anti-tourismSome retired couple in Iowa is at this very moment looking over a glossy brochure flaunting the scenic highpoints of Ithaca, New York – intent on coming here for their summer vacation. Or maybe it’s the proud parents of a future Cornellian, visiting the campus for the very first time. Over there in Osaka, poring over the same glossy 4 ½ by 8 inch flyer in Japanese. Ithaca is gorges, state parks, a shimmering lake lined with marinas, lovely college promenades, glittering culture. Anyhow, Martha, it beat’s looking at cornfields all summer. Or the 24 hour harsh luster of neon billboards.
Suckers. Wait til they get here and discover the potholes, the empty store fronts, the snobby liberals, the last remaining withered, dead leaves of the counter culture. You can keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Ithaca.
They’re coming. The tourists in all their myriad shapes and sizes. Lugging digital cameras, camcorders, bug spray, credit cards, New York State phrase books. Soon they’re be strolling down the Commons past the bottle pickers, the hippie drum circles, the teenagers bumming smokes, the trendy boutiques that are so pricey that native Ithacans can’t shop there.
We need to head them off at the gorge. Adopt stern anti-tourist measures. Declare war on tourism. We want to keep Ithaca poor, wasted, sucking for air, decaying in its own natural juices. Who wants more hotels rising from the debris of our dead metropolis? More boutiques and bistros advertising blackened salmon specials?Who wants to be constantly telling people where Cayuga St. or how to get up to Cornell? Its Ka-u-ga, ok, buddy?
Got any ideas how we can ward off this summer’s tourist invasion? Ezra does. First, we send out a news story to the wire services that every single Ithacan has come down with mad cow disease. Or that there’s been a rash of legionnaire’s disease reported in Tompkins County. That there are crazed VFW guys, frothing at the mouth, pulling army surplus howitzers down Rt 13 to kill every fucking last tourist that ventures down the road from Syracuse in an SUV. Maybe we can take pictures of Cayuga Lake showing that it glows green in the dark. How about putting out the word that Cayuga Lake has disappeared? That it got sucked up to Cornell in a giant straw and never came back? Throw in for good measure a story about how some whacked out grad student in Chemical Engineering up at Cornell sprayed Agent Orange over a good part of Ithaca and environs from a crop duster.
OK. A few tourists will get through. We have to be ready to deal with them. We can get all the 4 to 8 years olds in town, dress them in rags and send them out to harass every tourist who shows up on the Commons. Got chewing gum, Mister, Salvia, Ecstasy? You want to meet my sister?
Then we put signs up along the highways – Tompkins County Leper Colony – 5 miles. Or another sign idea – Ithaca Nuclear Testing Area – Visitors Restricted.
By Ezra’s ghost, we’re on to something here. If there are no tourist dollars coming in, prices will start falling. Then we can enjoy some of that blackened salmon at fire sale prices.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 8:17 AM
