Homage to Newton

Isaac’s tiny contribution to the world was a little concept known as gravity. If you haven’t been snoozing in your high school physics class, you would easily recognize this word as an elongated form of the “graveeeh”; one of the slangs popularized by guys who would rather be girls.

I have always taken this sculpture for granted because, well, it has always been there and everyone knows that when a thing has always been there, it probably is something insignificant. But that was until this morning when I stopped looking and started seeing and I finally noticed the inscriptions below the statue. Since it was early morning and I was already bored, I read the inscriptions to while away the unproductive seconds as I walked to my office. Something about the name Salvador Dali struck a cord. It was only then that I realized that the sculpture was by the Salvador Dali. I’m pretty sure my geeky former college roomies would disown me if they learned that after hundreds of walk-by’s I never gave a Dali sculpture the reverence it deserves.

Salvador Dali was one of the stalwarts of the Surrealist movement. Surrealism is an organization that counts Hugh Grant as one of its more well-recognized members. You will remember Hugh Grant in Nottinghill telling Julia Roberts “It’s been surreal” as they were saying their goodbyes. Dead giveaway there.

Last year, when the IMF/World Bank meeting took place in Singapore, this little city-state imported $60,000,000 worth of Dali sculptures to beautify its streets for an entire month. I would surmise that the whole thing was a rental (and perhaps an arrangement with some arthouse as well to showcase Dali’s works), otherwise the pieces would have stayed for much longer than that.

Street beautification is not something new to us Pinoys though. To beautify old Manila for example, Lito Atienza lighted up Roxas Blvd with multi-colored bright lights shaped like giant lollipops. This gave birth to Baywalk. And from that moment on, that part of Manila would cease to become the one-dimensional red light district. It has been refurbished, re-upholstered, and re-imaged. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call Roxas Boulevard now as the multi-dimensional Red, White, and Blue light district of Manila. Oh yeah, it’s also riddled with bars showcasing Filipino bands most of whom are wannabe-Japan-bound rejects.

Let’s see Singapore’s multi-million dollar works of art compete with that.

Back to Dali’s “Homage to Newton”, I read somewhere that if you purchase a miniature replica of this sculpture, it would run you aground to the tune of US$7,000. With that amount, you can probably extend Lito Atienza’s bright lights to cover certain dark portions of Luneta (though it would definitely piss off certain individuals who, for economics sake, have turned those dark spots into their personal breeding grounds).

Kidding aside, everytime I’m in this place, my cup of jealousy and outrage runneth over. Dali’s sculpture, proudly and blatantly displayed in public, is just one kindling that fuels my feelings. Why the hell can’t we be like Singapore? Why do we have to be so goddamned mediocre when our neighbors who are way smaller than us are already enjoying the fruits of their successes?

Perhaps it’s a good idea to ask North Korea to test fire whatever nuclear missile they have on our country. Maybe wiping everyone out would create a clean slate where we could have a fresh start and maybe just maybe we could even realize our potential. If things continue with the way they are right now, I doubt if we would even have a snow ball’s chance in hell of ever achieving a fraction of what Singapore has already achieved.