Recently, I perused Trustee Tom Fuentes’ Form 700s—documents revealing the breadth and depth of The Great Republican’s income. The experience proved wacky and puzzling.
Among the more peculiar elements of this documentation was Mr. Fuentes’ mysterious status as advisor to the “Silvaard Institute of Natural History”—in, of all places, Coto de Caza, a gated and hated community.
I Googled the Institute. I found that it was associated with a Mr. Terry Singer, some kind of entomologist—a bug man—with a lurid interest in moths.
What does it all mean? Dunno.
Red Emma caught wind of Silvaard Institute and Fuentes’ advisory status there. He was overcome with imagination. He sent me the following.
A Night at the Museum
Eager to pursue your sudden if mysterious interest in
Lepidoptery you are chagrined to discover that courses in same are not offered by either of the district’s two colleges. If one wants to learn of butterflies and moths, a journey will be required. But where? Time spent late at night contemplating the SOCCCD itself soon reveals, not Lepidoptery, but, hark!, the fair and gentle figure of Serendipity. The newspaper story arrives, the fired official sings his lament on the AM talk radio program, copies of IRS declarations appear. It is late, but it is time to act!
Getting in the car, jumping on the toll road, finding your way through the misty darkness as if guided by instinct, hope, luck – all comely half-sisters of joyous Serendipity – holding a form in one hand and the steering wheel in your other, you arrive at a modest domicile in Coto de Caza, at 15 Oak Knoll, home (as it were) of something called the Silvaard Institute of Natural History where, indeed, the voice on the radio, that civil servant turned oracle, has promised you that you will find a trustee, an advisor, a former chairman, a board member.
Approaching the destination, the night sky is suddenly illuminated. You are nearly blinded by the light from a very, very large bulb on the roof of the house, an otherwise unremarkable South County mini-mansion but with a tiny Homeowner’s Association-approved banner hung outside its modest Ionian (or are they Doric?) columns reading “Welcome to the Moth Museum.”
And, yes, all variety of moths, attracted by the enormous bulb, flit and fly above the suburban home. You are no expert, but this is an impressive sight, and you recognize among the excited insects that most exotic of species, the Emperor Gum Moth, Opodiphthera eucalyupti, with its distinctive oval lower wing markings resembling the eyes of the very man you are here to see, one Thomas Fuentes, “consultant.” How odd, yet poetic, you think, that this self-disguising pattern on the back of the Emperor Gum Moth, developed out of evolutionary wit and necessity, should have formed, as if a mini-Shroud of Turin-style image, a perfect copy of the face of the elected official himself.
A figure steps from the shadows. Your docent, who resembles, eerily, the docent from other recent midnight visits – to the Claremont Institute, Pacific States University, Stanbridge College, the South County GOP Table Tennis Club and the Steven Frogue Society for the Preservation of Historical Accuracy – welcomes you. You cannot make out his face, hidden under the cowl of his dark robe. He stands holding a sheaf of papers which, on closer inspection, appear to be completed Schedule C, “Income, Loans & Business Positions California Form 700,” each bearing the address of this very locale, and the word “advisor” typed in the box titled: “Your Business Position,” and each form bearing the name of that very trustee of the South Orange County Community College District whose face appears on the moth, in the papers, and whose name you have heard spoken by the oracle.
“Thank you for coming,” says the man, hiding the papers in the sleeve of his impressive robe. “We have arranged for you tonight a remarkable show.” And, as if on cue, a swarm of even more of the amazing flying creatures arrives, circling and dodging around the museum’s rooftop, an awesome and inspiring sight.
Your docent points to the individual creatures as if, indeed, they are performing for him, for you, for all in the neighborhood, for the world and for all made credulous by such spectacle, as if, somehow the entire moment has been staged, with the cooperation of these unsentient, blind and eerily, elegantly clumsy creatures and the bright, bright light.
“There,” says your guide to you, and to this world of wonder, “is the White Witch moth, the Lepidopteran with the biggest wingspan in the world.”
And again, as if on cue, as if in a prearranged choreography constructed just for you, the giant moth swoops and dives. And as if that were still not enough, in seconds, arrives the Madagascan Sunset moth, considered to be one of the most impressive and beautiful Lepidoptera.
It is indeed a breathtaking sight, and you are impressed, amazed, stunned even to find not only a Museum of Moths here, of all places, in Coto de Caza, but a docent who has committed to volunteer his own time, indeed his night, his eye, his life, all in order to deliver to you this incredible sight. And, of course, it is always just fun to hear anybody, anywhere say “Lepidoptera.”
The show continues as a Death’s-head hawkmoth, associated with the supernatural, appears, soon followed by the Peppered moth, subject of a well-known study. The Luna moth. The Grease moth. There, out on the lawn, you see a display of God’s creatures, all drawn to the giant light bulb and, it seems, the soothing and confident summoning of the docent.
And you have not yet even been inside this amazing place, the Silvaard Institute of Natural History of Coto de Caza, South Orange County, California, USA, home of Orange County’s very own Moth Museum when you turn to find you are surrounded by others, a dozen companions similarly mesmerized, their eyes on the bulb. Alas, you find everyone is also covered in a fine dust, the wing-powder of the magnificent creatures’ flitting and flapping and consulting about between shadow and distance in the deep and dark sky.
Here, you think, dwells magic indeed. The docent, clutching again his sheaf of Forms 700, beams ecstatic. He pulls back his cowl, revealing himself at last. His own pale, round face, a wide smile, itself illuminating the scene, risks attracting the attention of the gentle giant insects, who will see themselves, their wings, in those eyes. The man’s face is brightness and clarity against the hollow dark.
“Step inside,” he says. And so, following him in, you pass through the columns, under the portico, and into the open doorway of this magnificent, holy and tax-deductible sanctuary. You wonder what fantastical and unbelievable revelations await. The heavy door slams behind you and, naturally, you awake from your dream.
Coda (de Caza)
A single moth flies, casting its shadow against the bare bulb of your decrepit office, its broken, lost journey to doom nearly ended. A stack of student papers remains, still on your desk, the hopeful if flawed record of a pedagogical journey to critical thinking and skepticism, intellectual curiosity and, you think, truth. Ah, you realize ruefully, it was only a dream. You pick up the essay resting on top and run a finger across its title page, tracing a line through the thin film of residue, detritus of what will soon be the creature’s demise. “T.F.,” you find yourself writing in the powder. You cannot help it. You have been, after all, to the Museum of Moths.
–Red Emma
NOTES:
Philippa Foot, Renowned Philosopher, Dies at 90 (New York Times)
