For years and years I would hear about things going on in New York City, and they would sound great and fascinating, just as you imagine a fairy hootenanny sounds like a great time in the fantasy world of Zordenlandia. But you don't know exactly what that is, and you'll never find out.
These days, I still feel giddy when I remember that I am -- tops -- a three-hour train ride from NYC, where strange and wonderful things happen with alarming regularity.
Here is the latest, which I hope to visit later this week: the blooming of the corpse flower at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.
The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is one of the world's most remarkable plants. Native to tropical forests in Sumatra, it produces a monstrous four- to nine-foot-tall flower head, which releases a monstrous stench of putrefaction at peak bloom (another name for the plant is the corpse flower!). The species rarely flowers in cultivation—the last time one bloomed in New York was 1939. However, Brooklyn Botanic Garden's ten-year-old specimen recently began to flower. It's in peak bloom right now!
It's so monstrous, they used the word twice!
Sadly, all my New York friends simultaneously moved to other states, so I don't have free places to stay overnight anymore. But clearly, the opportunity to smell a putrefied Audrey II is worth a day trip if I can swing it.
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