Visitation

(c) riverwindphotography, September 2022

comma butterfly (polygonia sp.), probably satyr comma (p. satyrus) or hoary comma (p. gracilis) - 05/08/2023

“Hoary. H-O-A-R-Y. As in light gray?!”

“Do you really think someone named a butterfly ‘whorey comma’? How could that even be possible?”

Found in Big Lake, Alaska- very active so this was the closest I could get for a photo. If it helps with ID, this dude was a lot smaller than the mourning cloak butterflies in the area

It’s a comma, either a green comma or a hoary comma, but they can be hard to tell apart without a very close look at the other side of the wings! But either way they are a friend and that’s what matters :)

Hoary Comma RMNP, CO 10 July 2018

1834 July Tuesday 29th

No kiss Very fine morning - F71° at 8 breakfast at 8 1/2 - off in caleche taking both the servants at 9 3/4 - fine drive - the valley of Chambery enclosed by fine Salève-like but wooded mountains very fine - the Deut de Nivolet a bare hoary limestone head a striking object in its own right -

enter Aix at 11:10 - at the roadside near Gressy at 11:38 walked down a little way to the corn and rape oil mill in whose premises is the famous cascade - very little water - the limestone rock left bare so that we could well see the holes into which it is water worn - 10th June, 1813 there was merely a plank over the whole (14 feet deep) in which Madame la baronne de Broc was lost - now there is a good step ladder over it with a rail on each side, and no danger at all - merely a cottage near the roadside where we alighted and a swarm of children tormenting us with who should shew us to the cascade - the cliffs down which the waterfalls into a sort of basin below the mill very pretty now - must be very much so, and fine when the water is in abundant foaming and gushing in on all sides -

off from Gressy at 12 and at Port Puer on the lake der Bourget in 22 minutes – a boat just putting with a Lyons tradesman and his wife and child and bonne, so that we were embarked and off at 12:25 - in 36 minutes halfway and landed at Hautecombe at 1:53 - Lake 4 lieues by 1 - 466 feet deep about the middle over against St Innocent which belongs or did formerly to the Marquis de St Innocent the fisherman of all the towns on the lake take it of government at for 500 francs a year paid quarterly - 2 trout caught the other day weighing 25lbs each, were 5 francs a lb! The dead to be buried at Hautecombe are embarked at a village above St Innocent, at Brison a village of 26 houses - the lake shut in East and West by high calcerous, hoary, wooded mountains in the style of Annecy, and north by the castle topped conical mountain of Châtillon, and south by the distant snow-striped mountains of Montmélian and Dauphiné – Hautecombe about 2/3 up the lake on the west is a fine large building - on the same side seeming about midway between there and Aix is the vaunted dent du chat - the wind a little against in going but the water very smooth - Ann rather frightened but behaved very well - the water was smooth has glass both ways particularly in return - on landing wanted to buy some fish for one of the boats - Lavaret's (salmo Lavaratus, Linneus) weighing 1lb each asked 4 francs a piece and would only come down to 3/75 so did not buy any - the boatman said they would sell them at 3 each at Aix -

many strangers at the convent - 10 white monks of Saint Bernard or Benoit - went immediately to the church several people there – a monk explaining - found him very civil - the church will be done in November - all the sculpture done in pierre de Syssel (the quarry in France) part of the territory of Savoy said the monk and which looked so exactly as if it had been white-washed that we thought it was till convinced to the contrary - the fine fresco - painting - the church and Palace done by Vacca of Turin comma the sculpture very good by Caracciatori of Carrara - went into his atelier - said there were 60 ateliers in Carrara - they there had a good deal of sculpture there ready done - the natural size whole length figure 3000 francs each - the church very handsome -

the palace merely a good house but remarkable for its fine fresco plafonds by Vacca the view from one of the windows over the lake to the south very fine - beautiful lake the last five generations of the House of Savoy (excluding the Last King Charles Felix buys a special desire) buried in the Superga at Turin - about 25 of this house buried at Hautcombe - saw the little Chapel of St Andre with its modern thin octagonal second brick tower, to serve as a sort of pharos to the lake - the wind of this tower painted beautifully by the German artist of Berne in Switzerland - about 2 years ago some political letters or papers found in his possession that he was threatened with prison and went to Lyons having his brother behind him to fulfil his engagements as an artist - but the matter is now likely to be settled, and the artist to return to Berne he has still 3 windows to paint for the chapel –

at 4:35 went to the house of the concierge du palace and begged the favour of being to take our luncheon there- all the other people dined sur l’herbes - off to the Fountain at 4 1/4 and there in 7 minutes dragging Ann after me, though they said we should be 20 minutes in going - hardly any water - too little to shew the intermittent nature of the spring - but glad to have gone on account of the view of the head off the lake - by the canal from there to the Rhone said we could go to Lyon in three days - walked some little distance beyond the fountain and sauntered back in 1/4 hour - the Lyons people had waited 1/2 hour for us - re embarked and off at 4:47 - cooler - merely a nice breath of air - the beautiful blue lake so smooth as glass

landed at Port Puer at 5:49 single house merely an auberge, and little landing place - paid 3 per person for a voyage and off again in our caleche (the man had taken his horses and dined at Aix) for Aix at 5:58 alighted at the Chateau at 6:13 just in time - the forebed of the carriage was broken that another instead and the horses and fore wheels would have left us in the lurch - saw the handsome new salle de danse joined onto the chateau- and the library one wall of which is left in its old state to show the larger uncemented stones of the Roman temple of Diana - the adjoining building now converted into a Theatre was the temple - we went behind and underneath the scenes and saw the old Roman style of building - then not knowing what to do with ourselves turned into the court of the house of les demoiselles de Vernay, lent to several families - walked in the nice garden - should be very well there and living from a traiteur -

at last thought of the booksellers shop in the place - amused there looking at prince and books - bought two different Aix guides – off from Aix at 7 3/4 and home at 9 1/4 - dined at 9:50 - very fine day and evening F 73° at 11:00 pm

https://www.naturevisionsboutique.com/products/macro-butterfly-art-nature-photography-hoary-comma-butterfly-on-flowers-fine-art-print

via https://www.pinterest.com/pin/864550459688829861/

Stewart Lee (yes, yes, I know I'm predictable) writes about a French clowning tradition where, when performing before a church, they would draw a chalk circle, what he compared to inverted commas, to protect them from accusations of blasphemy and so on. In some ways it was a Brechtian technique - “Within this circle I'm a clown acting as a bishop, I'm not a blasphemous man claiming to be the bishop himself.” That kind of thing.

I think the battle for stand-up's soul comes from a debate over the nature of those quotation marks. We are estranged from what we do on stage, and it has a lot of different effects on different people. In the chalk circle we become our own caricatures, comics who are sweet in their real lives unleashing torrential invective and comics who are merely anxious in their real lives articulating the most impossible insecurities. Richard Pryor at his best used the chalk circle of comedy to become more authentic, to talk about experiences that were impolite in other circumstances.

Language is a curious thing. It can be used to perform actions - to thank, to promise, to legislate. But it is also so weak that it allows lies. You can lie as easily as tell the truth. Physical actions resist deceit - it is a talented magician indeed who can walk to the left while appearing to walk to the right. Language, however, takes much less training.

And this is a big part of the debate around comedy: Does the chalk circle encourage and reward lies, or does it make them meaningless? I know the “rape joke” debate is hoary and tired but it’s about so much else. Many comedians think of themselves as the Freudian id, uttering unutterably cruel things about helpless people. This is cowardice, but many people steamroll over the subtle aspects of the debate.

The ultimate question about material that a blogger might inarticulately settle for calling “problematic” boils down to asking to what extent is a man, on a stage, “in quotes,” so to speak, responsible for his material? Men with no necks will talk until they are red in the face (which happens quickly - they keep talking for a while thereafter) about how something cruel is “just a joke” and therefore somehow unassailable.

If a comic does ten minutes about what races are bad and why, does he mean that? And does his intent matter if people in the audience are hurt - or worse, if no one is hurt, but many feel empowered to hurt others in the future? Do we blame the clown within the circle, or the man within the clown? There are two answers there, and whichever you think is right, you will tend to think the other answer leads to fascism. (And in both cases you’re right, of course - ours is a species struggling on many fronts with the fantasy of an authoritarian father).

Comedians don’t generally think of themselves as theater people, but they could do well to adopt a theatrical respect for the stage. The chalk circle, in any form, is still a sacred space, and the artificiality of the inverted commas somehow makes it more sacred. To say a rape joke is meaningless because it was shouted from the safety of a magic circle is to summon the ire of every god your theater honors.

Hoary Comma #butterfly #colorado #spring (at University of Colorado Boulder)

A Hoary Comma rests on Mountain Bluebells, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

(c) riverwindphotography, July 2023

Mundane Magic.

Kinking comma: night

splicing day to shine

with the blaring white

of your onion eyes. Nine

AM. Dissolving dream’s sheen

in curdled mint; cold

marble slabs between

threadbare gold/ emerald

polyester. Shadows shrink

flaming coaled hollow

glare. Prepare to drink

tea, cold, to follow

hot breath; hoary sea

of rushed goodbyes, still

slippery with agony,

sleepy. Then I will

whisper with ocean sighs

that…

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Hoary Comma

A delicate Hoary Comma (Polygonia gracilis) sips nectar from wild geranium, Beartooth Range, Wyoming

(c) riverwindphotography, July 2022

A Hoary Comma pollinates wild geranium, Beartooth Range, Wyoming

(c) gif by riverwindphotography, July 2022

@phoebastria​ submitted: Went hiking at my favorite butterfly hunting spot yesterday! Milbert's tortoiseshell, green (?) comma, and a mourning cloak that was super nice and let me get a bunch of close-ups. (Alaska)

Oooh some great friends! Including a snow friend, now fun. Definitely a Milbert’s tortoiseshell. Green commas and hoary commas can be difficult to tell apart without a close look, so I can’t confirm or deny that one. Certainly you’re right that the last one is a mourning cloak, though! Love how camouflaged the ventral side of their wings are. Thanks for sharing!

Found this friend in Fairbanks, Alaska over the summer. Looked like some kind of comma but I couldn’t find a good guide- do you have any resource recommendations for people trying to learn to identify insects? (I know that’s a super broad ask so no worries if not)

I have this field guide and it’s great for the most common species and talks about the basics of identifying each group of bugs plus where you’ll find them.

So if you like having a physical book, I’d recommend that one. It’s a great starting place - once you can recognize basic characteristics it’s easy to have a starting place to use google or iNaturalist.

And I can’t recommend iNaturalist enough! You can narrow your search by location and bug group - you could make it as wide a search as arthropoda or insecta or narrow it down to a genus, like Polygonia for comma butterflies, and then view photos to compare your bug to. Very very useful! And the more bugs you look at, the easier it gets.

Anyway yours looks like a green comma but could very well be a hoary comma - they both have huge variations in markings and there’s a lot of overlap. The best way to distinguish if it’s a green comma is by looking at the undersides of the wings, which we can’t see in your photo. They will have sort of a mossy greenish-color to the submarginal bands, which is difficult to see in photos regardless. Here’s a decent picture, though:

Photo by imbeaul

Anyway hope that was helpful! Thanks for sharing your butterfly!