Over the years, moths have been a recurring theme here at the DTAJLLJT? site, and so after forays into the Bee Gees, Kristen Johnston, and (of course) cheezy 70s publications, why not a page about moths? Thanks to various sundry incidents involving fluttery wee beasties, we have an excuse for a page adevoted to the moth (and a bat). Originally, moths became associated with the page thanks to a simple moth sighting, and grew into THREE stories, would you believe? So, let us famaliarize ourselves with Moth Story 1:
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Tia (Johnson) Lee: And what is the deal with a moth? I don't remember any flying around him [my brother], big or little. I'd love more info on that one. Lindsay and Keith: It happened like this: I (Lindsay) and my brother, Keith, had been debating the look-alike question for a while, and so when we both went to Melbourne (not the Melbourne in Australia, the one in Florida) to see Les Misérables we decided to settle the matter definitively by hanging around the back of the theatre afterwards. Which we did. We stood back a ways under a light and kept a lookout. Yeah, we're silly people, but it worked, in that we both decided that Todd Alan Johnson as Todd Alan Johnson doesn't look like John Travolta. While we were standing there, Keith also spotted a very big, very cool moth sitting on the wall next to where we were standing, doubtless attracted by the light. He pointed it out to me and both of us were very impressed by this neat moth. Later, when we related the story, and the results of our deliberations on the resemblance issue, to others who were associated with the site we got asked why we didn't say anything to Mr. Johnson (we're both kind of quiet that way), to which I replied, what were we going to say? "Hey! Mr. Johnson! Get a load of this moth!" And that's the story. Sort of anticlimatic, but I guess the thought of my brother and I yelling that to a stranger was amusing...to us, anyway. It was sort of a "you had to be there" situation. C'mon, picture what you would do if someone shouted that at you! |
...and Moth Story 2:
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Todd Alan Johnson: While waiting for a bus during a sudden downpour, I noticed a HUGE MOTH flopping around in a puddle in the street! I'm not really into animal rights, but I had to rescue this struggling bug from a truly ooky fate. After scooping it up and placing it on a wall in a nearby alcove where it would hopefully dry and fly, I returned to discover I'd unwittingly put the moth into a spider web! After performing a guilty second rescue I divorced myself from its destiny... but I often think of this whenever I'm tempted to get someone out of a jam will I truly help, or unwittingly put them into some fresh Hell? MORAL: Never Assume An Actor Wouldn't Be Interested In A Cool Moth. |
And now that we fully appreciate the serendipity and joy of Moth Stories, let us learn more about the moth from a bulleted list of random moth facts, for use with random moth pictures.
And now that we're bored of moths, let's look at another incident involving Todd Alan Johnson and another night-flying beastie. This comes from a voter, who had caught a TAJ performance of Jekyll & Hyde in New England, which, as we learn from Hawthorne's enduring American classic The House of Seven Gables and E.A. Poe short stories, is a darn creepy place. The third story:
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Site Vistor Beth, a.k.a. Shouting Pants: Ah, the bats. Since you ask, I will tell, although I fear some of the Drama may be lost in the telling! I shall have to begin with some Background. . . There was a time, not so very long ago, when the Theatre had no air conditioning. You may well gasp to learn this, and the cast and crew and audience of many a musical production certainly did gasp--and pant and sweat and fan themselves madly with their wilted programs. The heat of Those Summer Nights, (hmm...just can't escape John Travolta references, it seems. . .), was rendered even more sweltering by hundreds of spectators seated side by side by side from the orchestra to the balcony, to say nothing of the stage lights which are warm enough to elicit performance-perspiration even in an air-conditioned environment. It was therefore the practice of the theatre crew to leave the backstage doors open to let in some fresh air. However, fresh air did not often come unaccompanied. . . During a matinee, it was not uncommon to see assorted insects buzzing around, and the flies and bees and butterflies were occasionally followed inside by a small sparrow or finch in search of a late lunch. But in the nighttime, close on the wings of moths and millers who cannot resist the glow of a well-lighted stage, came the bats. Darting and dive-bombing from the shadows into the lights with a flash of leathery wings, the bats sought their supper to the alarm of audience and actor alike. Legend has it that some of these bats found this hunting ground so fruitful that they took up residence inside the theatre and so remain to this day, though I myself have not noticed them since the advent of the theare's central air system. Until this summer. . . The action taking place outside Henry Jekyll's laboratory, while compelling, was not of the sort to require audience exclamations and whisperings of dismay, nor did it call for frantic leaning to the left or right or sudden ducking of the head. And yet, for a moment, it seemed as if the entire audience had gone quite suddenly mad. Then I discerned the bats, perhaps three, flapping after the moths in the spotlights, squeaking and careening through the air above the now rather disturbed audience. The actors onstage carried on with their dialogue, seemingly unaffected despite one rather brazen bat's headlong path toward the curtains. So appropriate were the bats to the show's dark and gothic atmosphere that I wondered briefly whether the director had not, in fact, cast them in the company. As suddenly as they came, they were gone, returned to the realm of legend and stories by the stage door. The audience's reaction to the spectacle was unparalleled, at least until a later scene during which Todd Alan Johnson demonstrated his most impressive ablility to, in the words of his fellow thespian, "drool on cue." TAJ's Edward Hyde far surpassed the bats in elicitation of blood-chilling shivers. I still shudder to think of Mr. Hyde--so fantastically scary. So there you have it. A little anticlimactic, perhaps, but not without inspiration, for me, anyway. Bats became the theme of a presentation I did for a job interview. ~^^~ ~^^~ |
Even the mega-hit trilogy The Lord of the Rings dealt with a moth in the first of the three movies.
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Perhaps the most unusual "living prop" [in the movie the Lord of the Rings] was the gum emperor moth, which carries the message of Gandalf's captivity at Orthnac to Gwaihir the Eagle. "For reasons of animal welfare," explains Supervising Art Director Dan Hennah, "the scene had to be shot to coincide with the moth's life cycle. So we kept the larva in a cupboard with a hot-water tank until it was ready to hatch and, within just a few hours, we had filmed that stunning close-up of the insect in Gandalf's hands and the insect was released into the wild." |
And last, let's indulge in some random moth pictures...
Lindsay and Keith found this beauty in Mesa Verde, Colorado in the summer of 2001. It was sitting on the window of a dry cleaners. For a moth, it was looking pretty pleased with itself.
This slick fellow--very dapper for a moth--was sitting outside Stetson University's student newspaper's office.
And this moth was found in the same place. Note it's a scary-looking moth. Just look at that strange tail job....