Phallaceae at Borough Hall

I woke up Saturday morning wanting to go to the plaza. Some plaza, like the kind you find in Venice or a city in Latin America, built to hold the view of the church, to hold people as they come together to mark life's transitions. You know, to admire the happiness of the bride and groom, to explode death, to buy popsicles when it's hot, to... well, I'm not from Italy or Latin America, so I should stop now and hope someone better qualified will flesh out this list.

There's an enormous church in Prospect Heights that I hope to learn more about, it's beautiful, and stuffed onto a street so narrow you get whiplash trying to savor the view. It seems unused, but how could that be. It needs to breathe.

We had time to kill before dropping our daughter off to catch the bus to camp, and somehow it seemed the only place we could wait was the square in front of Borough Hall. It felt right, somehow, and I was really surprised. I'd seen Borough Hall before many times but I never noticed how old its marble stairs seem. Two little kids dashed up them before I realized how dangerous they could be for the 2-year old, who had no trouble at all and enjoyed her view from the top, took in the space.

Then they wandered over to the fountain. Of course, the middle child wants a penny to throw in as the little one starts to circumambulate it. I saw something weird growing next to the miniature rose bushes that circle the fountain's algae-green reservoir. A few years ago I heard an NPR show about the "Stinky Penis" mushroom. Well, this looked to be the thing.

Except they weren't. A close relative, they are called Mutinus Caninus, or Dog Stinkhorn (some people have a more anatomical name for it), common throughout the N. Eastern US. And doing really well outside of the Brooklyn Supreme Court. I hope the gardeners leave the happy, freakish colony alone, although many would find them disturbing. We'll see how long they'll be around. Too bad we don't have morrel colonies thriving throughout the boroughs. If this rain keeps up, maybe we will.