WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:04.320 align:middle line:90% "Twice Alive." 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:09.330 align:middle line:84% "Mycobiont just beginning to unwrap photobiont, 00:00:09.330 --> 00:00:14.430 align:middle line:84% each to become something else, its own life, and a contested 00:00:14.430 --> 00:00:17.770 align:middle line:90% mutuality, twice alive. 00:00:17.770 --> 00:00:22.440 align:middle line:84% Algal cells swaddled in clusters. 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:26.700 align:middle line:84% You take a three-lens jeweler's loupe to inspect the hold fast 00:00:26.700 --> 00:00:30.210 align:middle line:84% of the umbilicate lichen, then the rock tripe lichen, 00:00:30.210 --> 00:00:33.000 align:middle line:84% then the eirenic Amanita mushroom, 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:37.350 align:middle line:84% swarming with a kind of mite that has no anus-- 00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:43.560 align:middle line:84% then the delicious chanterelles called trumpets of death. 00:00:43.560 --> 00:00:46.380 align:middle line:84% Supreme parsimony in drought lets 00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:49.470 align:middle line:84% lichen live in sporadic events of dew 00:00:49.470 --> 00:00:54.900 align:middle line:84% and fog, a velvety tomentum and a wet thallus. 00:00:54.900 --> 00:00:58.350 align:middle line:84% I crush oak moss between finger and thumb 00:00:58.350 --> 00:01:02.040 align:middle line:84% for its sweet perfume, persistent on your skin 00:01:02.040 --> 00:01:05.910 align:middle line:84% when I touch your throat so slow to evaporate 00:01:05.910 --> 00:01:12.600 align:middle line:84% the memory of seeing sunburst lichen on the sandstone cliff. 00:01:12.600 --> 00:01:16.320 align:middle line:84% But if herbivores eat wolf lichen, they die. 00:01:16.320 --> 00:01:20.730 align:middle line:84% And if carnivores eat it, they die writhing in pain, 00:01:20.730 --> 00:01:23.070 align:middle line:90% with the exception of mice. 00:01:23.070 --> 00:01:28.920 align:middle line:84% It is rarely possible to tell if lichen is dead or alive. 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:31.770 align:middle line:84% The fuzz of fecal dust from carnivorous mite 00:01:31.770 --> 00:01:35.610 align:middle line:84% triggers wood cutter's eczema, the bane of loggers knee 00:01:35.610 --> 00:01:40.050 align:middle line:84% deep in sweet ferns, sawing down cedar. 00:01:40.050 --> 00:01:44.370 align:middle line:84% So evening finds us at this wood's edge 00:01:44.370 --> 00:01:49.740 align:middle line:84% where, at a dead oak's base, shoe string rock glimmers. 00:01:49.740 --> 00:01:52.890 align:middle line:84% Its luminescent rhizomes reflected 00:01:52.890 --> 00:01:57.330 align:middle line:84% from the eyes of a foraging raccoon that doesn't yet 00:01:57.330 --> 00:01:59.820 align:middle line:90% sense us. 00:01:59.820 --> 00:02:04.860 align:middle line:84% Air ghostly and damp clings as we step from our woods 00:02:04.860 --> 00:02:08.100 align:middle line:84% to look across the field toward the first lane 00:02:08.100 --> 00:02:16.410 align:middle line:84% of lit houses, their dull pewter auras, restrained by wet haze. 00:02:16.410 --> 00:02:21.840 align:middle line:84% Cordyceps-- the brown of your eyes softened with rain 00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:26.010 align:middle line:84% and remotely fluorescent-- dissolve into slime 00:02:26.010 --> 00:02:27.520 align:middle line:90% after a few days. 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:32.370 align:middle line:84% Whatever we thought we were following was following us. 00:02:32.370 --> 00:02:36.045 align:middle line:84% Its intention unlinked to our own. 00:02:36.045 --> 00:02:38.930 align:middle line:90% 00:02:38.930 --> 00:02:45.290 align:middle line:84% So that sequence is divided into three parts through the book. 00:02:45.290 --> 00:02:48.500 align:middle line:84% So that's just the first part, and-- 00:02:48.500 --> 00:02:49.000 align:middle line:90%