mr b.caapi Posted May 10, 2009 Trout gets ripped to shreds from this guy on Sacredcactus.com, do you reckon theres any truth to his claims or is it just bad blood. heres what he wrote about trouts "San pedro" book.......... Want to be really confused? Who is Trout? Does he or she hide their real name for fear of being raided for drugs? I think so. The author is hiding his or her identity as, too, are the photo contributors with names like "Oz." These are all phantom people, not real ones. The text is reminiscent of a pretentious college term paper thrown together the night before it was due. No one edited the text, and this is a book that screams for editing. Equally bad are the pictures—a dizzying "kitchen sink" of unedited B&W snaps of flower pot cacti from mysterious sources. Why mysterious? One can imagine that the drug cult owners, like "Oz", eat them as fast as they grow. Trout's confusion is typical of armchair expert's relying on second hand information. There is no actual field research here, no trip to Peru or the official collection sites for Trichocereus. The ambiguity derives from old farts (Briton & Rose) who described cacti seen 70 years ago at garden shows. Britton died during the Great Depression and his buddy Rose in 1928. Who knows what they saw? Fast forward to the present and you have Trout's favorite Peruvian cacti guru Karel Knize who pillages the hillsides of the Andes to export cacti seeds and cuttings to those who can pay the hefty import costs. This is long distance research by proxy, then documenting the sloppy identifications made by that proxy. Sort of like hiring a freshman with bad grades in another country to do your research—then criticizing the trustworthiness of the data collected. Fishman Trout accuses Knize of mislabeling cuttings, photos, etc. I understand, because I've accused Knize of stealing money sent for seed, only receiving it after numerous letters asking when he'd mail my seed. In 2006 and 2007 Knize sent non-viable seed with lousy to zero germination. So forget about Knize, forget about over glorified "experts" from 70 years ago, and forget about pompous "expert" fish. Let's move on! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
watertrade Posted May 10, 2009 that sacred cactus guy is angry at everything Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
paradox Posted May 10, 2009 as stated in another thread. that guy is a wank Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bit Posted May 10, 2009 Agree, he's in it for the money, not the ethnobotany, or any other botany apart from growing as fast as possible. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
incognito Posted May 10, 2009 where is this guys research? i love trouts books, very informative and great eye candy!!! this guys is a tool, he needs to get laid. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nitrogen Posted May 11, 2009 Yah that guy sold me a T bridgesii which was actually a T Peruvianus - he wouldnt fess to it either, and insisted it was a bridgesii... He lets his cacti get eaten to pieces by thrips too and I emailed him a couple times telling him to just dust some sulfer on the tips and the problem would be solved - he never emailed me back with a thank-you or anything but since then I havent seen so many thrip eaten cacti for sale by him... So yah, he should lay off Trout since he doesn't really know what hes doing either... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
folias Posted May 11, 2009 Trout is a champ... some friends he stayed with here, say they tried to come up with a question he couldn't answer, or some ultra-obscure thing he didn't know about... they were totally stumped... the man is a living legend of pure informativeness and insight! Julian. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MORG Posted May 11, 2009 Well, kinda depends what you want doesn't it? If you're after a meticulous, scientific, data-rich monograph on the taxonomy and biogeography of Echinopsis cacti then you'd better do it yourself. If you want one man's vast (and sometimes chaotically ordered) collection of personally-gleaned information from various sources (reliable and not-so), hundreds of photos and the only attempt at a synthesis on Echinopsis cultivars and wild forms then get Trout. He's careful to never claim it as a be-all-and-end-all and I think he even writes that if someone claims they know Trich taxonomy then they're full of shit. For me, Trout's book is too much info. More than I ever wanted or needed to know. Get over it Sacredcactus.com. Go and repot something and stop bitching. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Teotzlcoatl Posted May 11, 2009 Trout is Buddha reincarnated in ethnobotanist form. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
trucha Posted May 11, 2009 He's being way nicer now than he was for a while several years ago. I have not read his comments in some time now but he has toned it down considerably. He is just someone who seemingly believed that his registry of sacredcactus.com and sacredcacti.com meant he owned the name Sacred Cacti and he told me to change my name a really long time ago. I told him to get stuffed since I published a book by that name that predated his business and was not in conflict with his website. This is probably just his attempt at revenge or something. I had totally forgotten this even occurred when I first became aware of his personal attacks presented in the form of an online book review. Based on what little I can glean I figure he's potentially unbalanced and worth spending no time thinking about, interacting with or mentioning by name. You people out there are really nice but exaggerating. Please talk to people who know me -- of which there are many. I'll bet I've learned as much from friends while in Oz as vice versa. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Evil Genius Posted May 11, 2009 BCaapi, a few weeks ago we had another discussion about it! The only thing that bothers me is that the underlying personal issue was the reason to post that bullshit review! It had nothing to do with the actual book! But as its that obvious, it is not that of a Problem! That guy is just some angry dude. Life is full of em! bye Eg Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr b.caapi Posted May 11, 2009 BCaapi, a few weeks ago we had another discussion about it! The only thing that bothers me is that the underlying personal issue was the reason to post that bullshit review! It had nothing to do with the actual book! But as its that obvious, it is not that of a Problem! That guy is just some angry dude. Life is full of em! bye Eg Yeh, i kinda figured that. Sounds like there is a fair bit of jealousy happening. Meh ! let him whinge, no one is listening by the sounds of it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rizla Posted May 13, 2009 Anybody who does anything on this earth, in any field (music, art, ethnobotany, writing, sports, etc.) is fair game to be critiqued to shreds on the internet by anonymous people who have done nothing. I doubt KT is very bothered, other than the unbelievable rudeness of it all, but then, what else is new? If he worried about such people, how could he get anything done? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
t st tantra Posted May 13, 2009 i see one of the dangers of writing a book is that you can get tied up by it for the rest of your life.....even more so if on living and ever expanding topics such as trout works on. t s t . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
