A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 
Ask an elitist

In the process of wrapping up, fish n' chips style, a 30lb Peruvian blowfish the other day, an article in the Ithaca Urinal caught Ez's attention. The Urinal is running a series titled Ask A Scientist. Cool, dudes. In it, some photogenic, eugenetically superior chick from Cornell with an expensive PhD was discoursing intelligently on conifer trees. What a gas, Ez thought. Ithacasucks should have a column like that.

So, Ez started flipping through his rolodex to find someone from up on the Hill who would consent to be a guest columnist. Let's be honest, readers, outside of the kitchen staff and dish crew, there aren't that many folks at Cornell who would go on record with a weblog named Ithaca Sucks. But Ez perservered, agreed to furnish ski masks at no extra charge, even threw in a case of Saranac beer to sweeten the pot so - without further adieu, ask an elitist!

Reinhard von Bingenslingen
Education: Munich University, B.A., UCLA, Berkeley, PhD., Cornell, Ed.
Interests: Population Studies, Ethnography
Hobbies: Fencing, Wild boar hunting, Skeet Shooting, Eugenics

RvB: Whas kind of name is Ezra Kidder? Was is your nationality, please?
EK: Irish. I'm Irish.
RvB: Das gut.
EK: Please tell us, Prof. von Bingenslingen, why do people on the Hill feel so superior to the folks downtown?
RvB: Das is easy. Die volk, I mean, the people on the Hill represent the future of civilization. They are intellectually superior, have higher SAT scores, come from the finest social backgrounds, have access to the finest research facilities and teachers in the world, and, finally, they study 18 hours a day to grasp the principles that guide the universe. There is no doubt that they are superior in every way. Do you have doubts, Herr Kidder?
EK: No, Professor ... you're right on the money. What's your partner's name? Do they allow uniforms like that on the Hill?
RvB: Dat is Otto. He is my research assistant. He is in ROTC. Ya?
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 5:57 AM

 
the place to be
Good choice, McGee! Whatever your neurosis, whatever your disease, no matter how little time you have left to live, no reason to worry how fucked up you are, you've come to the right place.

The Booster Squad from Ithaca's Chamber of Commerce has been out scouring the country again for endorsements for our tiny hamlet of insanity. Recall, if you will, how, several years ago, they suckered Utne Magazine into naming Ithaca "of the most enlightened communities in America." What you didn't know at the time is that Newark, New Jersey topped the list that year. Chamber of Commerce stoolies went around town buying up all the copies of that issue of Utne so NO ONE IN ITHACA ACTUALLY SAW THE ARTICLE. It was a joke! Those poor Utne fools had to spend a week in rehab, however, and that was no joke. They're still having flashbacks! "what the fuck did they put in my tofu? LSD?"


Following up on that triumph, Ithaca has once again been in the news as a magnet city. In the March issue of the Journal of the Hemlock Society, Ithaca was named the best place in America to commit suicide. Actually, the picture you see here of that lovely little view into eternity appeared in the March issue. The Hemlock editors offered some of the following as reasons for their pick - Ithaca is gorges! If jumping from high places is your thing, Ithaca is your place. Secondly, Ithaca has one of the best suicide hotlines in the country. If you can survive three hours of listening to some yokel on the phone talk about a scoop of Ben & Jerry's Rocky Road ice cream as an inducement to live, you're ready to die. Another reason for naming Ithaca a depressive's paradise was the high number of cloudy overcast days. Spending your vacation in Ithaca is like visiting Key West during hurricane season.

Ithaca received another wink from the editors of Rural Poverty Quarterly. Tompkins county was named in the April issue the best place in America for poor farmers. Can you believe it? Check out those happy faces. RPQ cited the availability of social service resources in Tompkins County as reason for their pick. "If you have a mail box, you can get a check." Another factor mentioned was the peculiar gullibility of local produce consumers. RPQ counseled producers, "if you can grow it and get away with calling it 'organic', well, you're on your way to eco-riches at Ithaca's Farmer Market."

Way to go, Ithaca!
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:05 AM

 

alternative ceremonies

Ez has been thinking about Cornell's upcoming graduation. Typically, Ez spends his time thinking about his receding hairline, revolution, the demise of capitalism, the next Ice Age but, this morning, as an nice alternative, he's been considering how Cornell's graduation could be more meaningful this year.

So, he's come up with a few ideas.

1. Ever watch the Summer Olympics and how the organizers pull off those massive synchronized human message events?
One moment, 20,000 fans in the stadium are sitting there, drinking $15 Pepsi's, next moment they are all holding little signs and, together, they form a huge Olympic banner. Kitschy, eh? Well, Ez wonders why the 2006 graduating class can't pull something like that off? Possible reasons: everyone is too drunk, most graduates can't spell or read simple directions. Nonetheless, Ez thinks it would be totally cool if 7,000 graduates got together and spelled out in 10 ft. high letters a true celebration of the Cornell spirit:



Idea #2: Immediately after the class valedvictorian gave her/his address, he or she would slowly and with great dignity leave the stage and proceed to the nearest gorge with all the other graduates following in tight order. At which point, Well, you get the point, like lemmings.

Ez's next favorite idea, #3, is more predictable. combining as it does, Slope Day and graduation. Immediately after the ceremony, graduates would chuck their silly mortarboard beanies in the air, rip off their academic robes, proceed in no particular order to huge tables groaning with Scotch, Vodka, Beer and tabs of acid, ingest as much as possible of these substances in the shortest amount of time, then rush off down the Buffalo St. hill to waste and lay pillage to the quiet and forever lugubrious city of Ithaca,
smashing shop windows, dismantling the Fleet building brick by brick, changing the name of all the streets without deference to liberal sensibilities, and then, when Ithaca looked like Watts after the riots, the graduates would race back to campus, hop in their smart Camry's and Jeep runabouts, and get the fuck out of town.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:41 AM

 
The Road Kill Movie

Hi all! Ez is out here on location, riding around Ithaca, filming his first movie - IthacaSucks Presents "Road Kill of Ithaca." It's very exciting --lights, cameras, cut! The extras ain't too lively but then again, we don't have to pay them either. Poor fellow. Rocky Raccoon, he ain't. Hey, lots of animals were injured in the making of this movie!

Well, to be precise, not during- but certainly before. It's not like we asked these poor critters to run out in front of our wheels? Right? After all, Ithacans love animals. Not the animals in the meat freezers at Wegmann's, but we sure love our pooches. The city closed that dog park out there by the Hangar and you'd think they closed the public library. The letters to the editor haven't stopped yet.
But, we also love our cars. Volvos, expecially. But Toyotas, Hondas, SUV's, big Buck Rogers' futuristic cars that resemble 21st Century stagecoaches, or compact, jazzy cars that look like electric shavers on wheels. So, you might say that road kill is the intersection of ecology and technology here in Ithaca.
That's our cameraman waiting for a squirrel who's crossing a telephone wire to make a mistep. It didn't happen on this particular day but we we sure saw a great variety of squirrels belly up with those little paws pointing towards Animal Valahala.
Sometimes it's hard to identify the species. Unless you're a forensic zoologist. Yeah, they have those. Americans are really getting into dead things. All those autopsy shows on tv. We'd thought it would be a good idea to combine Wild Kingdom with CSI. Whatchathink?

Ithaca doesn't have a Roadkill Cafe like some American communities. But, then again, Ithaca doesn't have a vegan restaurant either. A lot of Gen Y so-called vegans do sit around their $800 faux squats and discuss the ethical problems involved in eating road kill for personal survival. Right! Like the Ithaca Bakery is going to lock their dumpsters and the soup kitchen is going to ban guests who wear metal studs and profess individual anarchism.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 12:46 PM

 
The Ithaca Sucks Creeper Page


In the Lacanian account of the origins of our sense of self a critical event occurs during infancy. During this "mirror phase" infants grasp the fact that there is a world, and others, beyond them. This awareness comes to us from outside, an image of ourselves as an individual is built up from the feedback we receive from others. The very act of seeing ourselves as others see us necessitates a form of splitting, a fragmentation of the unity we have experienced hitherto. Our mourning for this lost unity, that which we seem to lack (although it was never truly there) stays with us for all our lives: although we recognise our lack is irreversible we search for it still.
It may be said that our capacity to look, and to see ourselves through the eyes of others, is at the core of our psychological formation. The scopophilic drive is a constituent of the polymorphous sexuality of the infant, one which is gradually "trained" and normalised but one which may become fixated into a perversion, producing obsessive voyeurs and Peeping Toms, whose only sexual satisfaction can come from watching, in an active controlling sense, an objectified other. " --Derek Baldwin
"In current Society a certain amount of voyeurism is considered normal, such as watching x-rated movies, as well as graphic magazines. You may have even been sexually aroused when you noticed by accident someone who was undressing, naked, or having sex. However, the key factor here is that unless you seek out these experiences, you are not a true voyeur" Disorder Information Sheet - PsychNet-UK Psychobabble? Every time you pop an x-rated video into the dvd player, every time you surf adult content on the web, you are "seeking out these experiences."


Voyeurism

The Oxford Dictionary defines a voyeur as "a person who derives gratification from surreptitiously watching sexual acts or objects; a peeping Tom; a person who takes a morbid interest in sordid sights". For Lacan, voyeurism is defined through scopophilia which includes both exhibitionism and voyeurism. Scopophilic individuals for Lacanians are classified as clinical perverts. Within this school of thought it is also believed that the structure of perversion is predominately male. Only in exceptional cases could a female be classified as a true pervert. Voyeuristic behavior however can be experienced and enjoyed by all of us to differing degrees.

The idea of the fragmented body was one of the earliest concepts developed by Lacan in association with the mirror stage. This is the moment in the child’s development when they see their body as a whole in the specular register, but their own perception is one of disunity with the image. This time produces great trauma for the child as it is trying to gain mastery over its body. This stage is quickly passed but the trauma of it can reemerge in later life. The child moves through this period by the formation of the ego. This is achieved by a process of identification with the specular image outside of the body. When this happens the individual's ego is formed, based on the alienation process. However, the individual is left 'covering' a lack of completeness in themselves through the conception of the ego. In other words the ego functions as an agency of deception by telling the individual that they are whole and complete. The experience of the Fragmented Body can result in great anxiety and aggression. For Lacan the human continues through their life constantly oscillating between their image, which is alien to themselves, and their real body which is uncoordinated and in pieces. Many symptoms are in response to the oscillation between these two camps. This sense of fragmentation expresses itself in images of castration, mutilation, dismemberment and combustion of the body, which can be expressed in dreams, ones analysis and in the way we might lead our lives.

The pervert is the person who attempts to take sexual pleasure to the limit in order to achieve the ultimate jouissance. The French term volonte-de-jouissance meaning 'will to enjoy' is often used to describe perversion. This is based on the premise that the individual's enjoyment is derived from the fantasy of a supposed 'other' watching. This is then coupled with the fantasy that they are the instrument of the 'other's' supposed enjoyment. The ‘other’ is the reflection of the projected self, the ego.

"With the proliferation of camera cell phones, Web cams and affordable surveillance devices, we have become a culture that promotes voyeurism." Kathy Frank




Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 5:38 AM