"Cicadian Rhythm" - Brood X in Historic Ellicott City (2021) VR 4K 360 Video Kit

The Great Brood X Re-Emergence!

This is my sort of love-letter to my weird little hometown of Ellicott City, MD, and this weird little quirk of ours that involves a weird little rare entomological phenomenon.

Every 17-years, the Brood X cicadas emerge in huge numbers, absolutely overwhelming the area. During the following 6 or so weeks, they will dig their way up from the ground, climb up in a tree, shed their “nymph” shell as they grow and molt into adults, and then MAKE AN AWFUL LOT OF NOISE as they “sing” to attract a mate. They lay eggs in the tree branches and die off by the end of June, and those eggs will hatch into nymphs that will burrow into the ground to live off of nutrients from tree roots — that is, until the ground warms and cools 17 more times and they know that it’s time to come out again…

• I was 3 years old when I saw my first cicada. And yes, there is a fuzzy memory in there somewhere of a weird noisy winged bulbous thing that made this awful disturbing racket — and how I was absolutely terrified until learning that they’re completely harmless.

• When they came back in 2004, I was 20 years old. Freshly dropped out of college to be a music teacher, I was instead working at a Barnes and Noble Cafe. It was there I’d meet Mell, who appears in this video as well, to assist with A/V setup in the field.

• Mell and I have played music together for the last 18 (and counting) years, but in 2004 we had just begun jamming, in a parking garage next to the Columbia, MD lakefront. That summer, I set up my first actual attempt at a recording studio using my dining room table, an old desktop computer to be dedicated to the cause, and every bit of music production equipment I had at the time.

As I found myself in need of something to test out the equipment, the Brood X cicadas began singing. I recorded a minute of them a day for 30 days, and became absolutely enamored with the critters. Later, Mell and I would use the recordings as atmospheric background noise for one of our band’s songs.

That brings us to 2021, and where were we?

I had been living in California since 2013. In 2020, I was renting a room in Oakland and had just bought a school bus. I was converting it to an RV as my quarantine project, first bought in February as an Adventure Machine, “Ziggy Starbus” was somewhere I could always point some nervous energy and work away at.. And…well, in need of a good way to test out my new recording gear, I remembered my beady-red-eyed winged friends at home and set my sights east.

Ziggy Starbus sadly did not survive the full journey, but the trip was carried out, and this is a compilation of the footage I recorded in seven different spots around the historic district, where you’ll be immersed in 10 minutes of cicada song to accompany the visuals:

1. The Sign - ”Welcome to Historic Ellicott City, est 1772” stands in front of a log cabin and historical society placard. This was the first place we shot, but we were visited by a cicada within minutes. I hold them up to the camera for a proper introduction

2. The Bridge - Outside the B&O Railroad museum, a bridge bears the name of the city in a familiar landmark. The Tiber River here flows into The Patapsco in a wetland green area near ruins of a trolley bridge behind as well. We thought it’d be a good home for the bugs and were absolutely delighted to have lucked into capturing a train passing by as well.

3. The Tiber - The aforementioned Tiber River. Growing up in the area, this was a favorite spot to stop on a walk and appreciate the scenery. A brick alleyway between shops also hides a bee preservation planter, and we are visited by local Indiana Jones impersonator and partner of Mell, Jake!

4. Tiber Park - The buildings here on Main Street actually straddle this river on its way to the Patapsco. This area being a half-mile of hill that ends in the joining of two local riverways, there has been plenty of damage and destruction over the years. This park used to be one of the buildings, and a park bench nearby memorializes two girls that were struck and killed on the train tracks. As a teen, I would sit on one of the benches and busk with my acoustic guitar. During the clip, a photographer with a group in formal dress decides to use a building as a backdrop.

5. The Ruins - These burnt-out stone buildings date to the early 1800s, and line the nearby area surrounding River Road. My dad got really into genealogy in the 90s and told me that his father’s father used to work at the nearby factory on the river, and that he died on the production line. Also that he lived in one of these houses, and that his father (my grandfather) was born in one, though he wasn’t sure which. It’s crazy how deep my roots run in this area. And these cicadas are the descendants of the bugs that he heard back then.

6. Buzzard’s Rock - In a nearby entrance to Patapsco State Park, you can overlook ruins such as those seen earlier, and a local abandoned seminary school dubbed Hell House by the locals. You can’t see the buildings from this view, but there were some locals enjoying the scenery as we set up, and fully in the woods now, we could overlook the river valley leading to Main Street

7. The Gazebo - A personal touch to wrap it all up. This is Font Hill Wetland Park, which was built while I lived very close by. A boarded walkway connects a small pond area teeming with life to a larger lake teeming with life, and which has a gazebo out in the middle of it. My memories here include everything from underage drinking to photo class projects, and there’ll always be a gazebo in my heart.