The time has come to starch the finest linens, polish the heirloom silver, bring out the fine china, and light the most elegant tapers you have. Set the table, Stuff Readers, for the Dead Dinner Party!
Invite 5 guests. Anyone you want from That Graveyard Of History, Ancient Or Recent. Let's reanimate some of The Past's Best, and get things underway. This round will be a general group.
Top 5 Dead Dinner Party Guests
1. Mary Lincoln
2. President Abraham Lincoln
3. Edgar Allan Poe
4. Oscar Wilde
5. Cleopatra
So, I went pretty historical on this one, I know. I think we'll do another round that's more focused so that I can get some of my political and journalistic faves in there. But, come on. Don't even try to tell me that a dinner party table with Oscar Wilde and Mary Lincoln isn't going to be something. Toss Cleopatra in there for some far left-field mayhem (she was married to her brother--twice), and now you've got something. President Lincoln and EA Poe can sort of be a little melancholy together and then be jollied out of it by Mary and Oscar. Seriously, this is one incredible dinner party. I can speak French with Mary, too.
Your turn. Assemble an awesome Dead Dinner Party of your own. We can't wait to see which parties we'll crash.
8 comments:
I can't answer your post, but it reminded me of something that I just had to share. After having been a background actor for three days, I can safely say that anyone who chooses to work 14 hour days at near minimum wage without any sort of job security is a complete and total nut job. They are the craziest people I've ever met, and after eight hours of doing absolutely nothing, they're funnier than anyone else I've ever met.
Mikey--WTF do you mean you "can't"?! You just wanted to crash my post to talk about your fabulous life. Which would be okay if you RELEVANTLY COMMENTED UPON SOME ASPECT OF THE POST. Which you CAN, because it's NOT THAT HARD.
LOL.
I was never big on history or literature or anything involving dead people (and believe me, I don't want to meet any dead mathematicians - would you?). I never have good answers for your Dinner Party Guest List posts, so I decided to break away from the rules and just talk about some crazy people that I have eaten with.
1. james naismith. the man INVENTED BASKETBALL.
2. napoleon bonaparte. probably the single gutsiest figure in the history of history. other than hitler.
3. FDR. single best president of all time. if you dont think he is, you need to have your head checked. ONLY FDR could have cleaned up after hoover's greasefire of an administration. barak would be well served to check out how FDR did it. w = hoover?
4. vlad the impaler. under one condition: no impaling. this seems reasonable.
5. phil hartman. smart enough to KNOW something about all of them, dry and humorous enough to keep things light. this selection is a chemistry pick. gotta mesh. hartman would be a welcomed lubricator amongst a table of pontificators. least of which, your's truly.
--
capai
Mary Lincoln--such a good pick! I will keep her off of my list but would like to make it known that were this dinner party feasible, she would be at mine.
1. Kurt Vonnegut
I almost said J.D. Salinger--I always forget he isn't dead.
2. Virginia Woolf
If this list ran from most important to least, she would be first.
3. Janis Joplin
Listening to live recordings always makes me wish I could meet her.
4. Jesus Christ
I'm trying very hard to keep this from being an entirely literary list. And the first three were all 20th century. I'm not religious, I just think that would make for an interesting night. (I'm avoiding making a joke about not having to buy wine...sort of.)
5. Tycho Brahe
Because I learned in high school physics that he had a PET MOOSE that got drunk, fell down the stairs, and died. And because I am having a difficult time thinking of anyone else right now.
Here's my dinner list:
1. Benjamin Franklin. WAY ahead of his time. Anyone who could divine the practical purposes of electricity from lightening has the kind of working brain I'd like to hang with.
2. Tutankhamen. I'd like to know more about the day to day life of privilege in ancient Egypt. I think my other invitees would be very interested as well.
3. Katherine Hepburn. What a smart cookie and a class act.
4. Pope John XXIII. I'm not a religious person but he was a warm man with a world view who felt all people deserved to be treated with love and dignity.
5. Wolfgang Mozart. His music blows me away every time I hear it. Where did that come from? What process brings it from your head to paper?
There are a lot of others I considered (Jefferson, Moliere, Julius Caesar, Louisa May Alcott, Alexander the Great, George Burns,
and Margaret Sanger) but I thought my actual choices would make for a lively conversational group. And I think I would have Mario Batali make the dinner. What an evening!
Life--Interesting group, and so are your runners-up. I confess that I'm not keen on Ben Franklin. I've always had it in for him since being forced to read excerpts of his autobiography in high school and in college and then having to teach them as well. He's very self-aggrandizing, in my view. But anyway, Mario Batali would also be a nice choice for a chef. He loves to teach and cook and present, so he's almost a de facto dinner guest, though very much alive!
Tiana--You know, there are a few on your list that I also considered: Woolf, JC, and Vonnegut, who I consider to be the modern-day Twain. Like you, it's hard for me to diversify beyond the literary. Unlike you, I get locked into the 19th century, a time period that I find incredibly fascinating.
Jared--I am making the appointment to have my head checked because I am championing Lincoln for that title. RE the rest of your list, I'm just thankful that you didn't clutter it up with some dead rapper. LOL.
Mikey--do you mean to tell me that there is NO ONE throughout all of history, in any field/genre that you would like to talk to? no actor, comedian, actress, leader, ANYONE? i refuse to believe it, but that's okay. you are a "live in the moment" guy, and you know i love you anyway.
Haha. I suppose I am. There are so many cool dead people, but I feel as though there was so much boring stuff I had to sit through in history classes that it never held my attention long enough to wait for the really cool people.
The only social studies class I really had a lot of fun in was Ashkettle's class. He was funny and easy to screw with :-)
Okay, I'll go and throw in one person, but only because it's a bit of a curve ball. I'd like to meet the mathematician Galois, who wrote up some very significant contributions to mathematics just days before he died in a duel at the age of twenty. Not that I care about the math, but I am a tad curious as to the duel.
Post a Comment