the nines. friday. november 22, 2024. 11pm.

after our show in brooklyn we got seemingly as far away from the big city as one could possibly get. though we only drove for about four hours, (time which was mostly spent reading the exceptional "mixerman chronicles" outloud in the car, stopping only to hold our breath during long mountain tunnels) but when we arrived in ithaca it was as if we had been at sea for decades following the fall of troy. within an hour of arriving we were climbing a beautiful gorge (it's like a waterfall...) with robert's sister christine (not identical...;) ), an ithacissian who was not only the driving force behind us booking the show but also was personally responsible for bringing out almost every single person who came! before the show two pretty awesome things happened, first, thanks to my friends tammy in dc we were able to book an unexpected additional show in arlington virginia, second, i happened to run into two awesome strangers: demetrius (who is a fellow greek and a waiter at ithaca's famous moosewood vegetarian restaurant) and kate (who was a waitress at the nines of all places...) the two of them wound up bringing their friend zack out to our show and then hanging out with us long into the night. the show at the nines was run by a guy named casey who was rad and took the opportunity before the show started to show us the enormous whale bone he found washed up on the beach that day (it was at that point festering and stinky and strapped to the top of his car. the show at the nines was a hot one, quite literally, and featured us playing peaks island for christine because she is the coolest ever and arguably single-handedly brought more people to that show than we bring to some shows in chicago. that night we crashed at (get ready for this...) christine's ex-boyfriend's house (he was out of town and she was house- sitting!) always courteous guests, we had a small party which culminated in christine playing the mandolin for travis whose feet were covered in mud(?). the following day would turn out to be our only day off during the trip but we used it well swimming in gorgeous gorges, meeting this awesome guy named jeremy at the official ice cream shoppe of the cornell dairy (they teach agricultural arts there!) visiting christine in her lab, getting kicked out of the cornel computer lab for being too rowdy while watching the ballad of the sneak, reading harry potter, eating at spectacular vegan restaurants, and going to watch the hulk with christine's friend rianna (who calls her boyfriend her manpiece!) we were all really into the hulk movie (except for the last ten minutes or so...) and afterwards we were either trying to flip neckface over or expounding on grand hulk-as-id theories. while hanging out at christine's co- operative living home (called the stuart little co-op!) we also were able to miraculously book another last minute show, this time at a bar just outside of philly for the very next night! thus, we had to set out early the next morning, but not before doing a few touristy things (ie grabbing a few greasy slices of ithaca pizza buying some comic books.) a million thanks are in order to christine (but indirect thanks are also due to jeff :) )