -- a morel, its Latin name ending in the adjective impudicus, its form reminiscent of love, and its odor, of death. For the stench given off by the impudicus was strikingly like that of a decaying corpse, the odor coming from greenish, viscous slime that carried its spores and dripped from the bell-shaped cap. And even today, among the uneducated, this morel was thought to be an aphrodisiac.

6. What did you wake up to this morning? Are your spores dripping from your bell-shaped cap?

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