Get rid of your lawn signs. Take down the No War on Iraq placards, already?
The war on Iraq is a thing of the past. Ezra can tell because the MSN homepage is featuring a woman with her face totally wrapped in bandages. And she's not Iraqi. She's not even GI Jane after being caught in ' friendly fire.'
MSN is talking about the merits of plastic surgery. The perfect thing to think about after watching 4 weeks of war on the boob tube.
We switch from images of dying children to women having their chins lifted. Normalcy.
That's not what Ezra wants to talk about today though. He's doing a survey.
When was the last time you were downtown? Yesterday? A week ago? Six months ago? 15 years ago? Are you planning to visit the Commons any time soon? Do you ever plan to go downtown ?
Ezra knows. Visiting the Ithaca Commons can get sort of depressing. All those empty store fronts. The old CVS empty for years. Ithaca Logos going out of business now. Overpriced, gloomy boutiques. Or second hand shops. Not the fashions of today flown in from Paris or Milan. The fashions of 15 years ago. Not the bestsellers of 2003 displayed in huge stacks in the window. The bestsellers of 1842. Or used copies of Valley of the Dolls.
It's sad. Bring your own prozac along when you visit downtown. There's not even a pharmacy to get your prescription filled.
Soon you might not even be able to get close to downtown. Unless you live there or take a cab from Lansing. Between Ciminilli's demand for half the parking spots in Ithaca, all the construction on Cayuga Green behind the library that will be starting up soon, work on the Cornell Hilton, the potholes, the Commons will be inaccessible. It'll resemble downtown Baghdad more than the county seat of Tompkins County, New York.
Ezra think that somebody should be working on an alternative. Ithaca, being the town of alternatives.
A Virtual Ithaca.
Rebuild the whole damn thing on the Internet. Then you won't have to worry about the dog ordinance. You won't even have to worry about stepping in poop or getting approached for spare change or a cigarette by some panhandler or underaged smoker. You can visit lovely downtown Ithaca from the comfort of your own den. Save money on parking too.
Think about it.
The entire city of Ithaca accessible to you online. Click on the Leather Express icon and be able to order some new S&M gear
without ever having to visit downtown, park 12 blocks away and view all the depressing scenes of urban decay.
Or click on the 3D Light icon and place your order for Ecstasy Cigarettes. Then click on the Autumn Leaves link and order a copy of Silent Spring, have it mailed to your home. Maybe they'll even thrown in a recycled plastic bag. (Joe W. believes in recycling and saving $$ on shopping bags for his customers. ) How about visiting the homesite for See Spot Gallery? Check out the depleted uranium exhibit or the cute duct tape fashions? No reason to go downtown, is there?
Then you could order take-out online too. Try some of the dead duck soup from the new French restaurant that just opened on Cayuga St. You could enjoy Nouvelle Cuisine right off the Internet, at home without having a bunch of animal rights activists staring at you angrily through the window.
Ezra thinks it's a brilliant idea. Might put a lot of people to work as deliverymen or women. Get the local economy rolling again
Even help out the folks at the Post Office. Ezra hears that they're not too happy. Just the other day they staged a demonstration outside the Tioga St branch. Don't want them to go 'postal', do you?
Ithaca could become internationally famous. One of the first virtual cities.
Or they could just put the whole damn thing on E Bay and try to sell it to the Japanese or the Russian Mafia.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 4:59 AM
