Buzz
DAY 1
Pollinator, troubadour, and butterfly champion embarks on 2,000-mile bicycle journey
Sowing milkweed next to the LA River
Milkweed and Monarchs and Alex Last fall, Alex Wand (Music MFA 12) loaded up his bicycle with two panniers containing 5 pounds of milkweed seeds and set out on a magical 2,000-mile journey from his home in Los Angeles to Michoacán, Mexico. Wand, who is a composer and songwriter, was following the migratory path of the monarch butterfly, which starts in Canada, passes over Los Angeles, travels through Arizona, parts of New Mexico and Texas, and ends in Michoacán, to the west of Mexico City. He planned to plant milkweed—which monarchs depend on—along the way. His family, worried about his safety, had pleaded with him not to go. But he felt a kind of magnetism drawing him south, not unlike the biological magnetic compass that guides the insects to Michoacán. Wand’s interest in the monarch butterfly, which has been in massive decline in recent years, was piqued by Staying with the Trouble by Donna Haraway, a book that explores the ecological destruction of the earth and challenges the way we think about the future. Within the pages is a science fiction tale, “The Camille Stories: Children of Compost,” that inspired Wand’s trip. “The protagonist, Camille, lives a life that is entwined with the monarch butterfly by planting milkweed and working with people on the monarch’s migratory corridors to protect this threatened critter,” says Wand. “I was inspired by Camille and decided to live out my own real-life version of this fictional story.” His bike was a logical choice for transporting him on the odyssey, because it would allow him to closely follow the butterfly’s path at a 10
CalArts Alumni Magazine
DAY 2
Biking next to the I-5: “The bike path for some reason was closed at Camp Pendleton.”
DAY 10
“Somewhere in a quiet Phoenix suburb.”
DAY 21
Marathon, Texas: “A local gives me the phone number of a woman who might have a place for me to stay.”
DAY 23
