Signposts
Dang Wyatt! Did you see what I saw? To quote Michele Malkin, a so-called conservative journalist who, incidentally, is a self-described yellow girl doing a man's job,(Michelle resembles a cross between a skinny Connie Chung and an Asian Blondie) "What on earth did they put in Ithaca's drinking water?"
Michele may have passed through once but Ez has been asking that question for years. Careful analysis of the water supply has failed to produce an answer. But. residents should not be tempted to forego the water of mass delusion either by reverting to bottled spring water. The same damn stuff is ground into the flour so, not dissimilar to Aldous Huxley's bucolic town of Loudon, even the bagels give you the heebiejeebies.
So, our imaginary travelers, after encountering the road sign above, shouldn't be surprised to find signs near Trumasnburg pointing to Al-Quaeda Village (formerly Eco-Village, but desperate for a petroleum future that would allow them to tank up their Trailblazers and assorted mid-sized vans, the denizens there have changed allegiance.)
No, Wyatt and Norbert, you ain't in Kansas. Nor are you likely to encounter familiar sights like the Eisenhower Diner or the Taft Luncheonette in Ithaca. All the VFW cannons have been dismantled and anyone who remembers Omaha Beach or the Bataan death march has been billeted at Lakeview Nursing Home where, helpless and increasingly cranky in wheelchair and walker, all there is to do all day long is to wait for the evening bowl of rice and watch Audie Murphy flicks on cable.
Now Ez realizes that anyone under 30 is unlikely to make sense of these references to an earlier, more patriotic time. Who the fuck was Audie Murphy, you might ask. Ez lost his political innocence during the Vietnam War, specifically on the first evening of the New Mobilization back in '69 or '70, or whenever. Norman Mailer describes the scene better in one of his early books. It was the occasion when thousands of the nation's young people joined by hordes of funky liberals like Dr. Spock (not the Vulcan) marched on Fortress Washington only to tear gassed and arrested -- yeah, the occasion of the failed levitation of the Pentagon and subsequent standoff between flower power and fire power. It was Ez's third or fourth demo, young scruffy naysayer that he was. --ah, those were the days! The Washington mall was filled with hippies, nuns, freaks, half naked Bacchae parading around with animal intestines draped around their shoulders and covered in blood. What ever happened to good old fashioned political theater? Too much Sesame Street . These days all you see at demos are puppet shows and stilt walkers.
Anyway, at some point during the New Mob (no different from the old Mob), a younger but no wiser Ez ended up on the campus of Georgetown, dropping acid and watching other stoned kids up on a roof as they dropped water balloons off the dorm. Maybe they were fighting their own little war that night, maybe they were somehow. like children always do, mimmicking the antics of their elders. As Ez listened to Dead tunes wafting across the lawn at Georgetown, the scene became more surrealistic as other students started to stumble back across the lawns from Dupont Circle, talking inexplicably about tear gas and police charges. Ez realized that night that war was not something middle class kids attending college in America would ever understand. Hey, it was fun to get off on watching Jane Fonda playing the Princess Di of Protest in Hanoi but, ultimately, she would come home to marry a cable news zillionaire and own a 200,000 acre ranch in Paraguay.
But Ez digresses. He wants to talk about how people on the outside see Ithaca. Wayne and Norbert, what do they think when they pass roadsigns like the one we see above. Or stop by at the lovely Commons on a Saturday to do a little good ole fashioned shopping only to encounter cheese ball Fay Gougakis exhorting Ithacans to sign petitions to impeach both Bush and Cheney! Whoa, whale girl!!!! We're talking coup-d'etat. Regime change. Kick the bums out. After another half hour or so of additional group therapy to expunge the effects of living in a rightwing fascist republic that elects folks like Bush & Cheney in the first place. the crowd then disperses, at which time many of whom will proceed to the nearest mall or big box store in their gas guzzling Rancheros or what fiber glass pumpkin they happen to drive to consume like George Bush thinks all good Americans should do. Or, if our out-of-towners hung out til Sunday, they might catch a benefit concert right there on the Commons, yep, a concert whose stated goal is to end poverty. End poverty? Did you say, end poverty? Wow, man, we won't have to eat at the soup kitchen anymore.
Now, at this point Wayne and Norbert would have figured out that there is some truth to the bumper sticker --Ithaca, 10 sq. miles surrounded by reality. Or, if you think like Ez, you might just consider that 10 square miles a sort of Conradian heart of darkness, the place where you can't appear any more stupid, or any more ridiculous for that matter, without seeming enlightened.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 11:10 AM
