| THE UNICROWD Overwrought music majors, alternative in design, classical in training, often seek refuge in the local coffee shop to escape their lover (their instrument), a routine recess from an overwhelming practice regimen. Sir, do put down your bow, your pick, your oboe, and have a cup. Sects of studious south campus students prefer “the right mix of background noise” and warm lighting over the sterile fluorescence of Core or Deering, where recycled weekend stories are retold until Thursday night. Each day matters here.
Whether they’re male or female, theater or film, their incline towards alternative space takes them to a place table-full and cheap, where the clientele’s as consistent as the daily roasts and the odor that clings hours past departure. A place called, called, called The Unicorn Café.
In all its quaint majesty and precision, the Unicorn and its clientele are, in fact, so absorbed by the café’s consistency that any slight hindrance or interruptions, e.g. new customers, new products, new employees, add entropy and anxiety to the café’s otherwise uncanny order. Chain-smoking film majors sulk when new Fantasia flavors replace the old ones – “Now where am I (*cough*) going to find that fucking drink?” A quiet Bambi-eyed junior, oh so sweet, she gawks at the sight of fresh faces equally ecstatic to see hers. The head-phoned literary Britpoppers, and the philosophy cats, and the foreign apprentice of American economics, they won’t like you unless they’ve already seen you, and don’t think they won’t notice you’re there, ‘cause they will, man, and I’m tellin’ you now…watch it.
When something extraordinary happens, papers shuffle and work ceases. The music stops, an intimidating air fills the room. Silence. Is this a Western? Did Zach and Lisa just enter the Max arm in arm? After a few moments of apprehension, the conversation increases and the study ground becomes a social playground until it’s time to get back to yo’ lesson. They won’t be rude to you, friend, they’re simply alarmed to see you.
Regulars of this Unicrowd, in addition to the more “with it” Northwestern folk and all the aforementioned, also include bearded English professors, long-haired Music professors, and other weird professors. Oh yeah, and there's scores of TAs with varying academic goals and ambitious desires for ripe undergrads. Academics with dirty, dirty minds. Hold your guard, enter at your own risk.
- David Bartholow | At 2/8/03 7:41 AM, | | wrote: | |
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