Sunlight into sound

“Was it last year or the year before we had the 13-year cicadas?” [David Haskell asks]. “I took my sound pressure meter down to a place where they were really loud, and it came to over 90 decibels. At 85 OSHA says you need hearing protection in your workplace. “Everybody else hates them.” But to him, the noise is biological alchemy, sunlight into sound. “These guys have been feeding on roots for 13 years. And so it’s 13 years of combined Tennessee forest productivity being blasted out.”