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In the car last sunday, I think it went something like this, riding quiety out of ithaca, down through the bare trees and by the lake and through the gorges,
tobin: a good trip to ithaca, i think.
brette: yes. perfect, i think.
tobin: yes.
and with this little island of conversation our voyage continued, us strapped into this automobile, bumping down the state highways, up through two fingerlakes, through the villages and towns.
after brunch on saturday — the whole crew, at the mt.hope diner, of course — we drove down to ithaca. it's 90 miles, and you can drive the whole way on highway ninety-six, which we did. brette has a casette tape of ladytron, which is awesome.
the stated purpose of our trip was to see a band called "arcade fire" who was playing at cornell university. actually, i would have gone on a trip to ithaca for almost any reason, and brette even promised that i could grade papers in the car. grading in the car was a lacadaisical effort at best, but i think i did get through one section of students that way.
we arrived in the darkness, of course, and set up camp out at von cramm co-op. i had met some residents of von cramm the week before in ann arbor, and these denizens of von cramm provided a nice welcome. they even told us how to start a fire and directed us towards the firewood in case we wanted to start a fire. but when we came home from the show, we just flopped down on our couches and were unconscious immediately.
we helped carry the opening band's equipment up to the stage. there were two opening bands, and then it was time for the much-awaited arcade fire. all these jubilant kids in the room heated it to near sauna-like conditions, and when arcade fire stumbled on in from the road and set down their frozen keyboard -- well condensation made a lake inside of it, it was pronounced DOA (only to be rescued in the nick of time!). arcade fire, anyway, was amazing. they had every instrument, i think. there was a girl going crazy on a violin, there was a guy exploiting the percussion of the ceiling tiles, and it was just what i needed, getting lost in a packed crowd, all this jubilant motion, and taking in this beautiful band and how they just let loose with their music. (i have this image of the singers, their mouths wide open, holding nothing back. of course i was completely in love with all of them.) (of course remembering those nights years ago, pressed up in the very front, pressed up in the center of the mosh pit, at great american music hall and bottom of the hill and the maritime hall in the City, those shows chris and jackson and toyoko would take me to, and waiting in depth of the San Francisco night with the fog rolling through, running to catch the last BART, plodding on to the transbay terminal, 3-am bus change in oakland, exhaustedly climbing the stairs at twenty-eighteen) Maybe brette has pictures; they might convey something.
we went to dinner (indian food.. mmmm) with laura and rafael, and in the morning they took us hiking through the gorges of ithaca, waterfalls cascading over rocks and ice, and they took us to the art museum and the library on campus; cornell is a sparkling university on a hill above a lake surrounded by waterfalls. in the morning they took us to the commons, and to a thai restaurant where we were joined by dana for lunch. it was all very nice.
laura, a friend from the alaska reu, i hadn't seen in five years. looking back at the pictures, it's hard to believe we were ever really there. if i were able to repeat one experience — that summer might be it.
quite possibly the least visually-impressive photo from that summer, but an adventure nonetheless
