Cicada ManiaA few of you might have noticed the film crew following me around the Cicada Mania festival. They filmed me at the festival, as well as back in Jersey — a once in a life time (or maybe once in 17 years) experience. The news cast aired yesterday in Japan, but you might be able to see it on a show called “Morning Eye” in North America.
Here is the final news story:
Roy Troutman, Gerry Bunker and Joe Green also appear in the video.
Composite photo by Joyce Dinello, La Grange Park, IL. Contact Joyce at joycedinello@sbcglobal.net.
It’s the Lake County Forest Preserves Cicada Mobile!
Dana Holmes photographed this cicada at the Pug Party this Saturday in Chicago. I can’t identify the species — can you???
A few fishing lure manufacturers make cicada shaped lures, leveraging the fact that fish, especially big fish, will eagerly consume cicadas that fall into water. A cicada struggling on the surface of the water is like a dinner bell to hungry perch and bass.
Fishing and cicada enthusiasts should consider buying one of these novelty lures.
Check out the CicadaCicadaCiada rapp by Soul-gers on the Mic (MySpace Music). You’ll notice that they use real cicada sounds in place of instruments in the song — pretty cool!
Somebody asked for a picture of a cicada they can color with Crayons. Here you go: Magicicada Coloring Sheet PDF. You need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it on Windows, and Macs will display it without an extra plug-in.
Here’s what it looks like when you print it out:
One of the fun things about large 17-year cicada emergences like Brood XIII is the pop culture that emerges from the imaginations of inspired cicada maniacs: people write and record songs, perform plays and musicals, make independent films, paint paintings, wake websites, etc.
Today we got an email from a song writer named Gregg who has a song called the Cicada Lover song that he recorded 17 years ago. It’s back, Cicada 2.0 style.
My name is Gregory Paul. I thought you might be interested in this website: www.cicadalover.com.
This is a song that I originally wrote and recorded 17 years ago. Kelly Clark sang it then, too. We were both just getting started in the Chicago theater scene. Since then, we’ve both gone on to do a lot of shows at various theaters around the city but this is the first time we’ve worked together again since the 1990 recording. Cicada Lover was played on the local radio stations then and was a popular number on the Dr. Demento show.
We just re-recorded the new version (we call it Cicado 2.0) last week to celebrate the imminent return of the 17-year-locusts to Chicago.
People have started asking for Brood XIII shirts and other stuff like mugs and pillows, so I made them. The cicadas will be in the ground for about 2 months but the shirts are here. I recommend that you don’t buy one unless you see (and hear) the actual cicadas. Otherwise it’s like wearing a Bahamas t-shirt without ever going there. 🙂
Weird Meat: Cicadas in Jinan. Weird Meat is a blog about non-Western food (no cows and chickens) like cicadas. Check it out.
So minutes later, we had a huge plate of fried bugs. I’d say about a hundred of these little bite-size insects were deep-fried crispy. Everyone liked them. Even my friend Boya from Texas, usually not as adventurous a diner, enjoyed them.