What is Ithaca Sucks?
It is a much needed reality check. You live in Ithaca, New York? Then you need Ithaca Sucks. IS provides a counterweight to the fine line of bullshit that assaults you from all sides. People wouldn't move here unless somebody told them that Ithaca was a great place to live. Ithaca is gorges. That's the mantra you see all over town on car bumpers. But wait a minute! Don't people buy souvenir
bumperstickers when they visit someplace neat and want to let other people know they've been there? Like Disney World, Mount Rushmore, Awesome Chasm, Wyoming, whatever? Why do folks who live here drive around with a bumpersticker advertising the place they've never left? Are we entering the Twilight Zone? Or is this some kind of Thought Control? See it enough times and you come to believe it?
Sure Ithaca has gorges. But how many times do you visit them in a lifetime? Hey, let's go down and visit the gorge today! Can anyone in Ithaca name all the gorges? (More of this later.) Some folks visit gorges and leave in body bags. Perhaps those
ubitiquitous bumperstickers contribute to suicidal ideation? Has anyone thought of that? You got a C+ on your International Economics midterm, you broke up with your girlfriend, your financial aid was reduced, you can't face your family in Kyoto, Bombay or
Beavercreek and then you see a car drive buy with that little green bumpersticker.! Pow!!!! It's like living next to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Anyway, back to Ithaca Sucks. If your lips can form those two magical words, then you have a chance not to get sucked into the snare of Stalinist mind control, be conned by the endless backpatting hagiography of beautiful Ithaca, one of the best places to live in America. The copywriters at the Chamber of Commerce here should go to work for Kim Jong II in North Korea!
Don't get me wrong. Ithaca is a beautiful place to live if you love the natural beauty of lakes, forests and valleys. The problem is that on any given day you plan to visit one of Ithaca's natural wonders, it rains! Anyway, no one who lives up here ever visit those places.
Go to Tremain Park on a weekday in the summer and the place is deserted. Everybody is at the mall! Or cutting their 1.2 acre of grass. Or trying to survive by picking enough cans and bottles to buy their next pack of cigarettes. Or just shuffling up and down the Commons.
There are lots of other things people don't tell you about Ithaca when you start thinking about moving here. You have to discover them for yourself. If the folks at the Chamber of Commerce wanted to do a public service, they would send every prospective Ithacan a copy of C. Cavafy's poem. I especially like the last couple of stanzas:
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean. --Cavafy,
Ithaka
Somebody told me today that the Greek isle formerly known as Ithaka changed her name. There is no other place on the globe with the name Ithaca except our little piece of paradise, Ithaca, New York. Did the Chamber of Commerce buy the exclusive rights to the name?
IS dedicates itself to the task of laying bare the bullshit, pulling back the mask, deconstructing the myth. We won't be fooled again.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 10:25 PM
