IS IT TOO soon to marvel at how fast this year has flown by? To reflect on what a crazy year it's been? Within the span of six days I went from a windowless jail cell to a billionaire's penthouse with panoramic views of the Atlantic. During the first snowfall in Chicago I was in Miami, where people were wearing winter coats because it was 72 degrees. Cognitive dissonance, much?

I can't say I minded being in Miami. (I was there for an assignment, just in case you were wondering.) Sure, you have to deal with the designer dogs, the tourists dragging massive suitcases heading for the cruise ships, the health nuts jogging around everywhere (I saw one guy juggling a basketball, football, and a baseball, as he ran). But there's something so earnest about Miami's grasping for glamour that it transcends tawdry and becomes almost charming. That plus the Latin American cultural influence makes it a worthwhile destination. At the gilded-age mansion-turned-museum Vizcaya, I witnessed multiple young women changing into one fairy-tale gown after another as they took professional photographs to celebrate their quinceañera. Watching them pose in jewel-colored dresses in front of a picturesque and totally fabricated shipwreck, I felt like my visit to Miami was complete.

Here's a comic for you, and a few pix from my trip.

Homework Strategy

And some pics from Miami

This Week in Mushroom News

On my flight back from Miami I binged Common Side Effects, an animated series on Adult Swim. The plot centers on a species of mushroom that can heal any illness. There's an unexpected humanity to the show's characters, which include a millennial whose mother has dementia. There are also raging hippies, shady pharmaceutical executives, a lesbian mycologist, buddy cops, and so forth. But I think I most appreciated the show's accuracy with regard to mushroom science, including a surprisingly realistic scene involving mushroom cultivation.

Carne de Dios is a new novel by poet Homero Aridjis about the Mexican curandera María Sabina. I had never heard of Sabina before, but just a quick internet search reveals a familiar story of white men relentlessly searching for the ultimate high, disregarding whatever meaning the method of getting stoned may have had for the people who originally discovered it. After one of these men wrote about his experience participating in a veleda, or mushroom ceremony, for Life magazine in 1957, the small town where Sabina lived was suddenly overrun with beatniks and spiritual seekers, allegedly including Bob Dylan and John Lennon. The magic mushroom was later cultivated in Europe and Albert Hoffman isolated its psychoactive element, psilocybin, and the age of psychedelia began.

Thank you to Friend of Mushroom Head Megan Marshall for pointing me to this book, which is in my "cart."

Continuing in the vein of mushroom lit is a NYRB review of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel, The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story, which is set in a sanatorium in 1913 and includes a scene involving shrooms. Apparently mushrooms are a recurring feature in Tokarczuk's books, at least according to reviewer Christopher Taylor, who writes that, for Tokarczuk, "knowing how to pick mushrooms is a sign of good character." He adds that "the world of mushrooms also has a political aspect, to do with ideas of unruliness, interconnection, and resistance to easy labeling." Indeed! Let's hear it for mushroom politics!

As always, thank you for reading. I know your inbox is probably deluged with newsletters (as is mine) so I appreciate the attention.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Claire