ZHENG Bo + Steven LAM

Love of fungi, music, friends, and life in New York weave through these stories from Paul Sadowski. In this three-part episode, Paul talks about working with long-time friend, composer, and mushroom hunter John Cage; healing from Cage’s death by learning about mushrooms and fungi with the inimitable mycologist botanist Gary Lincoff and the New York Mycological Society; and embarking on a survey of over a thousand fungi at Greenbrook in the Palisades. In this episode, Paul reads excerpts from Cage’s experimental performances with audio, video, and installation, celebrates the mushroom club’s 50-year anniversary, and talks about knowing a mushroom in at least five dimensions: length, width, depth, smell, and time.

Paul is a mycologist, musician, and autographer based in New York City. He teaches at the New York Botanical Gardens and is a beloved member of the New York Mycological Society with whom he has led forays in all seasons throughout the state, guided mushroom identification sessions and fungi surveys, and taught mycological microscopy for many happy years, and counting. Mushrooms, Paul says, are always surprising.