In 2025 I started off with the idea of making the biggest cart in Idiotarod history–bigger than the 15 foot span of our 2019 raven’s folding wooden-and-black-lace wings. My good friend and teammate John H. had pitched the idea of making something inflatable, and I pored over my long list of ideas, trying to come up with something that suited. The best one for inflatables, I figured, was a butterfly idea, but it didn’t feel right. I wanted something dark and weird, something that felt like the place my heart was in after a tumultuous couple of years. I had a vision of a moth – but who would want to follow a moth?
I asked teammates for input, but nobody felt strongly about anything particular. I felt lost, and the moth, confused and reaching desperately toward any light source, crystallized as the only possible way to communicate what I felt. The Death’s Head Moth became my muse, and I doubled down. As I drew up the plans, the scale became almost comical.
MOTH, or “Mothy,” as he became known to the team, indeed turned out to be twenty feet wide and ten feet tall when mounted in the shopping cart. We had to use an extra-wide cart to contain his plush-covered, wire mesh body that housed fans and a portable power supply. We had to steer around street trees and signposts to keep his fuzzy antennas unharmed. His disco-ball eyes bugged out wide as he “chased” the lamp that jutted from the front of the cart like a proverbial carrot on a stick.
By far, Mothy’s most impressive feature is his wings. Made from 22 square yards of nylon ripstop and hand painted by diligent teammates, Mariel Z, Lauretta P and yours truly, they span 20 feet across when fully inflated. When in transit, we enjoyed the feature of deflating Mothy’s wings and wrapping them around his body like a cocoon. We also had the option of securing them back behind him or having an “operator” on each wing to puppeteer them as needed.
But–spoiler alert–we won! And we couldn’t have done it without incredible support and performance on the part of every teammate. Mothy was followed by a cult-like eclipse of teammates in moth costumes, each bearing a handmade instrument, some sort of drum or percussion or flute. A few supporting characters were also along for the journey. A Jesus lookalike wore a human-sized moth-eaten gold toe and called himself “The Holey Sock.” An exterminator cheerfully squirted wine from her pump sprayer into offered cups as the moths let everyone know to be careful because “too much of that stuff will kill you.” A tall, shady lamp was always lurking around with baggies of wool and christmas light bulbs pinned to the inside of his trench coat, letting everyone know the first one was free. Our “willing captive” simply cut pieces off the merino sweater he was wearing to feed us.
Our audience, made of “competitors,” judges and passers-by were offered cookies made to resemble sweaters, moth balls made of any small, round food item we could find, bug juice from the exterminator and other delights. Moths could often be found nibbling wool yarn and worshipping the lamp. They became entranced by any light or fire source in their vicinity.
It is customary to destroy carts at the end of the Idiotarod, but MOTH was preserved in hopes that we may find the right time and place for him to fly again.