What's worse than reading Cosmo on a plane when seated next to an old, wrinkly man, or being a first-year this past Sunday and waking up not to discover that the groundhog saw his shadow, but instead that your hair has had a deep-conditioning beer treatment? Well, I'll tell you. It's now having to hear stuff like "Meet you at the Jab!" or "Call my cell, I'll be at Wocky." Those words just don't roll off the tongue smooth as butter. Do you feel the roll? I don't feel the roll.
But they have built it, and we have come. Jabberwocky! (or Jab'erwok'e, to be phonetically correct.) The monster has taken over. Gone are the days when people gathered in the mint-green cafeteria-like abode of the Greenskeeper to shoot eight ball amongst the flannel-clad locals -- locals whose butts seemed to be Krazy glued to the bar stools. The glass divider which once separated the booths has now been torn down to unite University students and townies, and together we are swaddled in burnt chili-red walls! And who doesn't love those splashes of copper siding? Not so "fab'yoo-les."
Now, before I continue, I'd like to once and for all clear the smoky air and explain the origins of the word Jab'erwok'e. It is not -- as proposed to me by a friend today -- a character from Star Wars. An understandable mistake, though, as she was referring to the lovably pudgy Jabba-the-Hut. Instead, Jabberwocky is a poem by Lewis Carroll, featured in "Through the Looking Glass," the sequel to "Alice in Wonderland."
From my own scholarly interpretation, the poem depicts a college guy (in lines one and two of stanza one):
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe."
Honest translation, however, according to the oh-so-fun "Ultimate Jabberwocky Page" (www.waxdog.com/jabberwocky.com) is:
"It was the close of the afternoon, time for dinner and the smooth/active badger/lizard-like/corkscrew creature who lived on cheese, scratched like a dog and drilled out holes in anything."
Continuing on with the poetry lesson...
This Jab'erwok'e guy then gets really agitated in stanza three:
"And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!"
Therefore, I conclude that Jabberwocks are imbibed guys who delight themselves by punching their fists through windows.
If you think that's nonsense, just take a look around the décor of the Jab'erwok'e establishment.
At least I'm finally able to put my psychology major to use and diagnose the place as suffering from an extreme identity crisis. Can you say multiple personalities: mul'te pel pur'se nal'e-tes.
Is Jab'erwok'e a pseudo urbanization of the Corner, inspired by the downtown martini bar "Bang" (another restaurant name I'd like to question)? Is it a calling for students to don wire-rimmed frames and groove and bop to their own jazz poetry they write while sipping frothy lattés? Or, is it still just a filthy sports bar?
Well, no matter what Jab'erwok'e is, at least we know that it promotesgood syllabic articulation and proper pronunciation from its patrons after a couple drinks. Have you noticed how wild the owner is about apostrophes on the menu and wall signs?
Customer 1: "I'll have the buf'e-lo' wings."
Customer 2: "Where is the lad'ez room?"
You see, education really does go beyond the classroom.
However, the biggest buzz in Jab'rewoke' is not in the brains of its patrons. No, the talk is all about the white "pleather" (that's plastic plus leather) couches that have sent the pool table to thebig sports bar in the sky. I fear those couches might draw a group I term as the "Pleathers," which are a combination of coffee shop elitists and velour-loving lounge lizards. Ever wonder what those couch sitters are so intently discussing?
Pleather 1: "Look at all those kids in New Balances and fleeces."
Pleather 2: "Conformists."
Perhaps the owner of Jabberwocky should Scotch tape up some tapestries and add some bean bag chairs to that little nook. No, wait, that nonsense might clash with the handspun Virginia blankets randomly hanging on the opposite wall.
We don't want our new Jabberwocky bar to appear ridiculous or do we?
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch"
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