Issue No48 — The Morel High Ground

I’m not a mushroom scientist (mycologist). Or even a scientist. I didn’t dream of becoming the fungi lady. But I did dream of becoming a writer. And I’ve always loved the small stuff in nature. So the role kinda makes sense. And feels analogous to Ms Frizzle. Which I’m happy with.

The thing I like about mushrooms and fungi as a topic is that most people react to it with – ’oh how… random’. And I agree. Pretty random. Surprisingly niche. But it’s also kinda not. 

Fungi are almost as ubiquitous as air. Microscopic fungi, yeasts mostly, are floating past you at this very moment. Fungi is in the dirt beneath your feet. It made your bread, beer and wine. And helped digest your lunch. Fungi is in us, on us, all around. It creates our precious soils and animates them too, moving information and resources across the forest floor. Trees use it to ‘talk’.

The fungi that get the most attention though are the big ones we can see, like mushrooms. Those classic toadstool-shaped species are really just the start though. There are fungi shaped like corals and cups, baskets and birds’ nests, ears and eggs. And their names are super silly. Hotlips puffballs and the lemon-yellow discos are two of my personal faves. 

New Zealand loves to bang on about its birds. How they’re not seen anywhere else. But 90% of our fungi are found nowhere else on capital-e Earth. There’s way more species and they come in every colour of the rainbow. They’re also much easier to find. I thought I’d need to travel deep into the bush to see tūtae kēhua. I mean just look at it! But I first spotted it in some mulch outside the Auckland airport. Close to 200 fungi species have been observed in the CBD.

Kingdom Fungi attracts all kinds of opposing energies – gourmands, garage growers, psychonauts, wellness girlies, iNaturalist obsessives. It offers top shelf ingredients like truffles and bottom shelf ones like cream of mushroom soup – the back bone of the church cook books of my childhood. Fungi can be delicious. It can also be lethal. Beef wellington works as an example in both cases. Fungi can be whimsical like the sky-blue one on our $50 note and freakish like the Last of Us. Fungi can harm us, and heal us – there is world leading psychedelic research happening in this very city. All while the thing itself is still a class A drug. 

So for all these reasons, as I stood in the portaloo line at the final Splore with Christy Tennent, and she put this fungi festival idea in front of me, I didn’t think ‘oh, how random’. I thought… makes total sense.

Liv Sisson was born and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains and has lived in Aotearoa for the last eight years, mostly on the South Island, but a job at The Spinoff brought her to Auckland in 2024. She’s a writer who explores surprisingly niche nature topics: fungi, moths, butterflies, rockpools. Her first book Fungi of Aotearoa was weirdly successful and got shortlisted for an Ockham. She hopes to write decent fiction someday and is a co-organiser of AUCKLAND MUSHROOM FESTIVAL up on Karangahape Rd which is on this weekend!

By Jean

NEW OPENINGS

Occasionally something comes across my desk which sounds so unbelievable that I have to do an adequate amount of internet research to be convinced that it’s actually real. New avocado-based dessert cafe, AVO CRAVE, is one of those places. Recently opened on the top of Queen St, it serves avocado coffee, ice cream, smoothies and more.

The hospo spaces across from the mid-town train station are rapidly filling up now. The latest one with signs up is TKT PANDA, a Chinese chain from Tahiti!

SLOW KOI, the specialty brew bar in Strand Arcade, has moved across the hallway into a newer, nicer-looking spot, with a mezzanine level and more counter seating. Hopefully they’ve gotten rid of those office chairs.

MAEVE COFFEE ROASTERS have a new mini-cafe at 2 Kirk St in Grey Lynn, behind the Audi dealership on Great North Road.

EVENTS

Cringe pal Sam Low and Michael Meredith are PUTTING ON A NIGHT with a shared interpretation of modern Chinese food at Mr Morris on August 22nd. Bookings via the Mr Morris website. Meredith is also being joined by Wallace Mua from Trivet to put on a SIX COURSE PACIFIC DINNER at Metita tonight, $165pp.

The Mushroom Festival (see above) is on this weekend with Mushrooms making cameos at MANY OF THE RESTAURANTS along Karangahape. While you are there, the Karanga-a-Hape station is having an open day with a bFM rave on a train and FAM Market is on too!

If you are a Gogo Music Cafe aficionado, every Sunday at 7pm DANNY AND JOHANNES ARE NOW PLAYING guitar and singing to accompany your cumin skewer consumption. 

SOMEWHAT CRINGEY event happening at The French Cafe – ‘PLAY’, a conceptual dining supper club by Rose’s Dining Table and Sid Sahrawat. Unclear if the dining room is just going to be one giant ballpit.

If you don’t mind queuing, 10am today is the last day to GET FREE STUFF at the Thursday Britomart giveaways: salted toffee and chocolate cookies and filter coffee from Daily Bread.

If you’re willing to be surprised, SUNDAY THE BAKERY is offering a new mystery flavour blind-box option that is much cheaper than her usual cakes (which are really good!). For example, a 6-inch cake is $45, normally around $70. 

NEWS

Another day, another beloved arts organisation with a Boosted fundraiser. This time it’s WHEKE FORTRESS, a genuinely needed creative space that has seen so many community and artist-driven events, exhibitions, pop-ups, gatherings, celebrations and more in its time. We gotta invest in the city we want, folks!! Stop moving to Naarm!!

Bianca has MOVED NEXT DOOR to itself and reopens in the new space tonight. And in other moving news, Public Record is going into the Trish Clark Gallery space on Great North Road – which also used to be Hopkinson Mossman – in October. 

By Mike

One of the many joys of Tāmaki Makaurau is a music scene diverse enough to offer something for all ages and tastes. That said, some demographics are more economically influential than others, and none currently more so than millennials, whose rising nostalgia is entering into profitable conjunction with their prime live entertainment spending years. 2000s-era acts are some of the most bankable, and plenty of both local and overseas names have dates booked in the coming months. This week saw the addition of Synthony Festival’s lineup to this growing field, an event aimed squarely at, and headlined by, those approaching and in middle age – the “premium general admission” offering, perfectly tuned to this audience, is naturally selling fast. Addressing a younger crowd, Olivia Dean’s sold-out October show is moving from Spark Arena to be the first gig at the new Western Springs Bowl, making thousands of additional tickets available.

No worries then for established music acts and their promoters. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many artists at an earlier stage of their journey, and the supporting landscape seems likely to get more hostile before it improves. In the UK, new PM Andy Burnham moved quickly to provide pubs, social clubs, and live music venues with a 20% rates cut, but nothing similar is on the horizon here. Currently, the Greens are the only NZ party with a published arts policy and funding strategy going into the election. The arts took a $27M funding hit in the most recent budget, followed by the elimination of a third of Creative NZ’s 84 roles. For a sector that is both culturally and economically vital – a RECENT MASSEY STUDY FOUND LIVE PERFORMANCE EXPENDITURE CONTRIBUTES 1.4% OF GDP and supports 60,500 jobs, with over $3 of benefits for every dollar spent by the 2.3M of us who attend shows of all kinds annually – it rarely gets the political attention that its significance and popularity merits. Hopefully the silence from the rest of the pack isn’t as foreboding as it seems.

Choice items from the liquidation sales of Auckland’s two-speed recovery.
By Simon

THERAFACE MASK GLO
Current bid $115, Closes Monday
I have a red light mask and I’m pretty sure it has given me the facial appearance of a 17 year old. No one has said anything to me about this but I assume it’s just because they are all jealous and ashamed of their own haggard appearances. Also the bit just before it turns itself off at the end of a ten minute session is not quite a feeling of euphoria but definitely a warm calmness that I don’t really experience anywhere else.

BMI WIFI SMART SCALE
Current bid $10, Closes Monday
Imagine getting on a set of scales and being presented with A GRAPH. Terrible.

MEASY MEDIA PLAYER
Current bid $20, Closes Tuesday
For everyone who can no longer stomach the mature streaming era’s high prices and reduced libraries, this is the perfect accompaniment for your triumphant return to video piracy. Looks like it plays most video formats and connects without too much fuss to your TV.

NATIONAL TOBACCO COMPANY CAKE & SIGN
Current bid $10, Closes next Thursday
The National Gin Distillery went into liquidation a couple of months ago and all their stuff is online now if you want to start your own distillery or need some gear for one you already have. The distillery was notable for being in the best deco building in Napier (the deco capital of the nation), the National Tobacco Building, and while you may wonder what celebration they could have been planning when they got this amazing cake made of their building, the real question is why, instead of eating it did they spray it with emulsion glue so it could lie in state forever like a tiny frosted Kim Jong Il.

By Simon

THURSDAY 13TH

SYNTH CIRCLE
Whammy, Koha
Synth nerd night! With aBraille, Hazsari, Creassault and visuals from NeuroWinter.

FRIDAY 14TH

WORLD SERIES OF DARTS
And Saturday, Spark Arena, From $70
Featuring 8 international professional dartists (including Holland’s Gian van Veen) going head to head against 8 regional reps with World Series points on the line while an arena full of fans get smashed on beer and yell at them.

BENEE & FRIENDS
Goblin, $10
DJ night with Benee before she leaves town again. The friends in question are: Aunty El, Halfqueen and Soraya Lapread.

MEANING 1
Button Factory, $15
Amongst other performance pieces at this event, Sandy Loam will ‘viciously disturb a pile of clay’ to a soundtrack by gOMME hOMME. 

HOT NEW JOKES
Basement, $20
Fantastic line-up at this edition of the new-material showcase - James Mustapic, Abby Howells, Pax Assadi, Angella Dravid, Liv McKenzie and Itay Dom.

SATURDAY 15TH

AUCKLAND v HAWKES BAY
Eden Park, $20
The NPC is back, but come early and you’ll see the secondary 1B final of Otahuhu v Howick at 12:30 and the 1A final, Grammar v Kelston at 2:50. Full grown men kick off at 5:05.

BULB AND PERENNIAL SOCIETY
Auckland Horticultural Centre, Free
The best place to be this weekend if you need some evidence that Spring is near. Should be full of daffodils and jonquils, and maybe some early tulips.

CHIPFEST
605, $20
A night of punk, disco, hot chips and tomato sauce. With Power Nap, Chem Chain, Paradox Princess, Megahowler, Sterile, Slitopia, Distracted and Raru and hot chips. DJs from 6, bands from 7.

THE GIANT PUFF BALL
Whakamama Cannabis Museum, $20
The coup de grâce of the Krd Mushroom festival. With Carnivourous Plant Society, Halfqueen, ECB Firmware, Hun Lynch, Ryan Berkley, Fergus Waveforms and Foxglove. Visuals by Pareidoliavisuals and unclegrayvisuals. Hosted by Johanna Cosgrove. Prizes for best mushroom costume. Karakia at 5.

THE LAST SHIFT
Il Brutto, $20
Last show for Shift as they shuffle off to concentrate on other things. A rogue’s gallery of some of our favourite DJ names in the city: 2BREW, Anwahn B2B CC:ME, INNUSTA B2B TOFUSHOP lu*two B2B sleepyj~ and Takydon B2B void. Trap, breaks and hardcore.

SUNDAY 16TH

BENJAMIN SHEEN
Town Hall, Free
A giant organ makes up basically half of the Town Hall and barely anyone ever plays it but this Sunday, a man the New York Times called ‘A Brilliant Organist’ will be on it playing Mendelsohhn, Bach and Liszt and Elgar.

MIRIAM CLANCY
Whammy, $20
Retrospective show for the 20th anniversary of her single Girl About Town. Support from Jol Mulholland.

MONDAY 17TH

NZ FASHION WEEK
All Week, Mainly Shed 10, Various $
It’s back! If you see a bunch of tall, slender people smoking around the waterfront this week, this is why.

WEDNESDAY 19TH

COLLAR
Hardcore, $40
An exhibition of bespoke collars from 60 collar enthusiasts from the worlds of fashion and visual art. Organised by The Keep, accompanied by music from the Audio Foundation and a scented room by Helen Schnabel! One night only, drink on arrival.