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What exactly IS a lichen?? Pls im just an artist who only knows that plants are pretty

oh man ive been meaning to do a full crash course on lichens for a long time but in super short terminology, lichens (pronounced like-ins) are the weird multicolored blotches you see on trees that aren’t mosses. you probably see them every day, and they exist on every continent in the world, in nearly every ecological niche, and can live on nearly any solid substrate. they aren’t plants or fungi, but are a ‘superorganism’ comprised of different algae and fungi species (and some other components science doesn’t fully understand yet, including yeasts and bacteria in some species) adapted for the relationship, so at the most basic level, the algae photosynthesizes in return for shelter from the fungal structure, and the fungal structure gets food from the algae’s photosynthesis so long as it provides shelter. to give an idea of how everything is put together in this, lichens are generally organized in ‘layers’, so if you cut a little lobe off one and look at it under a microscope, you usually can see something like this: 

note that lichens have different growth forms and are overall incredibly diverse organisms, so this one is a cross section of the ‘foliose’ growth form where the lichen isn’t 100% all connected flush to the substrate, but also isn’t having a wild time going everywhere. anyway, you can see diagrams and descriptions of cross sections of all the different lichen growth forms here, if you’re interested. in general, though, lichens have a layer of fungi, a layer of algae, and another layer of fungi.

lichen reproduction is….dicey as hell tbh, and we don’t fully understand it still, but lichens don’t really reproduce as one single organism. i’ve gone further into on this blog before (my ‘lichens’ tag is….pretty diverse with all that from over the years) what’s important to know in terms of like, knowing what you’re looking at when you look at one is that the fungal component usually reproduces by means of organs called ‘apothecia’, which produce spores that are dispersed by rain, wind, or water. when you see little disk things on lichens that look like this (Xanthoria parietina):

or this (not disks, but the same thing; species is Graphis scripta):

or– and i get lots of submissions from people wondering about these when they see them –even this (these ‘cup’ fruiting structures are common in the lichen genus Cladonia, and aren’t always strangely tiered like this, but this one is Cladonia verticillata specifically; notice the little red dots around the edges of each cup, those are technically the actual apothecia): 

…those….are the sexy bits. a good rule of thumb for lichens is that if something is poking out from the top, and it doesn’t look like a lobe of the actual lichen body, it’s….usually a sexy bit of one kind or another, although whether said appendage is actually producing sexually recombined things or just shedding clones of itself can vary. like, lots of stuff is going on with lichens, but apothecia are probably the most common sexy bit you’ll encounter. 

anyway. that’s a very short layman’s guide to walking around in the world and seeing The Lads. @lichenaday has a good assortment of Dudes™ for your viewing pleasure, as does the national consortium of north american lichen herbaria. endless entertainment here, let me tell you

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I think the overall design is so hideous but I want to know everything about it.

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“When I was 26, I went to Indonesia and the Philippines to do research for my first book, No Logo. I had a simple goal: to meet the workers making the clothes and electronics that my friends and I purchased. And I did. I spent evenings on concrete floors in squalid dorm rooms where teenage girls—sweet and giggly—spent their scarce nonworking hours. Eight or even 10 to a room. They told me stories about not being able to leave their machines to pee. About bosses who hit. About not having enough money to buy dried fish to go with their rice.

They knew they were being badly exploited—that the garments they were making were being sold for more than they would make in a month. One 17-year-old said to me: “We make computers, but we don’t know how to use them.”

So one thing I found slightly jarring was that some of these same workers wore clothing festooned with knockoff trademarks of the very multinationals that were responsible for these conditions: Disney characters or Nike check marks. At one point, I asked a local labor organizer about this. Wasn’t it strange—a contradiction?

It took a very long time for him to understand the question. When he finally did, he looked at me like I was nuts. You see, for him and his colleagues, individual consumption wasn’t considered to be in the realm of politics at all. Power rested not in what you did as one person, but what you did as many people, as one part of a large, organized, and focused movement. For him, this meant organizing workers to go on strike for better conditions, and eventually it meant winning the right to unionize. What you ate for lunch or happened to be wearing was of absolutely no concern whatsoever.

This was striking to me, because it was the mirror opposite of my culture back home in Canada. Where I came from, you expressed your political beliefs—firstly and very often lastly—through personal lifestyle choices. By loudly proclaiming your vegetarianism. By shopping fair trade and local and boycotting big, evil brands.

These very different understandings of social change came up again and again a couple of years later, once my book came out. I would give talks about the need for international protections for the right to unionize. About the need to change our global trading system so it didn’t encourage a race to the bottom. And yet at the end of those talks, the first question from the audience was: “What kind of sneakers are OK to buy?” “What brands are ethical?” “Where do you buy your clothes?” “What can I do, as an individual, to change the world?”

Fifteen years after I published No Logo, I still find myself facing very similar questions. These days, I give talks about how the same economic model that superpowered multinationals to seek out cheap labor in Indonesia and China also supercharged global greenhouse-gas emissions. And, invariably, the hand goes up: “Tell me what I can do as an individual.” Or maybe “as a business owner.”

The hard truth is that the answer to the question “What can I, as an individual, do to stop climate change?” is: nothing. You can’t do anything. In fact, the very idea that we—as atomized individuals, even lots of atomized individuals—could play a significant part in stabilizing the planet’s climate system, or changing the global economy, is objectively nuts. We can only meet this tremendous challenge together. As part of a massive and organized global movement.

The irony is that people with relatively little power tend to understand this far better than those with a great deal more power. The workers I met in Indonesia and the Philippines knew all too well that governments and corporations did not value their voice or even their lives as individuals. And because of this, they were driven to act not only together, but to act on a rather large political canvas. To try to change the policies in factories that employ thousands of workers, or in export zones that employ tens of thousands. Or the labor laws in an entire country of millions. Their sense of individual powerlessness pushed them to be politically ambitious, to demand structural changes.

In contrast, here in wealthy countries, we are told how powerful we are as individuals all the time. As consumers. Even individual activists. And the result is that, despite our power and privilege, we often end up acting on canvases that are unnecessarily small—the canvas of our own lifestyle, or maybe our neighborhood or town. Meanwhile, we abandon the structural changes—the policy and legal work— to others.”

- Naomi Klein

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A California teacher teaching the physics of surfing, 1970.

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idid errands and chores all day errands btw = being a library bum and ripping cd after cd of some of my favorite albums. cant wait to go back and do some more. ither stuff i did: -filled my tank -tried to pick up my paystub }:( -bought groceries for under $15 -made porkchop and sweet potato stew plus a pancake out of fry batter and cooked veggies -laundry -vacuum -folded laundry -general cleaned, vacuumed the pollen off my porch, -pushed my table back a foot which looks a lil better. good job pats back

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it's expensive

paying to look like people who get paid to wear the same thing

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Reindeer Yasha at War, taken by Yevgeny Khaldei in Murmansk, 1945

via reddit

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cool words i googled

dyspeptic lacrimosa "what can you see" by annie lennox *hears it n wonders what the hell disney movie its from its so familiar* o right

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you eeeeeeediot - me to 90% of population :( >:(

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2shy2 carry out my true dream

of asking corner sitters & beggars to pose for me

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you missed a spot doctor asswipe

quit my 2+ year job today

and anyone who says “indian outlaw” by tim mcgraw isnt racist as hell needs to take a fucking backseat and wipe their messy ass

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quit my 2+ year job today

and anyone who says "indian outlaw" by tim mcgraw isnt racist as hell needs to take a fucking backseat and wipe their messy ass

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yesterday i stopped my car andofrered a girl who was wwlking a lift. she said normally she woukdnt but i seemed nice. yesh im with ya there. she seemed anxious, esp when i missed her street and pulled into a parking lot to turn around lel. but i took her etraight home. it wws also jodis last day and she gave me rides all my first winter here. provably saved my health. gonna miss her, i know. today i spent money and barely did anything i meant to do. tried to buy plane tickets but the websitr didnt work and i spent too much time trying to solve that. didnt go to meeting, didnt goto pfd office(wipl save it for a less rainy day), didnt goto travel office to get my payment and give their javket back, didnt have a job app for lyn though i did have one. didnt clean my floor and launder. i did however send my mail, spend money on stuff of course, return that chapstick, and ran into my dearbdonna. i gave her that photo. now im making beans. wont have a beer tonight, will save that for when i deserve it when i clean. hello blog.goodnight blog.

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““Rammstein - Alter Mann He waits for the midday’s wind the wave comes and lies down wearily with a fan every day the old one makes the water smooth I throw the stone for fun the water moves in circles the old one looks sadly at me and swept it smooth again In the white sand, the old man trembling, smokes his pipe only the water and I know why he needs this fan The premonition sleeps like a volcano hesitating, I asked him then his head bent, it seemed he slept before he died he said The water shall be your mirror only when it is smooth will you see how many fairy tales are left for you and you will plead for salvation The fan pressed against his body the hand stiffens with rigor mortis they had to break his fingers the fan stays back in the sand I call the old one every day for him to save me here I stay back in the midday’s wind and I can read in the fan The water shall be your mirror only when it is smooth will you see how many fairy tales are left for you and you will plead for salvation This song is about a man who watches an old man stare at himself in a reflecting pool and fan the water smooth when it is disrupted. The old man is possessed by the reflection of himself. After seeing this, the one who threw the stone in the beginning looks into the water and sees the same thing the old man saw and also becomes possessed. He then calls for the old man to save him from the same fate. This song is possibly about the cleansing of society.”

—

https://play.spotify.com/track/076PFJLxSpuW8RBg8ub4Qj

http://affenknecht.com/lyrics/rammstein-alter-mann-lyric-with-english-translation/

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imhere im alive sunny what an adventure last weekend ❤