“What’s it gonna be then, eh?”
There was me, that is Chris, and two women I’d never met before, that is Stephanie and Ann, and we sat in a booth of a warm nameless bar racking our brains on a Monday night, a flip dark chill winter flurry. The nameless bar is an indie sort of place, and you may, O my brothers, remember what this place was once called, Korova, though its name is no more, things being what they are…
- - -
Trivia night. Standing room only. A hundred people simultaneously strain to remember the name of Gargamel’s cat from The Smurfs. “It’s a light night,” remarks Stephanie, setting down her Flower Power IPA. “I think it’s because Cornell has midterms.” Most other nights finding a seat is no problem. Not Mondays, especially not after 9:30.Teams of hip young locals and graduate students in groups of three to eight discuss answers around slips of paper and half-filled pint glasses. Guys wear tight pants, sweaters and fedoras, t-shirts and trucker hats, their hair and beards kept just-so. Girls wear pea coats and plaid shirts, tunics, simple dresses with leggings, thick-framed glasses. One boundary-bending individual rocks a t-shirt, skirt and Birkenstocks. He looks comfortable.
The most professionally-dressed woman is also the oldest. Straight from the office where she practices internal medicine, Ann is clad in a gray skirt, navy blouse and navy dress jacket. She has wavy ear-length gray hair and blue eyes shine out from behind her thin gold-rimmed glasses. She’s probably in her mid-fifties. Across the booth sits her daughter’s best friend, Stephanie, a 2009 Cornell graduate who tells me she doesn’t want to be a nanny the rest of her life. Usually the two play in a group of three to four, but everyone was busy tonight, so they invited me, a complete stranger, to join them.
We are seated in a cushy brown booth in the back of the bar, next to a series of abstract canvases in brown, blue and white that might represent barren hills in cool morning mist. The rest of the golden-orange walls are adorned with spot-lit “Dreamland” comics of local cartoonist Jim Garmhausen, featuring disembodied arms, grinning anthropomorphic ponies, and bestiality involving dolphins. In one a leprous-looking boy is confronted by his teacher: “Let me guess, Zombie Boy. The dog ate your hand, right?” Art shows rotate through every six weeks – though no one seems to be paying much attention to these surreal monochromatic musings.
Across the room is the coat check – a closet with a window cut out – occupied by a sarcastic wit drinking something dark from a pilsner glass. That’s Bob.
Between rounds of trivia Bob plays the latest indie rock on his iPod and tallies scores for teams like That’s not Mickey Mouse, that’s tit dirt; Temple Grandin can choke my chicken; and I thought the last team name was offensive. (pause) Me too. The last one gives him a chuckle. “I’ve never had someone write me stage directions before,” Bob muses.
Stephanie and Ann have a year and a half of trivia experience between the two of them, but have only won once.
“We won on December 28,” Ann says, stirring her gin and tonic.
“I wrote it down!” Stephanie chimes in.
“She framed the money she won.”
Stephanie nods sheepishly. “I did. But then I spent it.”
Into which ocean does the Zambezi River flow? That’s easy – the Indian. What part of France did the allied forces invade on D-Day? Normandy. “That was back when we fought one war at a time, dammit,” Bob says in a mocking paternal tone. A tough one: On which day of the year are hot cross buns traditionally eaten? “If you think about it, it should make sense,” Bob informs the bar.
The three of us decide it has to have something to do with Easter. “I did see hot cross buns at Wegmans this weekend,” Ann ponders aloud. Mardi Gras, then. That was Tuesday, and Catholics fast on Wednesday. We’re surprised when the answer is Good Friday. No team gets it right.
- - -
Some different trivia: The bar is nameless. Outside in the yellow light of The Commons, a sandwich board declares in subway graffiti scrawl, “BAR.” Beneath in chalk: “TRIVIA – OPEN @ 7 PM.” Another graffiti sign at the entrance invites passers-by to try one of “Seventeen Rotating Drafts.” Apartments on the left and above are clearly marked, as is the ever-popular Taste of Thai restaurant next door. But what to call this place?
Once upon a time patrons entered the tavern under a stylized black, white and yellow sign reading “Korova.” Russian for “cow,” the name might recall for some the “Korova Milk Bar” of Anthony Burgess’s novel “A Clockwork Orange” or Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation. In any case, the name was too similar for the owners of “The Korova Milk Bar®” in White Plains, New York, which prides itself on an “interior right out of the movie.” Last year a legal dispute over the use of the name forced the Ithaca bar to remove the sign, leaving a white rectangular scar on the gray brick exterior. But come on – everyone knows this is still Korova.
It’s not “The Korova” or “The Korova Milkbar,” but “Korova,” the one where the pinball machine, dart boards, Megatouch video game and photo booth all remain unused as patrons chat or do homework or play Scrabble or Sorry! with friends over a craft beer and endless bowls of Chex Mix.
It is the craft beer that attracts the clientele, Tim the bartender explained to me earlier in the evening. The chalkboard graffiti draft list consists mostly of full-bodied craft and international brews: Smuttynose Robust Porter, Delirium Tremens, Southern Tier Crème Brûlée Stout.
“That’s our niche,” Tim says. And then what seems like a non sequitur: “We target ourselves at grad students and locals. We’re not trying to exclude undergrads, but with the kinds of beers we serve…” What he means is that at $4.50 a draft, there are more economical ways to drink. These are, in his words, “premium beers.” “We’re trying to create a lounge atmosphere without the food,” Tim says.
They have bottles, too, listed under more graffiti scrawl. Want a Budweiser? Sorry, but try a Red Stripe or Pabst Blue Ribbon (also available in cans!). Want a light beer? You have one choice: Labatt Blue Light. Want a Corona? Okay, they actually do serve that. For the most part, though, it’s an indie bar playing indie music and serving indie brews.
- - -
“Azrael.” That’s the name of Gargamel’s cat, the archangel of death. And to think I thought it was Lucifer.
After three rounds, That’s not Mickey Mouse, that’s tit dirt emerges victorious and the bar begins to empty out the door into the building snowstorm. Bartenders pick up empty glasses say goodbye to the departing crowd.
“Just so you know,” comes Bob’s voice over the chatter, “the winning group is donating their winnings to Doctors Without Borders.”
Amid the noise a girl’s voice cries, “Fuck this bullshit!”
Bob gets his last quip of the night: “That girl right there hates Haiti! And doctors! And she wants you to know about it!”
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