“We die of cold, and not of darkness.“–Unamuno
Hey–
The first frost is hell on moths. On window sills they lay, powdery and seized up, each a mirror of another after the killing frost.
The first frost is your for real, no-shit sign winter is here. In the Midwest, this means it gets dark at 4:30 (Daylight Savings0, to which I say, “What the fuck are we saving it for? And can I withdraw some when I need it?” Winter is a merciless bitch here; six months of gray layer-cake skies and ankle-high slush. Moths in late fall fly a desperate kind of flight; a trajectory against the dying of the light. I love autumn. For me, it is when things become more spare, simple and stripped-down. Nature bares its elemental shape, and lines and color take over. There is a tree across the street from where I write this that turns to a firey yellow and at night in the street lamps; you’d swear it was ablaze.
It is also the political season and I cannot bring myself to vote. I don’t believe any of those running of either party. They seem to be part of the aural wall-paper, the fuzz -laden white noise on televisions and radios I pass by. A cacophony of babbling assholes who promise public service and in the end serve themselves and their friends, as well as the particular party of mouth-breathing geeks they sallied forth from.
I used to think freedom demanded participation; that it was one’s duty to vote. I don’t think that anymore. When your choices are between the crabs and the clap, you can choose “none of the above” and leave me the fuck alone. I will deal with the consequence that one of these civic midgets will have an enormous amount of discretionary power over my life later. Don’t vote for these idiots; it only encourages them.
People will tell me that then I will get the government I deserve. Like I deserved Bush? I voted against him. No, this dodge doesn’t work on me. I don’t need to be part of the collection of hand-jobs out there pimping the bozo they LEAST hate. That is not democracy– that is picking at the fruit stand at the end of the season looking for the least fucked-up banana. This is choosing the leper with the most fingers and the prettiest scabs.
In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo is the cheese; the god of war, love, you name it he is the alpha-god. He is god of so many things, you wonder if it was all too heavy for him. You wonder if he ever told Zeus, “Fuck this. Give me a break. Let me kick back, drink some mead and score some goddess pussy. Would that be so bad?”
The Apollo moth is actually a butterfly. I turned it into a moth because I’m an artist and I can do whatever the fuck I want. The mating habits of the Apollo moth are hard on the female. The bug book describes a “saw-like” penis. Ouch. Well, sometimes it’s hard to be a woman.
What I love about them are the big bloody spots on their wings. I saw one of thse at ‘”Evolution,” a great natural history store in Manhattan on Spring Street in Soho. The kids who work there are enthusiastic and really helpful and knowledgeable and if they get the feeling you are genuinely interested in natural history, they will go to any length to help you out. My last day in New York, I needed a better source book for moths, and the last book they had was their display copy and they sold it to me anyway, which many natural history stores will NOT do. They could tell I was excited and showed me through their excellent collection of species in the drawers upstairs. This is my favorite store in New York. I got introduced to species I’d never seen in any of my books and learned a lot just in a cursory conversation with the young woman who showed me the moths. I’ve watched all of the Bug-Channel shows and there is never much about moths; they have a bad reputation among bugs.
There are silk moths in China and Taiwan that women hold in their mouths to keep them warm while they spin silk–these I have to find. I couldn’t believe this story. Moths are reviled the world over for their destructive appetite for paper and cloth; they are symbols of death and dessication.
They are also luminous and beautiful in a way that is scary and unnerving; like some art. They are a fun thing to draw because of the myriad of textures and patterns in a moth’s body. They are creatures of problematic definition and I love the fuckers. If you’ve never seen a luna moth shimmering in the evening light, well, then you are not completely alive yet.