This week's podcast was taped on site at New Paltz's Mohonk Mountain House, where musician and philosopher David Rothenberg and scientist and researcher John Cooley are studying, observing, and listening to the periodical magicicadas that have invaded the Hudson Valley.
David Rothenberg, whose book Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise is excerpted in the June issue, has long been fascinated by the relationship between humanity and nature. Rothenberg is professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and he lives in Cold Spring. His latest major label music CD, One Dark Night I Left My Silent House (ECM), a duet with pianist Marilyn Crispell, came out in 2010.
Podcast Episode 14: David Rothenberg and John Cooley
David Rothenberg and John Cooley discuss mating rituals, life spans, and the science and aesthetics of cicadas.
John Cooley is a researcher and professor at the University of Connecticut. Cooley received his PhD from the University of Michigan, where he studied speciation, reproductive isolation, and mate choice both in syrphid flies and periodical cicadas, or magicicadas.
Listen in as we discuss the 17-year cycle of the cicadas that have emerged en masse in the Hudson Valley, the sounds and patterns of their mating calls, and the science and aesthetic of their distinctive life spans.
Click here to subscribe to the Chronogram Conversations Podcast on iTunes.
