McQueen - Savage Beauty

Never been on a line that long before at the Met,
All just to see Alexander McQueen – Savage Beauty.

100 years from now, how will we see them?
As works of art or as artifacts?
To me, artifacts are displays of materials utilized in daily living.
These are not it.
As displayed, they are art installations.
All haute couture,
So nothing practical.
Beauty for beauty's sake
The exhibit provides a place to see multiple collections at once.
And McQueen's vision is singular no matter the theme or season.

What I sadly miss is the motion.
How does it move as a dress?
A factor since he must have designed them to be seen in a “runway.”
Some jaw dropping creations -
apart from the frou-frou ones that scream romantic,
there are the razor clam shell dress, the Spine, the butterfly hat -
And best of all, the balsa wood skirt.
It is a thing of beauty up close. Ingenious.
And I could fit in it.

3 Idiots (2009)

Dir. Rajkumar Hirani.

"All is well."

Essentially a buddy road movie, literally and down memory lane.
Recalls college life in a school that is obviously IIT.
It asks: What is the true measure of success?
Finding one's integrity to one's self.
Must have resonated with a generation's feelings of parental and academic pressures.
Hence its box office success.
LOL moment for me: Visiting Raju's family with its '50s Hindi filmy palette.

There are a handful of characters with suicidal ideation.
Heavy for Bollywood?
Hardly weighs it down. Uses them to turn on my waterworks …
Optimism prevails with its mantra “All is well” to quell any fears.
Per my teacher, Oscar Hammerstein II,
“Whenever I feel afraid, I whistle a happy tune ...”
Zoobi Doobi -

Balikbayan

Who is a balikbayan?
Not me, because I am not a box.
I qualify for the balikbayan bisa,
But on the immigration form to enter the Philippines,
I am compelled to check off “Tourist.”
Balikbayan seems meant for OFWs.
Besides, I didn’t have a balikbayan box.

More compelled by the scenes at the NAIA departure gate:
Of future balikbayans leaving for the first time.
The anticipation of their first airplane ride,
The feeling of escape.
(My friends refer to those who work overseas as “nakalabas” or “nakagawas”
As if they’ve managed to squeeze out of a cage).
One man called what seemed like everyone on his contacts to use up his cell “load,”
And cried after hanging up with his mother.
He had to go to the bathroom and collect himself.
This must be what my parents felt.

Upon arrival at JFK,
The immigration officer asked,
“What’s the purpose of your visit?”
He looks at my passport.
“What am I saying? You live here.”
He stamps it and lets me in – back into where I live.
I still look like I’m fresh off the boat.