IT was, in every sense of the word, a party. Not the kind where people spoke in a hush—goodness, gracious—or where you are judged for your evasive eyes and the wine you spill on people. If at all it was attended by the young and the young at heart, who danced and sashayed and went twisted on the floor almost in a trance, to the blare of an upbeat tune of the outrageous and frenzied Generation Now.
Every year that is how BusinessMirror (BM) celebrates its anniversary, embracing the young to stay relevant, hobnobbing with the old to appreciate the new, and true enough on its 12th, it, time and again, did away with the formality that befits an otherwise supposedly stern-sounding business paper, and went with the kind that sort of egged everybody on to loosen his tie and unleash his inner party animal.
Even BM Publisher T. Anthony Cabangon didn’t wish to spoil the night with a longish speech, especially when being amongst the crowd that didn’t want to do anything but to have fun. One bobbed his head and flailed his arms over a bottle of suds or a glass of champagne. One shook his booty and went all gaga crooning to the music. One squealed and drove away with a raffle-prize brand-new car.
So we ate and drank and did cha-cha-cha the night away, one moment partaking with the food and drinks and barely audible conversation pieces in the company of strangers and friends whose absence we would surely notice.
Because there’s every reason to celebrate for, the theme being “BusinessMirror on to New Heights,” something suggestive of either its stature or where it goes from here. Or maybe it would be that something the august newspaper is in the middle of doing, as 12, clockwise, is in the middle of everything.
But, as always, it’s hard to make sense of a theme at a party—who does?—because, well, it’s a party where you can do everything, where there are no holds barred, and where, perhaps, that thematic “middle” is the middle of the dance floor.