Baby Doll Bids Farewell To Buggin' Pal :: Monday, June 21, 2004
Atomic Books' famed Baby Doll does her best Queen Mum wave by way of letting one of Baltimore's few remaining geriatric cicadas know that it's time to get the heck off of her pudgy mitt and like, roll over.
How sad.
It Ain't Over 'Til It's Ovipositioned... :: Sunday, June 20, 2004
"Brood X Falls Into Silence"
"For Cicadas, The Party's Nearly Over."
Blah, blah, blah. And a hearty humph.
Sadly, it's not even geeky-hip any longer to be cicada-savvy. "Yo, pops, those bugs are so yesterday," says the sneering bagboy at the supermarket. And even Mrs. Cicada Fear is venturing outside once again with tentative impuny.
Sure, up in the high frontier of Baltimore's treetops, the action has switched from the Playboy Channel to Discovery Health. But the facts remain, dear reader--the Great Emergence of 2004 is still a quieter, happening thing.
While the now-silent boy bugs are dropping like, well, flies, the female cicadas are hard at work, putting on a veritable Eggstock in the surrounding branches and bushes. You'll just have to take CICADA FEAR's word for it. We are down with the bugs.
Slicing open small tender branches with their Swiss Army ovipositors, she-cadas everywhere have been laying eggs in these grooves--up to 600 eggs per insect. And then the magic of Nature begins (cue cheesy music and slideshow)...
(c) Gay Williams
Within the shelter of the split stems, new life begins to stir. Ding.
(c) Gay Williams
Inside the cicada eggs, a new generation prepares to make the first of their two critical appearances. (cue kettle drums of Also Sprach Zarathustra.) Ding.
(c) Gay Williams
The tiny cicada peeps appear, no bigger than a grain of rice and with nowhere to go but down. Ding.
(c) Gay Williams
The next Brood X larvae takes their place in entomological history in the oddest way possible, by doing a nosedive off their branch down to the ground below, landing beneath the tree on the soil where their parents clambered out only a few weeks earlier. There, the little guys dig down, down, down below the frostline to put a liplock on a nourishing root, and begin their 17-year dirt nap.
Poetic, ain't it?
It's a Brood X Party, Y'All! :: Thursday, June 17, 2004
Our dream date was waiting for us.
OK, so CICADA FEAR's been out and around these days, checking out the mounting piles of whupped Magicicada...
"Say goodnight, Gracie."
...plus trees flagged to a fair-thee-well.
Just take a little off the side.
But it's not all bad karma. Last Tuesday, we received an exclusive invitation to attend a special cicada soiree by our own Deep Cicada, Maryland's head entomologist, Gaye Williams.
So imagine our surprise when we pulled up at the Department of Agriculture's Annapolis offices to find the entrance under guard by a enormous pair of cicowdas--what happens when highly stimulated bugs get loose in the barn.
Talk about good bovines gone bad.
Unnerved but undaunted, CICADA FEAR soldiered on to the appointed place and hour, where we were greeted by the greatest gaggle of bug-lovers we've hung with so far. Of course, there were some questionable strangers in the crowd...
Can you spot the party crasher?
...But overall, everyone (considering what was going on in the branches over our heads) was on their best behavior.
CICADA FEAR listened to tributes, poems, and even some impromptu cicada calling. (Fortunately, no one answered.) But the punaise de resistance had to be the the Ms. Conviviality contest, which ended in a three-way tie...
"I wish they all could be Ci-Cicada Girls!"
It was all shy little CICADA FEAR could have hoped for--and more. We chugged one more glass of bug juice and scarfed down a questionably crunchy brownie before bidding our ento-hostess with the mostest goodbye...
Ms. Gaye Williams, Maryland's chief entomologist (note friendly 'cada on hat).
Thanks, Gaye--and bug voyage!
We Heart Cincinnati! :: Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Hey, no hard feelings, Cincy readers. We feel your pain. If grumpy old CICADA FEAR has a bone to pick with our local newspaper (hmmm, with its incredible shrinking staff, it may be gone before the cicadas--oops!), well, we shouldn't take it out on our sister cicada burg. After all, weren't they featured on last weeks's CBS Sunday Morning with Bill Giest? Wasn't Cincy cicada 'splainer Dr. Gene Kritsky interviewed? Heck, they're even performing a cicada musical out there!
And just to prove that their hearts are as big as the great Midwest, ace Cincy photographer Carin Rhoden sent CICADA FEAR the lovely postcard above. And we think we have it tough. Ours are only as big as trucks...
FLASH! Sun Covers Cincinnati Cicada Site, Ignores Us :: Friday, June 11, 2004
So what else is new? After all, it's much more interesting to write about some Buckeye bozos hawking cicada stiffs in boxes for $5.95 than to offer massive props to the pearly prose of homey CICADA FEAR.
Talk about "Slight for all!"
Poor bitter old CICADA FEAR. Sniff. Sigh.
"Celebrate The Nymph Within!" Uh-Huh. ::
Featuring the Largest Cicada In Captivity!
Hu-ray, hu-ray--this just in from Dick "Is That An Antler In Your Forehead" Horne, formidable proprietor of Baltimore's own curious cabinet of wacko wonders, the American Dime Museum:
Celebrate the Cicadas!
with the
American Dime Museum
June 11
7:30-9:30 pm
Make cicada eye googlers!
Join our cicada band!
Sing cicada songs!
Draw cicada pictures!
Enjoy cicada cacophony!
Come dressed as a cicada and win prizes!
Celebrate the nymph within!
Enjoy the wonder of nature!
Enjoy exchanging bug stories with your friends while touring one of
America's most unusual museums! Admission to this once-every-seventeen year event is absolutely free for all!
American Dime Museum
1808 Maryland Avenue
Baltimore MD 21201
410 230 0263
CICADA FEAR is so there.
Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back? ::
Among the many strange side effects of billions of libidinous bugs descending (well, actually ascending) on our fair burg is the velocitizing of the ol' rumor mill. As recently reported in the local press, the gossip flashed from stoop to stoop, confirmed by an unimpeachable source (a next-door neighbor's uncle's son-in-law who knows someone who heard it on the bus from the scientist in charge), that the august Johns Hopkins University was peeling a cool grand off of their roll for anyone who could capture and deliver the rare, elusive blue-eyed cicada.
You know, sorta like this one:
(c) Gaye Williams
For what purpose the University wanted such mutant cicadas had only been hinted at darkly--something about Lord Cthulhu and an eldritch book called the Necronomicon--but by deploying its secret network of black-ops P.R. consultants, Hopkins quickly masterminded a cover-up based on plausible deniability upon the pliable public.
"Our initiative was never predicated by the belief one way or the other in the prior presence of BECs," demurred one spokesperson.
Not to mention the silver-eyed variety:
(c) Gaye Williams
Okay, okay, so ol' CICADA FEAR is just joshing you a smidge. But in fact, according to our sources, some Baltimoreans now actually believe that spreading sand around their homes and plants will ward off cicadas. This new tidbit of cracked folklore is apparently due to a recent set of promotional ads for Ocean City, MD, claiming that cicadas "don't like our sandy soil." Sheesh.
But to all you fortune-hunters out there, don't let CICADA FEAR's pishing and boshing deter you. With the numbers of Magicicada buzzing about, other exotic specimens are sure to turn up.
"Cicada. Cicada very much."
While you're at it, keep your hawkeye peeled for Hoffa, Earhart, and Judge Crater varities.
Reincarnation--it's soooo unfair.
Mo' Music! Mo' Music! :: Wednesday, June 09, 2004
"Hi, I'm with the band."
Oh moi of little brain! No sooner does CICADA FEAR pontificate publicly of the paucity of cicada songs, when the muthaload (well, eleven) pop up here on CF Central's desktop--from our friends at NPR's "All Songs Considered."
Included in the mix is Brood X, mentioned here earlier, and our current favorite by the mysterious Duane, whose song "Cicadas Invadin' My Yard" bears a passing resemblance to another tune. We got happy feets now!
All together now, "Oooooooooooh, ci-ca-das..."
A Time-Life Series Is In Production As We Speak... :: Monday, June 07, 2004
Remember those golden cicada ballads of the 80s? Well, maybe not, but if you're hot to foxtrot to a new generation of cicada songs (other than the incessant screeching outside), here's CICADA FEAR's Top Two (well, actually the only two we could find):
This electronica number from George Fox actually uses cicada chorusing as part of its rhythm track. It has a nice bug-beat and you can dance to it.
Our second pick has the improbable title of "The Cicada CD - The 17 Year Itch: Mating Songs of Cincinnati USA." Available through YPCincy.com, the Young Professionals network of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, this five-song comp features cicada tunes by a Bluegrass/Country band, a Blues/Jazz/New Age - Funk/R&B - Reggae/World band, a DJ/Electronic - Hip Hop/Rap band,and a Alternative/Indie - Hard Rock/Metal - Pop/Rock - Punk/Ska band. Hmmm--guess that about covers it.
Rock on, little cicada dudes! (As if they're not already...)