Remember the theme song to the TV series Cheers? “You want to go where everybody knows your name.” Collecting moths with Joseph Scheer and Mark Klingensmith reminded me of that. Standing by a brightly lit white sheet in Mark’s yard was like being at a neighborhood bar—only the “regulars” were moths. These two guys have spent so much time collecting, preparing, and photographing moths over the past few years that they’re intimately familiar with their local species. They know which moths are likely to show up in what kind of weather, how the phase of the moon affects who’s likely to fly by, and which blooming plants will attract mothy attention. Occasionally an unfamiliar moth appears, and—just like at the neighborhood hang-out—the excitement produces a “buzz” of conversation about the newcomer—What’s the species? What family does it belong to? Will we see more examples? Hours passed, the moon dropped, and my knees got stiff, but the constantly shifting show on that white sheet never got boring.

The last day I was with Joseph in his studio, he pulled out a thick stack of prints and started searching through the pile, looking for a moth we had seen outside the night before—a big hairy creature in tones of cream and black and taupe. Each moth he flipped past was lovelier and less expected than the one before. Then he came to a sheet of paper that looked like some kind of elaborately printed cloth—a Liberty of London cotton or a very ornate Oriental carpet. It was all iridescent blue-green and glossy black, really gorgeous. Then I looked more closely and realized that I was looking at a huge mass of flies. Flies. You know, the nasty bugs that hang out around Dumpsters and crawl all over your picnic if you give them the chance? Yep. Those. EEEeeeeeeuuuuuwwwww!