My friend Sean Chilson and I were Facebitching about the fact that Ithaca contains a few unpleasant surprises for the wide-eyed newcomer. When you bring these up with locals, you are routinely buffeted with the same response: "Everybody knows that."
Well, if that's true, then the kind thing to do would be for the Chamber of Commerce--or whomever would be responsible for such a thing--to put together a list, post it on the city's official website, offer free paper copies at the post office, and maybe even force the shitheads who are still distributing phonebooks--in East Hippie-stan, in 2012--to stuff a copy of it into their stupid ten-pound delivery of wasted paper.
I humbly submit this list of ten items for their consideration:
Ten Things You Should Know Before Moving To Ithaca
1. Only drunk Ithaca College students and homeless people eat at Sammy's. Everyone else knows better.
2. Ithaca used to be the most hip, happening place in the East, but then it grew up. It is now a progressive-agrarian enclave of blue-collar tree-huggers, some of whom have become so antagonistic to the world outside of Ithaca that they call themselves Libertarians. Get over it.
3. Medical services in Ithaca are easy to locate, but very difficult to get treatment from. Once you do, you'll find that doctors, nurses, and administrative assistants who can see each other's offices across the street are all apparently incapable of exchanging any info at all about their patients to one another. This is not because they are incompetent, but because they are not used to patients showing up for repeat visits, as most resort to full-spectrum, ayurvedic homeopathy when their PA fails to administer side effect-free, magical healing powers.
4. Ithaca really is gorges.
5. Cornell is in a different city--an island unto itself within Ithaca--called Collegetown. The whole situation is very similar to The Vatican's autonomy in Rome. Pay no attention to lexicographers or public officials who claim otherwise.
6. Locals think the dining scene is first-rate. In reality, there are six or seven Thai restaurants in Ithaca, and everyone thinks only one is any good. Every Ithacan will name a different restaurant. The last one you eat at will be the only one you find remotely tolerable. This is the standard for any type of cuisine you care to name, including pizza. Yes, you are still in the state of New York.
7. The Commons:
A. It is illegal to smoke cigarettes on the pedestrian mall when the sun is up, and you will be ticketed if you are caught; but at night, if you see a drunk d-bag pissing on a bench you often like to sit on, and you tap him on the shoulder to ask him to stop, and when he turns to address you he starts puking, but he was still pissing, so now he's puking and pissing on you, and probably trying to use you for physical support, then any cops in sight will point and laugh.
B. When the man in the top hat asks if you would "like to see some magic", the correct answer is "No".
C. There is a skinny man with dreadlocks who often wears neon leotards and shouts at himself in a high-pitched voice. He is there year-round. Do not ask him what is wrong.
D. The staff at the Commons Market are special/awesome (and no, that's not a euphemism for "intellectually disabled"). Be nice to them, and they will reward you.
8. You will find stop signs, stoplights, and pedestrian crossings at the same kinds of intersections you would in almost any American town, but the principles that govern how they work are the complete opposite of anywhere else you've been. If you get confused trying to figure out what we mean by that, don't worry; you'll understand soon.
9. The quickest way to die in Ithaca is to say out loud, in a crowded room, that you're not sure hydraulic fracturing is all bad.
10. If you read this list, then move here and act like you know everything, Ithacans will know that you are only working off of this list, and still treat you like a newcomer.
Welcome to Ithaca! Good Luck!
This is a great start, hell yeah Dan!
ReplyDeleteComments to the above, in no particular order.
ReplyDeleteThai Cuisine is the best Thai food in Ithaca. Everybody knows that. Try the brunch on Sunday.
After living here for almost seven years (holy shit), I'm not too enthusiastic about dining out anywhere, but we still do it fairly often, mostly when we're feeling too lazy to cook. Lately I like the tofu mole burrito at Viva with a basic ($3) margarita at happy hour.
Also, half the restaurants in town stubbornly refuse to have a single vegan entree, which means they are basically dead to me.
Phonebooks. A letter to the Ithaca Times on that subject would definitely cement your status as an Ithacan, if that's something that appeals to you.
Collegetown may be a world unto itself, but its brief desertion every summer will still be felt down the hill. A sublime peace settles over the city. You'll get used to it. Then one day in the middle of August you'll find yourself saying, "Why the fuck are there so many people downtown?!" Oh right. They're back. And it's kind of irritating at first. And it's your right to be irritated for about a week. After that, you have to remember that higher education is the Nile river that keeps this place alive.
Also, despite what you might infer from the ugly black fences ruining the view from every bridge east of Aurora Street, Ithaca is not the suicide capital of the New York. But a sacrifice will be made to the gorges every May or June, fences or no fences. Where I grew up, it was the frozen lake that received these sacrifices -- snowmobile enthusiasts who went under the ice. In Ithaca, it's the gorges. Every land has its price.