The Alternative Condition

"It's a Monday night. Relatively full patio area. Immediately on my right are two young twenty-somethings. One is wearing a beret and the other is wearing a hat styled after those worn by the Russian Communist Party. It's a solid 76 degrees outside. I count 10 beards, 7 of which are accompanied by cropped or bald heads. 6 pairs of horn-rimmed glasses, 5 of which I can tell are not prescription. I'm certain they are selling at Cream vintage across the street for 10 dollars a piece (2 for 15! What a steal!) There are more bangs here than I care to count, 5 out-of-context cowboy hats, a plethora of trousers that are just short enough to appear ill-fitting. A man in front of me is wearing tight gray pants, moccasins with no socks, a baseball-style tee that could be from the 80's, under a red cardigan from the 1950's that is far too small, squared-off black glasses, gauges in his ears, with a monk-style beard that accompanies a shaved head under a Philadelphia Phillies cap circa 1973.

The music has moved from The Beatles to Regina Spektor (who kick started a whole new wave of female singer-songwriters with her Apple-friendly tunes). If I'm not mistaken, Jefferson Airplane is sitting three tables away from me. One of them has just lit his 5th cigarette in 10 minutes and has exhausted every possible James Dean-inspired smoking pose while drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon and fingering his vintage Members Only coat (1960?).

There are a lot of people here, but they all seem very separated. Groups have arrived looking remarkably similar to each other, but they don't interact. Sitting feet apart, they are all in their own worlds. I ask the young man next to me what he is working on and he angrily takes off his headphones to give an answer before plugging them back in to continue typing away frantically. A few tables in front of me, a man and a woman with similar haircuts (short, parted, lots of product) sit next to each other on identical Macbooks, not speaking. This is Spiderhouse cafe, a coffee joint in the heart of Austin, Texas. A mainstay for all that is young and hip. On any given night you can find scores of trendy-looking twenty-somethings sitting around, drinking beer or coffee and 'chewing the fat' with their other trendy-looking twenty-something friends. Every so often they will play obscure movies (and I do mean obscure) on a projector in the back, attracting lots of obscure people. Spiderhouse consists of an inside area with a bar and small kitchen, 10 or so tables and booths, and wooden walls covered in a myriad of Sharpie-graffiti as if it were a stall in any public restroom. I asked one of the waiters (black vulcanized Converse shoes, no socks, black skinny jeans, short-sleeve plaid shirt, (red), slicked back hair, thick square frames, arms covered in tattoos) why this was so, and he told me that Spiderhouse believes in 'free expression' and 'if that means people want to write on the walls, then let them write on the walls!' I scanned the wall for anything that would catch my eye. Beneath a light fixture written in red was 'HIPSTERS BURN IN HELL!', with a variety of responses below it.

Outside there is first a covered section with two levels. The first level is more a walkway with barstool-styled seating, the second level is traditional booth seating with smaller tables alongside. Beyond the covered area is Spiderhouse's main attraction, it's patio area. A mass of tables and chairs situated under the umbrella of branches from a large tree and overlooking the perpendicular Fruth street.

The patio 'furniture' is reminiscent to that of a junkyard. Old metal tables, rusted from years of outdoor neglect, litter the area, accompanied by chairs of various design. Lawn chairs, plastic chairs, metal benches, etc. Random stone sculptures appear at every corner. There is one of what should be a woman pouring a vase out onto the ground, except the woman's head has been replaced with that of a rabbit's. Sulking angels watch from every distance. Sitting on the ground, watching from the trees, standing off to the side behind the brush, they are everywhere. There is a bathtub next to the main tree with a urinating cupid standing inside. Above the cupid is a tin can with holes drilled into the bottom, attached to a hose to act as a makeshift shower for the cupid. Another one of those angels is lying down in one of the three bird feeders.

I doubt the birds are happy about that, though I don't think I've ever seen any birds use the feeders anyway..."

-December 2010