{"id":683,"date":"2010-11-04T01:57:25","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T06:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=683"},"modified":"2010-11-16T13:03:27","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T19:03:27","slug":"cicadapocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=683","title":{"rendered":"Cicadapocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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4. A photo of the last place you went on holiday. Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco, CA.<\/p><\/div>\n

The last place I went on holiday was just a few weeks ago when I went to San Francisco for Halsted<\/a>‘s wedding (which was wonderful). This is one of the few photos I took while I was there and just one of two or three that aren’t completely blurry messes. Also: This is where chocolate comes from.<\/p>\n

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The first night of the cicada invasion. The bugs emerged and started crawling up the side of the house.<\/p><\/div>\n

So, I’ve started down the zombie path, which led to me adding some of my creepiest memories of the cicada invasion which occurred while I lived in New Jersey. Brood X, a 17 year cicada popped out and made for some surreal living. And I’m thinking, what better cause for zombieism than a bunch of terrifying bugs? Or perhaps it’s just a good backdrop for them? Or maybe they’re the zombies themselves? The thought of a body bursting open, filled with cicadas…. Ok, I’m making myself ill now. Let’s just move onto an excerpt:<\/p>\n

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Towards the end of the worst of the cicadas, this one was wedged into the hood of my car.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

But now, here it was again. A cicada invasion was once again the talk of the town. It was all anybody could think of. The conversation rankled me; nobody would listen to reason.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been through this before,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said, for what must have been the hundredth time that month. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all a bunch of hype and fear mongering. They need to keep us scared of something, so they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re latching onto this.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s they?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Therese asked.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They. Them<\/em>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nI sighed, looked to Paul for help. He just shrugged. As my best friend in the bunch, the only civilized person amongst the savages of central Jersey, I often needed backup from him. He was usually quick to come to my aid, but sometimes he seemed to derive a sort of sick pleasure from watching me twist in the wind.
\nI turned back to Therese. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They are the government, the news media, the entertainment industry. Gun control nuts. Red state extremists. Fucking…fucking McDonald\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and PepsiCo.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I was on a roll, reaching for straws perhaps, but on a roll nonetheless. Once I got started it was hard to stop. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Think of everyone that benefits when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re kept afraid. Docile. Timid and meek inside our houses, too scared to come outside, much less to question a government edict that makes it legal to drag citizens out of bed in the middle of the night to question them without counsel present, to hold them indefinitely without charges, to make people disappear, erase them from the public record as if they had never existed. Think about how quickly emergency acts get passed. And look at all the revenue being generated. All the advertising dollars. All the protective gear being sold.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nSharon took her eyes off of Paul for a second and cast a dark but amused gaze in my direction. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you really believe all the things that you say?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she asked.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Of course I do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recognize a vast, global governmental conspiracy underwritten by Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay and executed by CNN and Comedy Central when the proof is right there before your very eyes, then can you claim to be paying attention to what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on around you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nSharon rolled her eyes at me — something she did with frightening regularity. It was okay: I was used to it, and tended to return the gesture with similar frequency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last place I went on holiday was just a few weeks ago when I went to San Francisco for Halsted‘s wedding (which was wonderful). This is one of the few photos I took while I was there and just one of two or three that aren’t completely blurry messes. Also: This is where chocolate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[257,16],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanowrimo","tag-aphotoaday","tag-excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}