And whoever doubted the evening would come to this? The designer wine-bottle-stopper and pourer poured elegantly well. But the good doctor could not help expressing his wonder at what it was for. Since this group never left even a single drop of wine in the bottle when they ended their evenings here.
But the stopper was well formed with just the exact suggestion of sexuality in its curvatures. It seemed to the eye much like a tiny little woman decontructed into an abstract of her deepest parts, which inevitably suggests the male instrument as well and as would remind us of that famous neolithic artifact called popularly “Venus of Willendorf”
And it looked fairly expensive without being too ostentatious. It was a gift from Jesse to the good doctor, an expression of thanks for countless conversations, countless evenings here where the circle of friends could at will be their own awful unapologetic selves without fear.
Nobody took it against Jesse when he observed that the problem with the wineglass was that it was glass. A collective “Huh?”
Is there a difference besides cost? Imagine the wine seemingly floating in the air over your hand. One opined. “The crystal is almost invisible and not as reflective.”
The ladies soon interjected, “It produces a different sound, a tone much higher. A clear ‘ting’ instead of a ‘tong’.”
And soon enough, everybody was doing the “labtik” hitting their wine glasses with their fingertips, listening. Definitely, different dispurposive notes. Cacophony not even close to a wind chime. Now, imagine the crystal sound.
All this talk would of course lead eventually to an exchange of narratives of peculiar backgounds. Family dinners with Lola at the ancestral home where meals were served in courses using the house fineries over that huge table which sat everyone. How they talked all at the same time.
A butler waited ready to serve. Maids stood all around chasing away flies with their dainty little contraption made from paper glued to the end of a bamboo stick. They produced a particular sound, a shush in the air, that on this night one feels a nostalgia for. But always with a discordance.
We have come thankfully to more democratic times. We are more bohemian now, the good doctor thinks. And yet, our thoughts return to the designer bottle stopper and a discussion of snob and snobbery to fill up the whole evening.
Nobody openly admits it of course. And yet, the designer bottle stopper and the question of crystal over glass gave ample proof that the whole concept of snob makes for an interesting theory in the disciplines of design, art and even literature.
Imagine watching and hearing Merlie Alunan, Butch Bandillo, Simeon Dumdum, Larry Ypil or any of the Bisayan poets reading their pieces live on an evening such as this. Some will find that boring (accent on the first syllable of course.) But there will be some, a few mind you, who will find their evening and the rest of their lives “made”. Chances are they will know the difference between glass and crystal. They would be snobs, unapologetic and awful in their own snobbish way.
But what can you do? Snob and snobbery while greatly derogated in these democratic times is still very much alive albeit secretly and in a most subversive way.
After all, if you needed to buy a gift for someone who seems to have everything, you would do well to keep away from giving a crystal goblet. You would do better by gifting a book or a little piece of art not easy to buy from any department store the world over. Jesse is sure of it.
And what of the things you want to keep in your own home? Imagine if you will a panel of objects that all do their intended jobs exactly well. Which object wins out? Which will you buy?
On most days you might buy the cheapest. But there will be days when you definitely want to consider a rare hard-to-find object as would reflect your own peculiar, individual, beautiful, if secret snobbery. Snob and snobbery is the contemporary field of competition where all the arts are concerned. Admit it!
It is not such a bad thing. And then the good doctor found the best, fastest and most snobbish way to end the evening: “We know it already. Stop preaching to the choir!”