The teacher chided me when I answered “autumn” after she asked each student in my fourth grade class, “What is your favorite season?” Chided me because (she thought) I gave the wrong answer. To her closed mind, autumn meant death. The last gasp of the full throat of summer before the bones of winter were visible. Naked femurs of branches overladen with bandages of snow. But for me, I not only saw the pure gold of the maple trees in the fall, but heard the wild symphony—a cacophony of cicadas, katydids, and crickets—serenade me every night in late October. That hazy, delirious sound of Indian Summer. That holy time when every insect seemed wild with its soon-to-be extinguished life. And wanted to shout that joy into my ears. I love autumn because the loud songs of the brown-winged cicadas, the slick green katydids, the deep black crickets prove that right before we die—we are most alive. Alive. Alive, Miss Camille.

Publisher’s Note:

“I’m so happy today to be invited to play along with this distinguished orchestra; these guys are really old school...” says jazz musician, author, and philosopher David Rothenberg, who plays his clarinet live with katydids and crickets, in a three-minute film on YouTube: Bug Music: Summer Symphony (25 August 2021).

See also Rothenberg’s “Song #6” with bug-beats of katydids, crickets, and Robinson’s cicada, featured in an interview by Diane Rehm, “David Rothenberg: Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise” (18 April 2013), in which they discuss his book and CD.

Bio: Linda Nemec Foster