Bouncing through the room, the reflection of changing lights has echoed between tomato-colored walls and art deco posters, turning my martini glass into a prismatic wonder. Meanwhile, bad music (Destiny’s Child) makes way for better music (Jurassic Five), and damp heads bring in a bit of a drizzly, bipolar November. Hopefully, it won’t rain on my Tuesday-night parade.
The initial crowd sinks into the leather chairs in an effort to sink in the night. The time seems to wax and wane in tandem with the fullness of the coat rack, as the minutes speed by in the full bar at midnight to catch up with the dull emptiness of the 10 o’clock hour.
And all of this was conducive to my nightlife anthropology assignment, which was people watching — a mesmerizing pastime. At first I was hoping for a fashion faux pas diary captured on camera, maybe entitled “Is it runway or runaway?” (Beware, we’ll be watching next semester). But tonight it was raining, and the crowd had more fashion “faux blahs” than fashion faux pas.
So as my own teacher I redirected my assignment, which would now be entitled “The Colorful Bird.” The colorful bird would be the peacock in this crowd of pigeons. My goal was to find someone sparkly, someone shiny covered in sassy baubles who had stepped out into the night in strappy shoes sans raincoat.
In my mind’s eye, this person would be easy to spot: picture the brightly colored “Moulin Rouge” juxtaposed with the black-and-white “Man Who Wasn’t There.” Due to the nature of men’s dressing at this bar (which was either kahki pants/white shirt or dark jeans/blue shirt) I narrowed my search to women.
My male friend reaches across the bar and points out a girl standing arms akimbo against the jukebox, wearing a black cashmere turtleneck, a (God-awful) Tiffany’s bracelet and some sort of Mavi pants with appropriately trendy delicate boots. She looked pretty put together and exactly like the two girls she was talking with. I rolled my eyes at my friend.
Could someone rise to the occasion on this Tuesday before wine rendered me a sleepy innocent bystander? Or would the rain finally seep downstairs and extinguish the heat of boredom in the basement bar?
Oh no, had I only known the worst was yet to come.
The climax? A pair of Lee jeans sat next to me (I don’t even need say tapered because tapering is a quality inherent in Lee denim, and I won’t mention the color because I’m sure you can imagine the dye: peppered, light, and post-stone wash).
I, having fundamental problems with Lee denim, consider the pants their own entity. An entity which, by their very nature, thrust certain characteristics upon the wearer. Most importantly, Lee Denim has a magical force that renders the owner incapable of wearing any other jeans, thereby making a smart or sexy shirt completely invalid. Thank goodness the wearer got up to request songs.
Once again, my view was unencumbered.
About 15 minutes later, a group of girls (most likely 15 years old) in shrunken baby-baby T’s pranced by. This was fairly common fare, except for the one that read, “Slut Style.” Ugh . . . How original. Didn’t Bjork do that a few years ago? I was uninspired by the shirt’s statement that, as of late, is reminding me of slap bracelets — at first a fun novelty, but after a while just painful.
At last, I was rewarded. At first, I wasn’t sure if I thought the outfit was hideous or beautiful, which, in the end, made it even more interesting. Keep in mind it was pretty cold outside. The girl was wearing a denim mini-skirt with real fur trim, complemented by furry unlaced boots, a cashmere white scarf and a cut-off short tanktop.
Not to mention she was loud and conspicuous, which was refreshingly obnoxious considering the fairly sedate crowd.
It was time to go, and the dim lights turned into bright lights, quietly reminding the bar vampires that daylight was coming . . . and that it was only Wednesday. Cheers!
