Drone

It has been a rather hot Summer o' 2005 here in lovely Akron, Ohio. I leave the house early in the morning, when the day is still deceptively cool and I begin to harbor hopes for zephyrs and temperatures hovering in the mid-70s. But then I hear the unmistakable drone of cicadas and know we're in for another muggy day (makes for great tomatoes though, right?)

Last year I was fortunate enough to experience the emergence of the 17-year cicadas smack dab in the middle of cicada central--Northern Virginia. I was living on 26 wooded acres, spending my days wandering the clay roads, listening to lots of Iron + Wine and getting caught in the occasional summer thunderstorm. This may sound familiar to some of you.

One day my father was out mowing the septic field when he came across a cicada egg sac dangling from a tall blade of grass. Within a week, the roar of cicadas was deafening. There were several times where I was inside the house (with the hum of the air conditioner) listening to music on headphones and I could still hear the cicadas.

At several points I set up a microphone on the porch and recorded the sound, with the hope to use it in some sort of "organic rock" experiment, perhaps (hey, if yo la tengo can use crickets, I can use cicadas, darn it!)

In celebration of the cicadas, Web sites started featuring recipes (kind of like those Cricket Lick-It lollipops they sell at the Canton McKinley Museum or the Smithsonian gift shop). I have to admit that I was never struck by the desire to fricassee, barbeque or bread a cicada, but that may have been because I often found my parents' dogs rooting about in the yard and gobbling cicada larvae. These are the same animals who, during winter, were caught chowing down on what my mother delicately referred to as "poopsicles". Heathen animals...

One of my friends missed the cicadas and so I gathered up four buzzing "gifts", plopped them in a shoebox with some water and organic detritus and took them on a six hour road trip with me to Ohio.

Here's the evidence:


Currently spinning:
Billie Holiday ~ Billie Holiday Sings Standards