May 14, 2007

I'm coming up so you better get this party started. Everything you ever wanted to know about Brood XIII. And then some.
posted by moko jono 17 years ago
  • How the hell do you say that? Is is Kicadas, or Sicadas? I must know.
  • The sequel Revenge of the Killer Wasps: Chitin Fightin' is pretty out there too.
  • You say cicada I say cicada
  • That video was pretty disturbing, with the Enya music in the background.
  • *opens beer, sits on porch, waits for sweet sweet evening serenade*
  • BUT HOW DO YOU SAY IT???
  • "Sicada". I think that if the mating ritual of the cicada was scored by Enya, instead of sounding like a thousand nails on chalkboards, we would anticipate this event with great delight, much as we do the migration of the monarch butterflies. Likewise, if LA Story had been scored by mating cicadas, it would have been a much more compelling film.
  • Is there NO way we can exterminate these evil creatures? Some virulent pesticide we can sink into the ground that will throttle these abominations in their hideous sleep? Some army of insectile murderers we can train to this task and marshal into the cicada's filthy dens, to jab and envenom and strangle? No awful technology, no lasered lance, that will let us peer into the very earth and incinerate these horrors 'ere they crawl, sightless and foetid, upward and invade our verdant lands with the grating burr of their demons' wings, the grasping cling of their talons, the miasmic glurt of their stepped-on guts? Is there NOTHING we can do to end this repugnance, for ourselves and our children's children's children, and all mankind, indeed all hale creatures that walk atop the ground??
  • Speaking as a member of the family Cicadidae, superfamily Cicadoidea, of the infraorder Cicadomorpha, suborder Auchenorrhyncha and order Hemiptera, of the class Insecta of the phylum Arthropoda of the Animalia kingdom; I'd just like to tell you Homo sapiens of the genus Homo of the family Hominidae of the order Primates of the class Mammalia of the phylum Chordata of the kingdom Animalia: "fuck you".
  • ...sounding like a thousand nails on chalkboards... ...invade our verdant lands with the grating burr of their demons' wings... You're a bunch of goddamn philistines, that's what you are.
  • Goddamn philistines who say "Sicada" when it's "Chicada".
  • I say kick 'arder, cos I'm 'ard, me.
  • Les cigales, ces bestioles, Ont plus d'âme que les violes; Les cigales, les cigalons, Chantent mieux que les violons!
  • If 'tis philistinism to prefer the sussurus of the Lord's sweet wind through the trees, to be taken with the beauty of the avian's trill, over the brass, alien vibrato of wings better suited to the plains of Tartarus than of my sunlit earth, then Philistine I am.
  • Forgive me, I've been listening to Eco's The Name of the Rose on tape all week. Unabridged.
  • "Why are you so Sick, Ada?" I think I et a bad Cicada"
  • Is there NOTHING we can do to end this repugnance Looks like Ol' "Death Penalty" Fes has got hisself a whole new class o' perp.
  • Who will be your next victim, Sir Zaps-a-Lot? The innocent mosquito? The wrongfully convicted wasp? The darling little ladybugs? Baby aphids? WHERE WILL IT STOP???!
  • Yup, I think that proves it.
  • Also mct loves Barbra Streisand. Nuff said.
  • Have you SEEN a cicada, MCT? They are noxious, vile creatures - big, ungainly, overfriendly members of a repulsive species. They're devlish eyes lack the intelligence given the simple, rodentine cockroach; they're wings, simplistic copies of those of the nettlesome horsefly, crafted as if by the hand of a witless child. IF only they would stay in the trees, singing their febrile, two note dirge? I would have no complaint. But instead, they festoon the treetrunks with their cast off skin, litter the sidewalks with the dried husks, and between fly unerringly into face, hair and house. To kill them underfoot would be a cleansing, save for the awful viscera that remains, to clot shoe, sock and toe. They are worthy only of scorn.
  • Oh, I have seen them, yes. Horrid and disgusting, I agree. Except for their husks, which are both (a) fun to pull off your car bumper and windowsills and (b) delightful to crunch underfoot. And the music. Dear God, man, the music they make is divine.
  • Also, Koko's upset because she can't "friend" me online, which she has been itching to do. She used the word "cyber" once too as a verb, which I assume has something to do with reading William Gibson novels. Jealousy is an ugly thing. Uglier than a cicada.
  • Hell. I saw a nymph yesterday, in Manhattan - Union Square! I was in the big 'ol sand pit with the kids. I decided to have a go-at-it with one of their small plastic shovels. I started digging down deep, and noticed that the sand was very moist and dark. It was all fun until my shovel unearthed an ungodly looking creature. It squirmed and seemed pissed to be exposed to the sunlight. I had never seen anything like it. I was distraught whether to squish it there on sight, or to let it go its merry way. I quickly dug a small hole, dropped it in and covered it up. Upon following some of these lovely links - I am able to confirm with 100% certainty that it was a cicada nymph. My only memories of them are as a child in New Mexico. I remember the carcasses, the sounds, and one body that made its way to our toilet. I was terrified. Though now, I do recall running into them again while a rural area of Chiba Japan. That variety seemed even larger and more gruesome than the ones I saw in the US.
  • I bet mct also likes to listen to dentist drills and rusty brakes and other types of German Avant Garde music. HITLER. call me!
  • He totally does! I read that on his blog!
  • Aw hell. Such species-ist malevolence... I'm with quidnunc on this one. I think see-cada's are damned cute, with or without Enya. And I love the sound... along with electric fans and the music of a distant ice-cream truck, it's a sound that vividly evokes the langor of a steamy summer evening.
  • *hands kinnakeet a margarita*
  • And the music. Dear God, man, the music they make is divine. Probably a Bjork fan, too.
  • I am none the wiser. You bunch of useless fucks.
  • Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Busy, buzzing Jollity, Creaks and croaks and wanton Wiles, Sounds that Uncle Fes reviles. For many years away thou pass, Leaving thy skin in the grass.
  • Malevolence against evil is no sin. *narrows eyes, loosens sword-haft, begins war-chanty*
  • kitfisto, I've always said "sih-KAH-duhs" and while they are a constant part of my outdoor experience in the summer in the southern US, I've only heard them. Until I watched that video link today, I've never seen them. I've never crunched their husks under my feet. I've never stared in horror at one crawling out of the ground. I've never seen one shed its shell and take to the air and my hair. But whenever I hear them, it usually means it's hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalks. The hotter it gets, the louder they get. To me, it's the sound of a heatwave.
  • Here it's the damned Junebugs.
  • Forget not the Mayflies.
  • I like cicadas. When I was a kid I watched a nymph undergo metamorphosis over the course of a few hours, and it was one of the most fascinating, beautiful things I have ever seen. Yeah, they're loud, but what, you prefer traffic?
  • Me? I prefer outdoor audio advertising. At least then there's a point to all the noise.
  • I hope they crawl in your ears! >:(
  • Tool put -- creatures -- in our bodies -- to control our minds.
  • Thank you mickey. I like you.
  • > I am none the wiser. You bunch of useless fucks. And the two (not one, but two!) wav files I linked to up above didn't help? Are you without soundcard or something?
  • Thank you mickey. What, no love for roryk or Koko, or even the horribly wrong Capt. Renault? You're a selfish bastard, that's what you are.
  • *takes long draught of margarita, chuckles at TUM's poem, sighs at thought of long summer days still months away* BTW Nickdanger, I agree, the transformation is a wonderful thing to watch. I once spent a warm summer afternoon in a field watching spiders hatch. Hundreds of tiny sparkling babies, no bigger than grains of sand, emerging from their egg packet and dangling from invisible threads in the tall grass... so small and fragile and so very much alive. Sometimes it isn't what you see, it's how you see it.
  • Ooh, it's all goin' on in nature, innit? /Miss Brahms
  • Who listens to soundfiles? EH? NOT ME, THAT'S WHO!!! I just wanted a simple answer. What did I get? clickey linky stuff. Goddam kids.
  • I guess "sicada" is too complicated an answer for kitardo.
  • CHUT UP! smelly cow
  • I still say it's "chicada". It's funner to say, and that's what matters.
  • You say sicay-da, I say sicah-da The Captain says chicah-da Fes says kill-em-all-a Kitardo says "Duh"
  • *applause*
  • I don't know who Jon Secada is, but now I know where he masturbates.
  • Those are some dang creepy creepy crawlies! I can barely stand hearing junebugs hitting the windows at night. Brrr. SiCAHda. Like circus, sorta...
  • Oh, and thanks RTD, for elevating the tone, as always.
  • So not funny, Ralph. Until you click the link.
  • Is Jon Secada's penis wearing some sort of matching pink outfit?
  • You see? I'm performing a valuable service here. And for once it doesn't involve masturbation.