On a somewhat more highbrow note, earlier this evening I read in
As I've mentioned before, I went to Cornell College, a small liberal arts college in Iowa. Cornell, for some reason, likes to make a big deal about the campus being located atop a hill. (Why? I don't know. I mean, it's true, but so what?) Back in my day, the college liked to describe itself as "a little slice of New England on an Iowa hilltop." That particular phrase has fallen out of use, but a quick search of the Cornell website finds more than a hundred references to the campus as "the Hilltop."
Anyway, the point here is that when I was at Cornell, it was widely held that College-on-the-Hill, the college featured in White Noise, was patterned at least in part on Cornell. I don't know if it was, but I suppose it's possible. College-on-a-Hill and Cornell are both liberal arts colleges in small Midwestern towns, both are located on a hill, and both are known for their unusual academic programs (College-on-a-Hill's Department of Hitler Studies, Cornell's One-Course-At-A-Time). OK, that last one's a stretch. But who knows? It's not completely outside the realm of possibility. It just, you know, skirts the edge.
OK, that was pointless. But hey, if you haven't read White Noise, maybe you should. It's a modern American classic, you know.