Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with the
Speaker 3: fourth and final part in our series on cicadas. Now,
Speaker 3: if you haven't heard the first three parts yet, you
Speaker 3: might want to go check those out first. That's where
Speaker 3: we talk a good bit more about the biology of cicadas.
Speaker 3: We've sort of had a special focus on the periodical
Speaker 3: cicadas of North America because of a big exciting co
Speaker 3: emergence we had this year in the eastern United States,
Speaker 3: but we've been talking generally about the biology of the cicadas.
Speaker 3: In the last episode, we had a really exciting digression
Speaker 3: about a fungal parasite that sort of fills up the
Speaker 3: abdomens of the cicadas and turns them into turns them
Speaker 3: into a parmesan cheese dispenser. But today we are back
Speaker 3: to talk about some more ideas of cicadas in culture
Speaker 3: and in literature.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, As is often the case with our
Speaker 2: part fours or even Part fives, this is kind of
Speaker 2: like what's left. What did we not get to or
Speaker 2: what new and weird ideas came up in our research.
Speaker 2: So I guess before we get going too much here,
Speaker 2: I do want to just touch based on two things
Speaker 2: that I thought I was going to talk about more
Speaker 2: but ended up largely ignoring. Or we're looking into a
Speaker 2: little bit and deciding, well, there's maybe not as much
Speaker 2: that I wanted to get into there. But I do
Speaker 2: want to point out that there are some interesting accounts
Speaker 2: of North American periodical cicadas from the sixteen hundreds at Plymouth.
Speaker 2: This is something that was brought up in the latest
Speaker 2: book from cicada expert Gen Kritzky, the twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: Emergence of the Periodical Cicada, And I just found this
Speaker 2: fun quotes, so I'm going to read it. This is
Speaker 2: from William Bradford, the second governor of Plymouth Colony. This
Speaker 2: in his History of Plymouth Plantation, so something like sixteen
Speaker 2: twenty through sixteen forty seven quote and the spring before,
Speaker 2: especially all the month of May, there was such a
Speaker 2: quantity of a great sort of flies, like for bigness
Speaker 2: to wasps or bumblebees, which came out of holes in
Speaker 2: the ground and replenished all the woods and ate the
Speaker 2: green things and made such a constant yelling noise as
Speaker 2: made all the woods ring of them and ready to
Speaker 2: death the hearers. They have not, by the English, been
Speaker 2: heard or seen before or since. Okay, so I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just kind of like the idea of these these
Speaker 2: guys trying to make sense of these wasp or bumble
Speaker 2: bee like creatures that made this racket, and you know,
Speaker 2: it just seemed to sort of come out of nowhere
Speaker 2: without previous or latter records regarding them.
Speaker 3: Now, this came up actually in the most recent Listener
Speaker 3: Male episode, or actually maybe in two Listener Male episodes ago.
Speaker 3: But I do want to clarify that there are in
Speaker 3: fact cicadas in Europe. It's not that there are no
Speaker 3: cicadas in Europe, but they are all annual species. I
Speaker 3: do not believe there are any periodical cicadas in Europe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, periodical cicadas are a North American phenomena, but we
Speaker 2: do have these rich tradition traditions regarding annual cicadas elsewhere
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 3: I believe there are. Actually I was looking at research
Speaker 3: there might be a couple of other possible periodical cicadas
Speaker 3: elsewhere in the world, but they have different periods than
Speaker 3: the thirteen or seventeen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's one that Kritsky brings up in
Speaker 2: this latest book that's being looked at. I go back
Speaker 2: to that episode, but I mentioned it in passing at least. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but again, there are annuals all over the place, and
Speaker 2: therefore there are traditions of eating annual cicadas in cultures
Speaker 2: around the world. This was another area I thought I
Speaker 2: was going to dive into more. But suffice to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: they've long been considered by humans, and you'll find them
Speaker 2: on menus traditionally around the world. But also it looks
Speaker 2: like a lot of the more adventurous restaurants in the
Speaker 2: world have been capitalizing on cicicada fever. I was reading
Speaker 2: an article that came out on the website for Smithsonian
Speaker 2: last month by Aaron Borstein titled from Dinner Parties to Restaurants,
Speaker 2: Cicadas are landing in the kitchen. He points out that, yeah,
Speaker 2: they can be prepared numerous ways, often fried, and they're
Speaker 2: generally held to have a shrimpy, nutty taste. I've read
Speaker 2: elsewhere that fresh cicadas have kind of a buttery flavor.
Speaker 2: I can't really speak to this myself, as I've never
Speaker 2: consumed circadas. I have not had the opportunity to do.
Speaker 2: But if the opportunity came up and with somebody who
Speaker 2: knew what they were doing, yeah, I guess I would
Speaker 2: try it. Why not.
Speaker 3: I'm not surprised that that fried is a common option
Speaker 3: for people who don't already have cicadas as a major
Speaker 3: part of their diet, because it just seems like, you know,
Speaker 3: you deep fry anything, and it makes it more more acceptable,
Speaker 3: you know, like that's like the easy way to introduce
Speaker 3: a new food stuff, and then maybe later you could
Speaker 3: try try different preparation methods.
Speaker 2: Now deep frying. Aside, they are apparently not only a
Speaker 2: safe food but also pretty healthy. They're supposedly full of
Speaker 2: any oxidants, full of protein essential amino acids. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean these this article in the Smithsonian, you know,
Speaker 2: makes it sound like, yeah, if cicadas are on the menu,
Speaker 2: give them a try, why not? And then you know,
Speaker 2: around the world there are going to be these different
Speaker 2: traditions for exactly how you cook them up and or
Speaker 2: what exact seasoning, dipping, exhausces, et cetera might be utilized
Speaker 2: alongside the cicadas. So again, if anyone out there has
Speaker 2: personal experience with this, either you know, some sort of
Speaker 2: like a modern culinary experience, or some sort of like
Speaker 2: you know, traditional cicada preparation, write in. We would love
Speaker 2: to hear from you. All right now, we've already spoken
Speaker 2: a bit about cicadas and mythologies, cicadas and philosophy, and
Speaker 2: I have another fun example here of cicadas as a
Speaker 2: as a teacher or a model for human and behavior.
Speaker 2: I looked at several sources on this, but one of
Speaker 2: the first ones I came across was an article this
Speaker 2: posted on the website of Smithsonian National Museum of Asian
Speaker 2: Art by Jan Stuart back in twenty sixteen. And Stuart
Speaker 2: points out that you'll often find the symbol of the
Speaker 2: golden cicada on the headgear of rulers and nobles in
Speaker 2: Chinese antiquity, and here they would signify modesty, refinement, and awareness.
Speaker 2: And I think that awareness is in part due to,
Speaker 2: of course, the prominent eyes on the cicada, which are
Speaker 2: featured in the artifact Joe. I've included an image of
Speaker 2: one of these cicada plaques and numerous examples of these
Speaker 2: have been found from this time period in China. This
Speaker 2: is like golden bronze, I believe. But you can see
Speaker 2: the cicada motif there in the center.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah. So we see a big emphasis on the eyes.
Speaker 3: They're rendered as huge. You see a kind of a
Speaker 3: shortened version of the body with these kind of round
Speaker 3: oval wings. And then are these bent lines up above
Speaker 3: the head? Are those supposed to be legs?
Speaker 2: I believe?
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, it's a very elegant design. It's also ornate,
Speaker 3: like it's busy. There's a lot going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now this would be from I believe the third
Speaker 2: to fourth century, and Stuart points out that this is
Speaker 2: a lot of this is based on the idea that
Speaker 2: the cicada was understood to live high in the trees,
Speaker 2: privy to great views and a lofty existence where it
Speaker 2: was thought to subsist entirely upon the dew. So it's
Speaker 2: a it's a creature of vision, a creature of pure diet.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's not eating a bunch of junk,
Speaker 2: it's just eating the dew itself, right, or that's the belief.
Speaker 2: And again lofty, and it has this great view of
Speaker 2: everything around it. It's very aware of its surroundings. And
Speaker 2: to a certain extent this is true, not that the
Speaker 2: dow part per se, but the part about cicadas having
Speaker 2: excellent vision.
Speaker 3: So having a liquid diet. I mean it might not
Speaker 3: be do but the you know, the ones under the
Speaker 3: ground they feed off of the rude xylum, and then
Speaker 3: the ones above ground they still just feed off of
Speaker 3: the plant juices from inside the stems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a certain amount of I think accurate
Speaker 2: observation wrapped up in this idea. And you see this
Speaker 2: referenced in various forms, but one that I that I
Speaker 2: ran across that I thought was really needed is this
Speaker 2: poem Owed to a Cicada. This is by Kauji, who
Speaker 2: lived one two through two thirty two. This was a
Speaker 2: poet and calligrapher. And there's an extended part of this
Speaker 2: poem there about the cicadas. I'm just going to read
Speaker 2: a part of it. The cicada's nobility is hidden in
Speaker 2: the darkest shadows, under the dazzling sunlight of midsummer. It
Speaker 2: roams the fragrant forest, not seeking prestige and having few desires,
Speaker 2: humming with contentment alone. Its calls, ring out, piercing, lingering,
Speaker 2: like the unwavering hearts of virtuous men, benevolent and kind.
Speaker 2: It does not eat, asking nothing of other creatures. It
Speaker 2: purchases high above all and looks down, only drinking the
Speaker 2: freshest dew. Hidden among dense mulberry leaves and sheltered from
Speaker 2: the heat, it sings with joy.
Speaker 3: Now there are some differences, but it's interesting what this
Speaker 3: has in common with the vision of cicadas propounded by
Speaker 3: Socrates and the Platonic dialogue that we talked about in
Speaker 3: the last episode, the idea that they do not eat,
Speaker 3: they only sing, and portraying them as kind of an
Speaker 3: ally of the heavens or as like a holy creature
Speaker 3: in a way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it does. But I also have
Speaker 2: to note that this poem ends up taking kind of
Speaker 2: a I don't know if it's a darker turn, but
Speaker 2: it ends up going in an interesting direction because in
Speaker 2: full it stresses that, first of all, rulers of the
Speaker 2: world should strive to be like the cicada. Again, these
Speaker 2: are noble virtues, but the poem also stresses that the
Speaker 2: cicada is a creature with many enemies, and it has
Speaker 2: a very fixed time upon the summer Earth, with lines
Speaker 2: like to escape all these dangers and avoid capture, it
Speaker 2: flees to the Grand Palace, and that as it perceives
Speaker 2: its many threats and tries to escape them, quote, it
Speaker 2: succeeds only in tightening its bonds and thus foresees its end.
Speaker 3: So it's that kind of nobility that you see in
Speaker 3: some characters in art. That's a kind of a nobility
Speaker 3: in its fragility. It's a doomed nobility.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's worth noting that kylege Hear himself was
Speaker 2: apparently something of a political prisoner. He was ostracized from
Speaker 2: political power, so you know, perhaps he's he's channeling. It's
Speaker 2: my understanding, he's channeling a certain amount of that understanding
Speaker 2: of power and politics and life here now. Stuart also
Speaker 2: outlines that the Cicada was heavily associated with resurrection as well.
Speaker 2: And these ideas go back pretty long ways, and I
Speaker 2: think it makes sense given the life cycle. As we've discussed,
Speaker 2: these are creatures that emerge from the earth, you know,
Speaker 2: shed in their dark earth and skins, and then they
Speaker 2: climb out, they re emerge, They're reborn from their own
Speaker 2: kind of dead flesh and then take to the skies.
Speaker 2: And in Chinese traditions, this was interpreted as a symbolic
Speaker 2: for the transference of the soul after death into a
Speaker 2: more transcendent realm. As such, during the Han dynasty, jade
Speaker 2: amulets in the shape of cicadas were apparently placed on
Speaker 2: the tongues of the deceased, and I included an example
Speaker 2: of one of these for you here, Joe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting how it sort of looks like depictions
Speaker 3: of a tongue, like the wings come together and create
Speaker 3: the folds that is often represented going down the middle
Speaker 3: of a tongue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the jade is key here as well. Of course,
Speaker 2: it was the most valued of stones through much of
Speaker 2: Chinese history, representing purity and indestructibility, and so it was
Speaker 2: widely used in both decorative and ritual objects. And of
Speaker 2: course I think from like a modern tie in, you know,
Speaker 2: we can't help but think about the moths and the
Speaker 2: silence of the lambs and the death said moths placed
Speaker 2: in the mouth or throat. And then there was also
Speaker 2: a tradition in ancient Egypt for some time where you
Speaker 2: would have a golden tongue amulet placed in the mouth
Speaker 2: of the deceased, supposedly so they could speak when summoned
Speaker 2: before the court of Osiris in the afterlife. But anyway,
Speaker 2: back to Chinese tradition. Stewart also shares a fourth century
Speaker 2: BCE Dallas scholar Jong Za covered this in his writing,
Speaker 2: wrote about the Cicada. And I read his writing on
Speaker 2: this in full and translation elsewhere, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: summarize it here. Basically plays out as follows. So Jongsa
Speaker 2: is walking in the forest when he spots a strange
Speaker 2: bird in the sky. It has large wings, it's kind
Speaker 2: of awkward flying around, it has big eyes. He hasn't
Speaker 2: really seen this kind of bird before, so curious, he
Speaker 2: stalks up to where the bird is perched in a tree,
Speaker 2: and hey, he has his sling shot on him, so
Speaker 2: why not take a shot at the bird? Right? So
Speaker 2: he draws in, you know, I mean, it's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know if he's necessarily, you know, looking to eat
Speaker 2: the bird, or it's about studying the specimen more, but
Speaker 2: you know, at any rate, it's what he does. He
Speaker 2: gets off the sling all right, and the bird doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to notice him, so all the better. This is
Speaker 2: going to be an easy bird to pick off. But
Speaker 2: as he creeps closer, he notices something there in the tree.
Speaker 2: There's a mantis stalking an oblivious cicada about to strike.
Speaker 2: And equally oblivious, the mantis is being stalked by this
Speaker 2: strange bird. And oh yeah, and so he and here,
Speaker 2: of course is our Dalis scholar stalking that bird. And
Speaker 2: so he stops at this point and he lowers his sling.
Speaker 2: He feels that the dow is revealed in this scenario,
Speaker 2: and he leaves the bird alone.
Speaker 3: Oh, I wondered if it was going to end with
Speaker 3: him like looking over his own shoulder, like, what's stalking me?
Speaker 2: Essentially, I mean, that's essentially the thought. And Stuart points
Speaker 2: out that there is a common Chinese saying based on
Speaker 2: this quote. As the mantis catches the cicada, the jay
Speaker 2: is just behind, so you know, it's kind of there's
Speaker 2: always a bigger fish right right, And indeed, look over
Speaker 2: your shoulder before you you take advantage of the oblivious
Speaker 2: nature of the birth. Now cicadas are invoked elsewhere in
Speaker 2: Chinese culture, is pointed out by Hayan Lee, a professor
Speaker 2: of East Asian languages and cultures and of Comparative Literature
Speaker 2: at Stanford University, cited in a twenty twenty one m
Speaker 2: PR article brewed ten is back or brood x is
Speaker 2: back if you'd rather buy Anita Ollaby, and in this
Speaker 2: one point out that in the sixth century military text
Speaker 2: thirty six Stratagems, one of the strategies outlined is shed
Speaker 2: your skin like the Golden Cicada, which entails creating a
Speaker 2: decoy by which to escape from an overwhelming or more
Speaker 2: powerful enemy. So I looked up the translation of the
Speaker 2: text here, and in translation, it says, when you are
Speaker 2: in danger of being defeated and your only chance is
Speaker 2: to escape and regroup, then create an illusion. While the
Speaker 2: enemy's attention is focused on this artifice, secretly remove your men,
Speaker 2: leaving behind only the facade of your presence.
Speaker 3: Ah okay, So maybe if you're hiding down in a
Speaker 3: bunch of earthworks or something, you simulate activity still going
Speaker 3: on there, put up some flags and stuff while you're evacuating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which you know, this is not really part of
Speaker 2: what's going on with the cicada per se. It's not
Speaker 2: doing this to distract predators. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: it does kind of match up with I think with
Speaker 2: our experience of cicadas, often is the case where we
Speaker 2: venture outside and we see something, hope, there's something there
Speaker 2: that wasn't there before. It is the cicada's shell. It is,
Speaker 2: but where's the cicada that emerged? It is nowhere to
Speaker 2: be seen. It has moved on. Though you do get
Speaker 2: the rare occurrence too of finding both shell and emergent cicada,
Speaker 2: and that is also magical. But sometimes I can see
Speaker 2: where it might seem as if, oh, I'm looking at
Speaker 2: the wrong thing. I'm looking at the empty shell. The
Speaker 2: tasty cicada has flown off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it got away from me now.
Speaker 2: I was also looking at traditions of the cicada in
Speaker 2: Japan and this was I found this pretty interesting. There
Speaker 2: are a couple of different ways to refer to cicadas
Speaker 2: in Japanese. There's a there's semi, which I think is
Speaker 2: the main word for cicada. But then there's also this
Speaker 2: name that is like kana kana, and this is on
Speaker 2: a monopa. This is a This is a name that
Speaker 2: is supposed to sound more or less like the sound
Speaker 2: that the the howling, the screeching of the cicadas in
Speaker 2: their tree. And more to the point, I was reading
Speaker 2: about this in several different sources that this sound, the
Speaker 2: sound of the cicadas, is in Japanese traditions often associated
Speaker 2: with melancholy summer vibes, so essentially that summertime sadness, if
Speaker 2: you will, and it's it's referenced, you know, throughout various
Speaker 2: examples of Japanese poetry, but also in contemporary pop culture works.
Speaker 2: They're also associated with this concept of mujo, the passing
Speaker 2: nature of things. And so you see like these overlapping
Speaker 2: ideas referenced in a lot of different Japanese works and
Speaker 2: in a lot of different poems.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting that you get such different associations with
Speaker 3: these creatures. Some are melancholy versus sort of doomed nobility
Speaker 3: versus the kind of care free, summer playful.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: There's there's like such such different feelings about the same phenomenon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I I do feel like I get this
Speaker 2: idea of cicadas as the soundtrack of summertime sadness, though,
Speaker 2: you know, because I do associate it with like oppressive
Speaker 2: heat and like a really bright sun. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like everything outside the house is trying to push you
Speaker 2: into the house and maybe make you feel a little
Speaker 2: isolated or you're outside and you have no choice in
Speaker 2: the matter, and it can be just a little bit overwhelming. Uh.
Speaker 2: And then you again compound that with the id like
Speaker 2: the knowledge of what the cicada is doing, that it
Speaker 2: has emerged for this very brief time, and that they're
Speaker 2: all gonna die, but you know they're not gonna they're
Speaker 2: they're not going to be around for the for the
Speaker 2: next summer.
Speaker 3: I guess I don't. It would depend also on like
Speaker 3: what types of activities you do culturally in the summertime.
Speaker 3: I associate summertime sadness with like having to say bye
Speaker 3: to your friends from camp who you're not going to
Speaker 3: see again for a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's kind of like that was is.
Speaker 2: You're not going to see thea again. You'll see different ones,
Speaker 2: but you're gonna have to wait a bit. Anyway, I
Speaker 2: wanted to read a couple of examples of Japanese poetry
Speaker 2: concerning cicadas in translation, of course. This first one is
Speaker 2: by Japanese edo poet Matsuo Basho, and it just goes
Speaker 2: as follows, the cry of the cicada gives us no
Speaker 2: sign that presently they will die straight into the point.
Speaker 2: I like it, you know, And again it is one
Speaker 2: of the interesting things about like there, and in a
Speaker 2: way it's inspiring. Right they are living life to the
Speaker 2: absolute fullest.
Speaker 3: They are.
Speaker 2: They are going about it, but they do not have
Speaker 2: lung in which to do it.
Speaker 3: Yolo, as they say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's another one. This one is apparently by eighteenth
Speaker 2: century samurai poet Yo Koi Yayu. And this one I
Speaker 2: got off of the website Tofu Gou dot com in
Speaker 2: an article titled the Cicada's Song Japan's Summer Soundtrack from
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen. It contains multiple examples of this sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But I always say, and by this particular example that
Speaker 2: goes as follows. Again, the Japanese word semi is is
Speaker 2: what this means. Cicada methinks that SIMI sits and sings
Speaker 2: by his former body, chanting the funeral service over his
Speaker 2: own dead self. WHOA yeah, which is great because it
Speaker 2: brings to mind, you know, the of course, the emergence,
Speaker 2: the shedding of the old skin, the nearness of its demise,
Speaker 2: but also like the richness of its sound, that you
Speaker 2: could associate with various emotions and in this case, like
Speaker 2: think of it as kind of a funeral dirge. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I like this one. And there are other examples too,
Speaker 2: particularly in this article, you know, where it's like there's
Speaker 2: it's not so much a contemplation of the cicada's sorrow
Speaker 2: or you know, it's forthcoming demise, but using it as
Speaker 2: a metaphor using it alongside considerations of more you know,
Speaker 2: human centric feelings of say, heart break and so forth.
Speaker 3: Oh well, that connects to something I'm going to get
Speaker 3: into in a few minutes here, because there are more
Speaker 3: tragic use of the cicada as an image of tragedy
Speaker 3: to come.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I'd love to hear other examples of
Speaker 2: Japanese literature and you know, in cinnamon and pop culture
Speaker 2: that invoked the cicada. I think I'm going to be
Speaker 2: extra alert for it now, engaging with Japanese cinema and
Speaker 2: so forth. Another idea I ran across. And first of all,
Speaker 2: I should point out that that Japanese traditions also inherit
Speaker 2: some various Chinese ideas about cicadas. You know, some of
Speaker 2: these various virtues that we already talked about including the
Speaker 2: idea that not only is the cicada virtuous because you
Speaker 2: know it can see far, and it's up in the
Speaker 2: trees and it drinks dew, but also it emerges at
Speaker 2: fixed and regular times, so it is faithful. You know,
Speaker 2: it is sincere. You know, other people in your life
Speaker 2: are the things in your life. There may be uncertainty
Speaker 2: to them, but you can count on the cicadas. They
Speaker 2: always come.
Speaker 3: Well said, well, are you ready to get into some
Speaker 3: other cicada stuff?
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: So in the previous episode, I mentioned an ancient Greek
Speaker 3: story about the mythological origins of cicadas, which is told
Speaker 3: by Socrates in the Platonic dialogue known as the fe Dress.
Speaker 3: And according to that story, cicadas were once humans like us,
Speaker 3: but they lived at a time before the muses had
Speaker 3: introduced song and music to the world. And the story
Speaker 3: goes once these people encountered music, they were so enraptured
Speaker 3: by it that they spent every moment of their lives
Speaker 3: singing and listening to music, and not even stopping to
Speaker 3: eat or drink until they finally sang themselves to death.
Speaker 3: But the muses took pity on them and allowed them
Speaker 3: to be reincarnated as cicadas, who would still, according to
Speaker 3: the understanding of some ancient Greeks, go on singing their
Speaker 3: entire lives and never stop to eat or drink. And
Speaker 3: Socrates also says in the story that cicadas are the
Speaker 3: earthly informers for the muses, so they kind of spy
Speaker 3: on us and report back whether we're doing things that
Speaker 3: honor the muses or not. So that was an interesting view.
Speaker 3: But this, it turns out, is not the only famous
Speaker 3: story about cicadas tracing back to ancient Greek and other
Speaker 3: classical sources. So I collected a couple of examples in
Speaker 3: a reference text called the Book of Greek and Roman
Speaker 3: Folk Tales, Legends and Myths. This is edited by the
Speaker 3: classicist William Hansen from Princeton University Press, twenty seventeen. And
Speaker 3: this led me to a couple of great examples. The
Speaker 3: first one I want to mention is the story of
Speaker 3: the great singer UniMas and the Cicada, as told by
Speaker 3: the ancient Greek author Strebo, who lived from about sixty
Speaker 3: four BCE to twenty four CE in the Roman Empire.
Speaker 3: And this was in Strebo's book geography, as you might
Speaker 3: guess from its inclusion in a book about geography. This
Speaker 3: story comes in the context of Strabo talking about some
Speaker 3: natural features of the land and landmarks. Specifically, he's talking
Speaker 3: about a river called Halix, which he says separates two
Speaker 3: lands called Region and Locris, and he says it exits
Speaker 3: through a deep ravine, and then Strebo says, there is
Speaker 3: an odd thing about the cicadas here on the two
Speaker 3: sides of the river Halix. The ones on one bank
Speaker 3: of the river make a song. They sing like any
Speaker 3: other cicadas, but the cicadas on the opposite bank are silent.
Speaker 3: And he says that people have guessed that the reason
Speaker 3: for this is that the Locrian bank, where the cicadas
Speaker 3: are loud, is dry and sun baked, so the cicadas
Speaker 3: there have dry membranes that they can rattle with ease,
Speaker 3: whereas on the other bank, the other bank is in
Speaker 3: the shade. And I'm not sure if he means the
Speaker 3: shade of the ravine or if it's more shaded by foliage,
Speaker 3: but the other side is shady, and he says because
Speaker 3: it's in the shade, people believe that quote. The cicadas
Speaker 3: are moist with dew and cannot expand their membranes hated
Speaker 3: when that happens, And so I got really curious, is
Speaker 3: what Strabo's talking about here? Based on reality? I looked
Speaker 3: around to see if I could find any entomologists in
Speaker 3: the present day offering informed commentary on this observation, but
Speaker 3: I couldn't really find anything solid. The closest I found
Speaker 3: to a direct reference was a twentieth century Strabo translator
Speaker 3: talking about how he could attest personally that the cicadas
Speaker 3: of southern Italy, where I believe this is supposed to
Speaker 3: take place, are unusual. But that's not all that helpful,
Speaker 3: So I went to see what I could piece together
Speaker 3: on my own. So my big question, a big way
Speaker 3: to check the plausibility of this claim, is to ask,
Speaker 3: are there actually today any known examples of a specie
Speaker 3: or a population within a species of totally silent cicadas
Speaker 3: like the ones from the region side of the river. Now,
Speaker 3: if you ask the question, are there any like actually
Speaker 3: truly completely silent cicadas? I could not find any examples
Speaker 3: of that. But while most cicadas have males that emit
Speaker 3: these loud, obvious mating signals, there are in fact a
Speaker 3: few species that are sometimes referred to as mute cicadas, which,
Speaker 3: while not actually mute, to make a sound that is
Speaker 3: not at all similar to the songs produced by the
Speaker 3: timbal organs in most male cicadas. So here I'm going
Speaker 3: to refer to a paper by chanching Low, Songwei and
Speaker 3: Christian Nonsen, and it's called how do Mute Cicadas Produce
Speaker 3: their calling Songs? This was published in Plus one in
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, and again the researchers here were Christian Nonsen
Speaker 3: and entomologist affiliate with UC Davis, and Chuan ching Low
Speaker 3: and Songwei from the Northwest anf University in China. And
Speaker 3: this paper focuses on a genus of cicadas known as Corenia,
Speaker 3: containing five species found in China, Vietnam and Burma. And
Speaker 3: it turns out that species within this genus are not
Speaker 3: able to make sounds with a timble mechanism. Remember from
Speaker 3: part one of our series here we talked about the
Speaker 3: timble organ. The timble is an organ that is used
Speaker 3: by most male cicadas to make sounds, and the timbles
Speaker 3: are rigid corrugated membranes on the sides of the abdomen
Speaker 3: that are connected to an internal muscle, and the internal
Speaker 3: muscle flexes and relaxes rapidly to collapse the membrane and
Speaker 3: then allow it to kind of snap back into place.
Speaker 3: And this rapid collapsing and snapping back sort of the
Speaker 3: buckling and snapping, produces the whirr and the drone that
Speaker 3: we associate with cicadas. But Krenia cicadas do not have
Speaker 3: functional timbal organs, which is why they are called mute cicadas. However,
Speaker 3: they are not completely mute. They do make sounds, and
Speaker 3: this paper investigates how Now in the introduction to this paper,
Speaker 3: there's a really interesting fact that the authors discuss as
Speaker 3: to the backstory of this investigation. I just want to
Speaker 3: read from their introduction quote. Recently, Way at All reported
Speaker 3: sound production in Corenia chauma and discovered that this species
Speaker 3: exhibited an atypical behavior, i e. The male adults can
Speaker 3: be easily attracted to sounds produced by clapping of hands,
Speaker 3: knocking of bamboo sticks, breaking of twigs, and chopping of wood. Weird. Okay,
Speaker 3: so you might be chopping on a log, you might
Speaker 3: be clapping, you might be knocking some bamboo together and
Speaker 3: suddenly the cicadas come running. They like this. It attracts
Speaker 3: them very odd So anyway, they say that sound production
Speaker 3: in this genus had not been deeply investigated until this paper.
Speaker 3: So the authors here studied the species Carrenia keela tata
Speaker 3: to discover that they do make a to my ears
Speaker 3: rather inconspicuous sound. It's a clicking sound that they make
Speaker 3: by knocking two parts of their outer bodies together. So
Speaker 3: this is not an example of stridulation, which a lot
Speaker 3: of insects use. Stridulation again, is rubbing parts of the
Speaker 3: body together, often one part that's kind of ridged like
Speaker 3: a comb, and another part that's just sort of a
Speaker 3: flat scraper thing that scrapes the teeth of the comb.
Speaker 3: This is called a file and scraper system. They do
Speaker 3: not use stridulation like that. Instead, what they produce is
Speaker 3: an impact sound, more like a drum beat, which they
Speaker 3: make by banging the leading edge of the fore wing,
Speaker 3: which is known as the costa, against a hard plate
Speaker 3: on the outside of the body, known as as an operculum.
Speaker 3: So they're drumming on their own outer shells with their wings,
Speaker 3: and this sound is indeed audible to human ears. But Robi,
Speaker 3: I let you listen to a sample of it before
Speaker 3: we recorded here, and I was listening to it myself,
Speaker 3: and I think if I were walking through a forest
Speaker 3: and I heard this sound, I might well not even
Speaker 3: attribute it to an insect. And if I did attribute
Speaker 3: it to an insect, I might not likely think of
Speaker 3: it as a cicada sound. It's sort of a clicking
Speaker 3: or a snapping that could be anything in the environment.
Speaker 3: Breaking of a twig, could be wood creaking in the wind.
Speaker 3: It could be a pebble falling. It just doesn't seem
Speaker 3: to me like it would really stand out in a
Speaker 3: riverside grove.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I agree, it doesn't quite register to me as
Speaker 2: it instantly as being an insect noise or even another
Speaker 2: animal sound. So yeah, it's interesting. I could see where
Speaker 2: you might even have sort of maybe supernatural interpretations of
Speaker 2: the noise at first, like, well, you know, what is that?
Speaker 2: What is that? Are Is there some sort of drumming
Speaker 2: going on amid the invisible folk? I don't know?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, anyway, So given this, I was wondering, is
Speaker 3: it possible that Strabo's story here has a basis in
Speaker 3: fact that the cicadas on the two sides of the
Speaker 3: river are different. Maybe on the Lockers side they're loud,
Speaker 3: they sound like cicada's normally sound. But what if there
Speaker 3: were cicadas on the region side of the river Helix
Speaker 3: that were known to be silent, not because they were
Speaker 3: actually silent, but because they didn't make the sounds we
Speaker 3: associate with cicadas. What if they were clicking or something
Speaker 3: like that. Now, I want to be clear, this is
Speaker 3: pure speculation on my part because I look to see
Speaker 3: again if entomologists had commented to this effect about this
Speaker 3: historical passage, and I didn't come across anything. So I
Speaker 3: don't know, But I at least do know that there
Speaker 3: are some species of cicadas that don't make the worrying
Speaker 3: sound we think of. They make some other kind of sound,
Speaker 3: like a sort of incanspicuous click. And the Krenia cicadas
Speaker 3: are not the only ones. Now, remember, if there were
Speaker 3: so called mute cicadas in this region in the ancient Mediterranean,
Speaker 3: that seems unlikely they would have been the Karnia genus
Speaker 3: because that genus is native to East and Southeast Asia.
Speaker 3: But there are other so called mute cicadas. I was
Speaker 3: looking for examples of them. The plus one paper mentions
Speaker 3: four other genera of cicadas that contain species without timbal organs.
Speaker 3: It mentions Platypedia, neo, Platypedia maroboduus, and Lemmo tialna. And
Speaker 3: so I was looking these genera up, it seems like
Speaker 3: most of the ones where I could get information about
Speaker 3: where they were located, more of them were centered around
Speaker 3: North America, but some more more global species. So nothing solid.
Speaker 3: But there are a number of cicada species known to be,
Speaker 3: if not mute, at least incapable of typical cicada timbal sounds,
Speaker 3: and this could be mistaken for muteness. So I wonder
Speaker 3: if if such a species were found on the region
Speaker 3: side of the river, and if they were mistaken by
Speaker 3: the ancients for silent insects.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this sounds entirely plausible to me that you could
Speaker 2: have had some species like this that is not mute,
Speaker 2: but it's either making a sound that we don't associate
Speaker 2: with cicadas or one that is, you know, maybe out
Speaker 2: of register of human hearing. So yeah, absolutely plausible.
Speaker 3: Listeners, if you have anything to add to this, please
Speaker 3: write in. But anyway, I wanted to continue with Strabo's
Speaker 3: account here because so it just starts off with the
Speaker 3: two different kinds of cicadas on the two banks of
Speaker 3: the river, but this leads into Strabo's account of UniMas
Speaker 3: and the cicada. So I'm going to read from Strabo's geography,
Speaker 3: but a couple of things to know for context. In
Speaker 3: this passage, it makes reference to an object called a kithara,
Speaker 3: which was a stringed instrument that people played in ancient Greece.
Speaker 3: The etymological root of the word guitar actually the cathara.
Speaker 3: And it also makes reference to the Pythian Games, which
Speaker 3: were sort of like the Olympics, except they included both
Speaker 3: athletic and artistic competitions. And while the ancient Olympic Games
Speaker 3: were held at Olympia in honor of Zeus, the Pythian
Speaker 3: Games were held at Delphi in honor of Apollo. And
Speaker 3: remember which of the regions had which cicadas. It was
Speaker 3: the cicadas of Locris that would sing and the cicadas
Speaker 3: of region that were silent. So Strebo writes a statue
Speaker 3: of UniMas, the singer and kathara player, with a cicada
Speaker 3: sitting on his cathara used to be displayed in Locris.
Speaker 3: Timaios says that this man, UniMas, and Ariston of Region
Speaker 3: were once competing at the Pythian Games and got into
Speaker 3: a dispute about their respective lots. Ariston beseeched the Delphians
Speaker 3: to support him, seeing as his ancestors had belonged to
Speaker 3: the god and their colony had been dis patched from Delphi,
Speaker 3: but UniMas declared that persons in whose land the cicadas,
Speaker 3: most sweet voiced of animals were mute, had no business
Speaker 3: even participating in a voice competition. Ariston was nonetheless held
Speaker 3: in high regard and hoped for victory, but it was
Speaker 3: UniMas who won and dedicated in his own homeland the
Speaker 3: statue I mentioned. For during the contest, when one of
Speaker 3: his strings broke, a cicada perched on his cathara and
Speaker 3: supplied the missing note.
Speaker 2: Wow again, it is so surprising how we can have
Speaker 2: such totally different cultural interpretations of the cicada. You know,
Speaker 2: is it screeching madness that that maddens the ear? Or
Speaker 2: is it the sweet songs? Is it sent from the gods?
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I will say that this story, I think
Speaker 3: it's open to multiple interpretations, and it has been interpreted
Speaker 3: in different ways over the years. So sort of like
Speaker 3: the origin story told by Socrates, it portrays cicadas as
Speaker 3: fundamentally musical animals, musical beings, but also in this case
Speaker 3: they're kind of they're kind of belligerent, like they intervene
Speaker 3: to take sides in a battle of the bands. And
Speaker 3: it's I think a little hard to discern the intended
Speaker 3: meaning or moral here, assuming there is supposed to be one,
Speaker 3: because on one hand, I would think the snapping of
Speaker 3: a string during a performance would indicate a kind of
Speaker 3: punishment by the fates for UniMas, I would think is
Speaker 3: sort of a payback for his haughtiness and hubris he's
Speaker 3: insulting Ariston, you know. But then the insect intervenes to
Speaker 3: supply the missing note, which seems like another divine intervention,
Speaker 3: but in this case in the opposite direction in favor
Speaker 3: of UniMas.
Speaker 2: The infighting of the gods via insects.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't supply that gloss in Strabo's
Speaker 3: telling here, but it does kind of remind me of
Speaker 3: like in the Iliad, we have the gods intervening on
Speaker 3: both sides of an issue, like in opposite directions.
Speaker 2: You know, normally I take a very logical approach to
Speaker 2: this sort of thing. But I'm just gonna go ahe
Speaker 2: and say it. I think this absolutely happened. Has written
Speaker 2: this is one accurate and that we shouldn't question it.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not actually all that implausible that a
Speaker 3: cicada lands on a lands on somebody's instrument makes a sound.
Speaker 3: Everybody would remember that.
Speaker 2: Not just any sound, the exact right sound. So I
Speaker 2: think that's the really fun part of the story. And
Speaker 2: again I don't question it at all. This absolutely happened.
Speaker 2: Every every other story out there, every other myth in religion,
Speaker 2: it's open to interpretation, and you're right to question it,
Speaker 2: but not this one's good to go.
Speaker 3: I came across an interesting passage in another book that
Speaker 3: was about Christian theologians reinterpreting this Greek tale to have
Speaker 3: a different understanding of it. Specifically, I was looking at
Speaker 3: a work called Music and Philosophy in the Roman Empire
Speaker 3: by Pelosi and Petrucci, and the author of a passage
Speaker 3: of this book is talking about a work where the
Speaker 3: early Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria is taking a bunch
Speaker 3: of pagan myths and pagan stories and reinterpreting them to
Speaker 3: have Christian morals. And so it's sort of in the
Speaker 3: context of talking about these Christian church fathers and theologians
Speaker 3: taking pagan myths and saying, yeah, this is actually good
Speaker 3: and still instructive, but here's what it actually means to
Speaker 3: emphasize something about their view of the world. And in
Speaker 3: Clement's retelling of the story, there's a difference that is
Speaker 3: subtle but important, And Clement's version is that it is
Speaker 3: not that the Cicada is so enchanted by Unimas's beautiful
Speaker 3: song and thus comes to help him in a time
Speaker 3: of need. This version of the story that serves to
Speaker 3: emphasize Eunomas's virtue as a singer. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: a story about a great virtuous person. Instead, Clement's retelling
Speaker 3: emphasizes that it is UniMas who attunes himself to the
Speaker 3: perfect natural song of the cicada. So in Clement's telling,
Speaker 3: it's not that the Cicada humbles itself to UniMas sort
Speaker 3: of in awe of his greatness, but that UniMas humbles
Speaker 3: himself to the cicada, as we must humble ourselves into
Speaker 3: tune to the music of God's word.
Speaker 2: All right, yeah, I mean, all in all, that's kind
Speaker 2: of a that's a nice interpretation, right, It's like your
Speaker 2: music's not about you, it's about like getting in harmony
Speaker 2: with at the very least existence, right.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm. I mean for Clement, I think that had
Speaker 3: a specific sectarian meaning, but yeah, more broadly, you could
Speaker 3: think about it as as singing together with nature. Who's
Speaker 3: the person who needs to get in key? Is it
Speaker 3: nature that needs to get in key with you? Or
Speaker 3: do you need to get in key with nature?
Speaker 2: Right? Right? Right? Instead of warping nature to your your
Speaker 2: own tastes and purposes, you're you're the one that's getting
Speaker 2: in tune with everything else. Se.
Speaker 3: So there's another famous reference to cicadas in classical Greek literature,
Speaker 3: and it is in the Esopic fable, more widely known
Speaker 3: as the Ant and the grasshopper. But as with the
Speaker 3: example from Plato that we talked about last time, the
Speaker 3: word that used to be translated as grasshopper or sometimes
Speaker 3: cricket is now generally understood as a reference to cicadas.
Speaker 3: It seems this is the case in a bunch of
Speaker 3: ancient Greek and Roman literature. There are a lot of
Speaker 3: things that, for the longest time in English said cricket, locust, grasshopper, whatever,
Speaker 3: it often meant cicadas. So this famous ancient story is
Speaker 3: more accurately the ant and the cicada. Now, as with
Speaker 3: many esopic tales, it is thought to originate in oral traditions,
Speaker 3: and it appears in different forms in different texts traditions.
Speaker 3: There's not like one original text form of it. You
Speaker 3: different ancient authors who put down versions of this tale.
Speaker 3: And the book edited by William Hanson that I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: it presents it as follows. Cold and wintry weather came
Speaker 3: down from Olympus. The ant had collected a lot of
Speaker 3: food during harvest time, storing it in its house, But
Speaker 3: the cicada went into its hole and was panting from hunger.
Speaker 3: Gripped by starvation in the considerable cold. The cicada asked
Speaker 3: the ant to share its food in order that the
Speaker 3: cicada too might eat some wheat and be saved from starvation.
Speaker 3: But the ant asked, where were you in summer? Why
Speaker 3: didn't you collect food during harvest time? The cicada answered,
Speaker 3: I was singing and giving pleasure to the wayfarers. The
Speaker 3: ant showered it with laughter, saying, then in winter dance.
Speaker 3: The tale teaches us that nothing is more important than
Speaker 3: to give thought to necessary provisions, and not to devote
Speaker 3: one's leisure time to pleasure and revelry.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so this time the cicada is the dummy, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, this time the cicada is the fool. Well, actually,
Speaker 3: so it's interesting. This is most often taken as a
Speaker 3: tale illustrating the value of hard work and denouncing the
Speaker 3: cicada for its frivolity, for its failure to prepare for
Speaker 3: the future. So yes, the most common interpretation is that
Speaker 3: the cicada is the fool. But not just recently, even
Speaker 3: going back to ancient times, there have been counter interpretations
Speaker 3: and sort of inverted variants of the story, in some
Speaker 3: cases castigating the ant for its greed or in some
Speaker 3: cases for its lack of charity, or pointing out good
Speaker 3: things about the cicada. After all, even the classic version
Speaker 3: of the story I just mentioned has the cicada not
Speaker 3: merely seeking its own enjoyment in the summer. It spends
Speaker 3: the summer singing to wayfarers and giving them pleasure in
Speaker 3: its song. And this emphasizes something that came up in
Speaker 3: our discussion of the feedress. Socrates talks about this, but
Speaker 3: it's also mentioned in an editor's note here. In the
Speaker 3: Handsome book. Ancient Greek sources regularly indicate that the Greeks
Speaker 3: were delighted by the singing of cicadas. They they thought
Speaker 3: it was just great. They loved to sit and listen
Speaker 3: to them. It was wonderful entertainment. So the cicada was
Speaker 3: giving two others of itself what it could give all
Speaker 3: summer long, and then the ant would not later share
Speaker 3: what it had gathered. And then some other tellings still
Speaker 3: emphasized that, hey, whatever the ant has gathered, it the
Speaker 3: ant did not create, by the way, it simply raided
Speaker 3: from its surroundings. So it's interesting. This is a more
Speaker 3: complex tale than I remember from when I was a kid.
Speaker 3: I mean, I encountered some version of it that was
Speaker 3: just kind of like, yeah, basically like do your homework
Speaker 3: instead of playing outside. It's like, you know, think ahead.
Speaker 3: But but there I think there are actually more layers
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, now that you pointed out, I think this, yeah,
Speaker 2: totally the case. I think I also grew up just
Speaker 2: consuming the very sort of like capitalist version of it,
Speaker 2: where it's like, don't don't be a grasshopper, be an ant.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you look at it this way, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: that ant sounds miserable, Like he's not dancing, he's not singing,
Speaker 2: he's not enriching the world in any way. I guess,
Speaker 2: you know he'll be fine through the winner, but come on,
Speaker 2: what kind of life is he living? Also, he's a
Speaker 2: weird aunt in that he's such an individualist and male,
Speaker 2: I guess. And this, yeah, we're setting aside a lot
Speaker 2: of biological realities to consider the moral here.
Speaker 3: Maybe it should be that the cicada speaks to the
Speaker 3: ant colony as a whole, and the queen communicates back
Speaker 3: for it or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's a whole Pixar movie right here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I do think the traditional understanding of the
Speaker 3: esopic tale does match with like the origin story given
Speaker 3: by Socrates and the Feederist dialogue, where in both cases
Speaker 3: it's just like that the the cicada is a being
Speaker 3: that is so enraptured with sort of the performance of
Speaker 3: the moment, like it gets caught up in song and dance,
Speaker 3: or well, in both cases, it gets caught up in
Speaker 3: song and dance to the point that it is it
Speaker 3: dies later or it cannot feed itself when winter comes.
Speaker 2: It has a very short term view of life because
Speaker 2: it's it's life is very short term at this stage. Yea,
Speaker 2: and yeah, there are different ways to interpret that. Does
Speaker 2: it bring on feelings of, you know, vast summer melancholy
Speaker 2: or is there a little bit of you know, a
Speaker 2: little bit of live live life to the fullest while
Speaker 2: you got it sort of a vibe going on here.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many ways to interpret.
Speaker 3: It, though, if you want to keep pumping the metaphors there. Actually,
Speaker 3: it's interesting that cicadas may have quite long lives in
Speaker 3: our underground stage before the part you even ever see es.
Speaker 3: But with the periodical cicada some of the longest development
Speaker 3: periods of any insect on Earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be more like saying, hey, Grandpa, why
Speaker 2: don't you act your age instead of you know, writing
Speaker 2: jet skis and going to Burning Man or whatever the
Speaker 2: case may be, and Grandpa can rightly respond. It's like
Speaker 2: I've done all the other stuff before, I've lived the
Speaker 2: ant life before. Uh, this is this is my time
Speaker 2: to shine one last time.
Speaker 3: Right, this is my short window of reproductive phase. Doesn't
Speaker 3: really map onto human life.
Speaker 2: But darn it, we will. We will make everything fit
Speaker 2: one way or another. That's that's how that's how we
Speaker 2: use animals as ideas. Uh but uh, yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: that's I think it's the remarkable thing about the cicada.
Speaker 2: It's like it's it's life cycle and biology is so
Speaker 2: unique and fascinating, and then it's it's uniqueness, you know,
Speaker 2: begs for some sort of metaphoric usage, you know, like
Speaker 2: we we we have to see ourselves. We try to
Speaker 2: see ourselves in any animal just to see what we
Speaker 2: can get out of it. Right, And there's a lot
Speaker 2: to play with there with the life cycle of the cicada.
Speaker 3: No doubt. All Right, is it time? Is it time
Speaker 3: to go underground? And hope we don't pick up any
Speaker 3: massive sporaes on the way. Is that when you're coming up.
Speaker 2: That's when you're coming up. Yeah, the coming up is
Speaker 2: when you hit those spores. But you know there's other
Speaker 2: stuff that can go wrong down there as well. But Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's time for us to go underground, but we'll be
Speaker 2: we'll we'll be back with new non cicada episodes, and
Speaker 2: who knows, in time, we might return to the world
Speaker 2: of cicadas. Because, as we've been discussing, this is all
Speaker 2: going to happen again. We're gonna get excited. People are
Speaker 2: going to get excited about cicadas in the future, be
Speaker 2: it just your your normal annual cicadas or those periodical
Speaker 2: emergencies that can just be so amazing and overwhelming and yeah,
Speaker 2: some a little like frightening and icky, but I think
Speaker 2: you should embrace the cicada. Don't look away, look closer,
Speaker 2: because there's a there's a lot to there's a lot
Speaker 2: of wonder there if you look at it. All right,
Speaker 2: we'll go and close it out here then, But again,
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from everyone out there. If you
Speaker 2: have any thoughts or observations about cicadas. We'll continue to
Speaker 2: talk about it in listener mail. Yes, send in your photos.
Speaker 2: You find a good cicada, take a photo of it
Speaker 2: and send it to us. If no one else in
Speaker 2: your life is interested in it, we are interested. Show
Speaker 2: us those bugs.
Speaker 3: We'll remind us your favorite thing you've done with Cicada
Speaker 3: exoskeletons with the.
Speaker 2: Molts, Yeah yeah. Or if you're doing stuff with sound,
Speaker 2: are you doing, like you know, field samples of a
Speaker 2: Circada song and doing something with it. Send us an
Speaker 2: example of that. We'd love to hear it. Just a
Speaker 2: reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a
Speaker 2: science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 2: but we also put out other stuff during the week.
Speaker 2: We got that listener mail on Mondays, We've got a
Speaker 2: short form episode that comes out on Wednesdays, and then
Speaker 2: on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns, so just
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.