061 To Ithaca

Gorges future

All right, some personal news.

This summer, my partner Ashley R. Smith and I will be relocating to Ithaca, New York, where she'll assume her role as Assistant Professor of Screen Studies at Ithaca College. I am extremely proud of her and I know intimately how hard she has worked, how dedicated and adaptable she has been, and how she has navigated many obstacles and done many good things on her way to this destination. I'm thrilled she has an opportunity to teach and do research at a single, supportive institution. This means, of course, we will be leaving Chicago, an adopted home for both of us, and it's a bittersweet departure at best, because we've loved it here. I'll probably write more about that sometime in the future. But our future awaits in a small town as hilly and zigzagged as Chicago is gridlike and flat; we'll have steep inclines and waterfalls and new places to get used to. And in the weeks ahead we will continue planning a big move and trying to address the eight thousand things we need to do here before we get there.

I'm looking forward to seeing what's up in the bookstores and the big Ithaca used book sale, and Cornell Cinema and Cinemapolis, and the Finger Lakes Film Festival, and the George Eastman Museum and (definitely) the Nitrate Picture Show up in Rochester, and also the farmer's markets and co-ops, and hiking and running trails, and much more.

There are still things I will need to work out, professionally. I also might approach this newsletter differently in the near future. (Or I might approach it the same way I have been.) Meanwhile, if you're in that part of the world and we haven't already been in touch, drop me a line! Cheers.