Susan Orlean :
Hi. I'm looking for John Laroche.
Matthew Osceola :
Hi.
Susan Orlean :
Hi. I'm writing an article
on John, and I stopped by.
Hoped I could see him.
Matthew Osceola :
John's not here.
Susan Orlean :
Oh. Well, you were at The Swamp
with him, weren't you?
Saw you at the courthouse,
that's how I know.
Matthew Osceola :
I'm Matthew Osceola.
Susan Orlean :
Susan Orlean. Nice to meet you.
Maybe I could talk to
you for a second.
I'm just trying to get a feel
for the whole operation...
Matthew Osceola :
You have very beautiful hair.
Susan Orlean :
…Thank you very much.
Thank you. I just...
I just washed it this morning.
I just used a new conditioner.
Matthew Osceola :
I can see Your Sadness.
It's lovely.
Susan Orlean :
....Well, I'm just tired, that's all.
That's my problem.
So maybe we could chat a little bit,
and I could get some background...
Matthew Osceola :
I'm not going to
talk to you much.
It's not personal.
It's The Indian way.
John Laroche :
Angraecum sesquipedale. Beauty!
God! Darwin wrote about this one.
Charles Darwin?
Evolution guy? Hello?
You see that nectary down there?
Darwin hypothesized a moth
with a nose 12 inches long
to pollinate it.
Everyone thought he was a loon.
Then, sure enough, they found
this moth with a 12-inch proboscis.
"Proboscis" means nose, by the way.
I know what it means.
Hey, let's not get off the subject.
This isn't a pissing contest.
The Point is, what's so wonderful is that
all these flowers have a specific relationship
with the insect that pollinates it.
There's a certain orchid looks exactly like a certain insect.
So The Insect is drawn to This Flower, its double,
its soul mate, and wants nothing more
than to make love to it.
After The Insect flies off,
it spots another
soul-mate flower
and makes love to it,
pollinating it.
And neither The Flower
nor The Insect
will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking.
How could they know that because of
their little dance, The World lives?
But it does. By simply doing
what they're designed to do
something large
and magnificent happens.
In this sense, They show Us
How to Live.
How the only barometer
you have is Your Heart.
How when You spot
Your Flower,
You can't let anything
get in Your Way.
He's really quite a character.
No front teeth.
Doesn't seem to bother him at all.
Why doesn't he get them fixed?
It seems almost Sociopathic
to make everybody look at that.
Yeah, but he gives a great blowjob, honey.
He is a fascinating character, though.
Sounds like a gold mine, Sue.
Susan Orlean :
It could be. I don't know, you know?
He's, uh...
He lives with his dad, he's obsessed
with his dead mother, and...
He wears his sunglasses on a little
dingle-dangle around his neck.
Loving it. Tell them about the van.
Okay, the van. The van.
Susan Orlean :
I can't tell about the van. I gotta pee.
No, tell us about the van.
It's amazing. It's...
What's in it?
You did it in the van.
Susan Orlean :
Shut up. David, you tell...
Don't you tell them. Don't tell them.
Okay, the van. David!
This van was filled with junk...
Susan Orlean :
Shut up!
Potting soil. Shovels.
Food wrappers. Fertilizer.
Susie said she hoped it was fertilizer, anyway.
Said she couldn't be sure.
Laroche had a certain aromatic look about him. And she said...
She said perhaps his obsessiveness
didn't leave room in his schedule
for personal hygiene.
Maybe the orchids got all the available water.
Susan Orlean :
I wanted to want something
as much as people wanted these plants.
But... it isn't part of my constitution.
I suppose I do have one unembarrassed passion.
I wanna know what it feels like
to care about something passionately.
"Should one be lucky enough to see a ghost orchid, all else will seem eclipsed."
If the ghost orchid was really a phantom,
it was such a bewitching one
that it could seduce people to pursue it
year after year and mile after miserable mile.
If it was a real flower, I wanted to see one.
The reason wasn't that I love orchids.
I don't even especially like orchids.
What I wanted was to see this thing
that people were drawn to in such
a singular and powerful way.
Susan Orlean :
So how many turtles did you end up collecting?
John Laroche :
Oh, I lost interest right after that.
Susan Orlean :
Oh.
John Laroche :
I dropped turtles when I fell in love with Ice Age fossils. Collected the shit out of them.
Fossils were the only thing
that made sense to me
in this fucked-up world.
I ditched fossils for resilvering old mirrors.
My Mom and I had the largest collection of 19th-century Dutch mirrors on the planet.
Perhaps you read about us.
Mirror World, October '88?
I got a copy here somewhere.
Susan Orlean :
I guess I'd just like to know
how you can detach from something that
you've invested so much of your soul in.
I mean, didn't you ever miss turtles?
The only thing that made
your 10-year-old life
worth living?
John Laroche :
Look, I'll tell you A Story, all right?
I once fell deeply, you know,
profoundly in love with tropical fish.
I had 60 goddamn fish tanks in my house.
I'd skin-dive to find
just the right ones.
Anisotremus virginicus, Holacanthus ciliaris,
Chaetodon capistratus.
You name it.
Then one day I say, "Fuck fish.
I renounce fish.
I vow never to set foot
in that ocean again.”
That's how much "Fuck fish."
That was 17 years ago, and I have
never since stuck a toe in that ocean.
And I love the ocean.
Susan Orlean :
But.... why?
John Laroche :
Done with fish.
Susan Orlean :
If you'd really loved something,
wouldn't a little bit of it linger?
Evidently Laroche's finishes
were downright and absolute.
He just moved on.
I sometimes wished
I could do the same.
