NPPF - Canto Two Notes -- Et Cicada

[charles albert]

I lived in Australia as a child and the 7 year cicadas were
abundant......they looked a lot like large stylish and garishly colored
cockroaches, without that nasty "aura"......they would appear in several
colors and ther rarest would always be held as trophies, for a couple of
days until they died....

WHen a chorus of cicadas goes off, its almost suffocating...

love,
cfa
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "himself" <himself at richardryan.com>
To: <jasper at hatguild.org>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 7:24 PM
Subject: RE: NPPF - Canto Two Notes -- Et Cicada


> Where I grew up in Oklahoma the cast skins were also brown.  We did, in
> fact, call these insects "locusts" -- which I now gather is incorrect.  It
> was a local sport -- rather cruel in retrospect (if one can be cruel to an
> insect) -- to catch a cicada and lasso a long piece of thread around its
> thick head, and to fly it buzzing furiously and electrically at the end of
> the thread in wild, sweeping circles.
>
> It seems to me, based on the information contained at Jasper's links
below,
> that the cicadae which I heard every summer growing up must have been
> "annual" cicada rather than the "periodicals" he mentions, since we heard
> them each year without fail.  The great waves of thrumming sound they make
> is very beautiful and distinctive.  James Agee, in an elegant passage in
"A
> Death in the Family", says "it is habitual to summer nights, and is of the
> great order of noises, like the noises of the sea and the blood."
>
> These stentorian critters are also called dogday locust or harvestflies:
>
> http://troyb.com/photo/gallery/017-01-DogdayHarvestfly.htm
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> > [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of Jasper Fidget
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 11:00 AM
> > To: 'Pynchon List'
> > Subject: RE: NPPF - Canto Two Notes (1)
> >
> >
> > > From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> > [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> > > Behalf Of David Morris
> > >
> > > 238:  Empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed, / Hugging
> > the trunk
> > > Does anyone have a clue what this is?
> > >
> >
> > Maybe Kinbote is correct that it's a cicada's cast skin (exuvia):
> >
> http://www.hortnet.co.nz/key/keys/bugkey2a/cast1.htm
>
> These tend to be brown where I live, but the ones in the photos on this
site
> could be called emerald I suppose (probably depends on the species).
> Incidentally, juvenile cicadas are called "nymphs", and burrow underground
> for usually 13 or 17 years (depends on species, but always tends to be a
> primary number for some reason), then lives only 2-6 weeks as an adult.
>
> Also, the male cicada apparently makes the loudest sound of all insects.
>
> Also, the letters P or W can often be made out on a cicada's wings, and
> there's some folklore that maintains a P indicates peace, while a W
> indicates war.
>
> Also, cicadas are not locusts, as they are sometimes confused.
>
>
http://insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/fauna/michigan_cicadas/Periodical/Index.ht
> ml
>
> http://www.dancentury.com/cicada/faq.html
>
> Jasper
>