2008 Woodie Awards
Viva El Cicada!
Alan Malnar
Issue date: 9/14/06 Section: Opinion
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Years ago I played in a Latin rock band alongside two Cuban percussionists. The drummer's nickname-Calabaza ("the pumpkin")-was easy enough to understand. Keeping a perfect beat on his drums, Calabaza always had a huge sardonic smile pasted on his face reminiscent of a jack o' lantern. But I never fully understood why band members called the conga player El Cicada. In addition to the conga drums, El Cicada played timbales, claves, cowbell, castanets, bongos and an very soulful pair of maracas. You know, those gourd-shaped shakers often filled with little beans or pea gravel? To comprehend the true meaning of this endearing moniker-El Cicada- I had to relocate years later to Prescott, Arizona. I had to listen to the maraca-madness incessantly rattling outside the window of my first apartment.
I had to listen to that local insect-songster known as the cicada.
So if your bedroom window happens to be adjacent to a cottonwood grove and you don't wear earplugs when you sleep and you can't sleep because of some obnoxious buzz invading your brain…
No! You are not dreaming of maracas nor do you wish to become a maraca player.
No! You have not ingested too much Starbucks or mistakenly substituted No-Doz® for Sominex®.
You are simply being annoyed, irritated, aggravated, infuriated, and tortured by the buzz-saw sounds and mating tactics of the cicada.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz…
In spite of its tendency (and determination) to irritate our lives with its garrulous chatter, cicadas are fascinating creatures. Resurrecting themselves from their subterranean digs they experience a metamorphosis and emerge into the trees to be consumed by mating and a cacophony of song. Male cicadas have ribbed plates on the underside of their abdomen. Lusty troubadours of the tree limbs they shake, rattle, roll, bark, bawl, and wail mostly during the dog days of summer. But in perpetual search of a mate male cicadas often continue their vivacious song into the wee hours of the hot, sultry night.
I had to listen to that local insect-songster known as the cicada.
So if your bedroom window happens to be adjacent to a cottonwood grove and you don't wear earplugs when you sleep and you can't sleep because of some obnoxious buzz invading your brain…
No! You are not dreaming of maracas nor do you wish to become a maraca player.
No! You have not ingested too much Starbucks or mistakenly substituted No-Doz® for Sominex®.
You are simply being annoyed, irritated, aggravated, infuriated, and tortured by the buzz-saw sounds and mating tactics of the cicada.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz…
In spite of its tendency (and determination) to irritate our lives with its garrulous chatter, cicadas are fascinating creatures. Resurrecting themselves from their subterranean digs they experience a metamorphosis and emerge into the trees to be consumed by mating and a cacophony of song. Male cicadas have ribbed plates on the underside of their abdomen. Lusty troubadours of the tree limbs they shake, rattle, roll, bark, bawl, and wail mostly during the dog days of summer. But in perpetual search of a mate male cicadas often continue their vivacious song into the wee hours of the hot, sultry night.
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