MetaChat - The Dinner Party

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15 June 2005

The Dinner Party Amberglow's suggestion to loquacious' comment in the Farenheit 451 thread reminded me of a game my friends and I used to play called 'Dinner Party'. The rules aren't hard and fast, but the idea is this: you're having a dinner party and you can invite up to 7 people - whomever you want - real or fictional, famous or not, dead or alive. Who would they be and why?

post by: Frisbee Girl at: 05:06 | 34 comments

And of course you can host more than one dinner party. Especially if you're having problems narrowing your list down to just 7 people.

posted by Frisbee Girl 15 June | 05:10

leonardo da vinci
johann sebastian bach
johann wolfgang von goethe
william blake
carl jung
nikola tesla
anne sexton

there are so many others i can't even start.

but, somehow, considering how cool girls are, i have only one from seven. help me out here please.

posted by soi-disant 15 June | 06:15

Jesus Christ (If he ever existed)
Mozart
boudicca
Alan Turing
Chaucer
Byron
da Vinci

And many, many others.
Only one girl for me.
Strangely, all the people I cut from my initial list were women.

Germaine Greer
Charlotte Bronte
Marie Curie
Rosalind Franklin
Christana Rossetti
7 of 9

posted by seanyboy 15 June | 07:31

I'd invite my best friends - they'd fill out my list pretty quickly!

Celebs-wise...

Darren Hayes
Clay Aiken
The Channel [V] Crew pre-2002 - which would be a dinner party of their own
Lene Nystrom
Oprah Winfrey

...gah, I have people in mind but I can't really remember their names. Probably those who aren't really that famous in the "glam and glitz" sense but who have done a LOT for the world.

posted by divabat 15 June | 08:01

Hee.

Hmm will think on this and answer as soon as I get home.

posted by iconomy 15 June | 08:34

taz,
yhbc,
amberglow,
scarabic,
stavrosthewonderchicken,
Winston Churchill,
and a player to be named later.

posted by Doohickie 15 June | 09:09

Well that's the last time I lambaste you. All that butter, for what?

posted by iconomy 15 June | 09:14

I would definitely invite only the living. The dead tend to look horrid and, if only recently dead, to smell horrid as well and that really tends to ruin a dinner party.

posted by mr_crash_davis 15 June | 09:16

Ooooh, let's see...

Bill Hicks
Lemmy
Jim Henson
Kate Bush
Vincent Price
Charles Darwin
Andy Partridge

posted by dodgygeezer 15 June | 09:30

The salad:
Sid Caesar
Carrottop
Sgt. Pepper
Kevin Bacon
Richard Cheese
(toss lightly)

The main course:
Keith Partridge
Orson Bean
Korn
Mr. Chips

Desert:
Cream
The Cranberries

Beverages:
Harvey Milk
Bloody Mary

posted by iconomy 15 June | 09:43

1 x random Cro-Magnon woman
1 x random Egytian woman from around 2500 BC
1 x random 15th century Japanese working class bloke
my mate Owen
my mate Bambos
Mrs nylon
Ted Jesus Christ GOD*
(+ 1 babelfish)

I have nothing to say to the rich and famous.

*I'd like to have the option of swapping him for a random 10th century Icelandic guy in case Teds gets a bit too weird or psychotic.

(on preview: iconomy wins)

posted by nylon 15 June | 10:03

My mum
My dad
My step mum
My step dad
My half-sister
My other half-sister (unrelated to other half-sister)
My brother

Appart from me, not one of the people listed above speaks to more than 2 of the others. It's a dinner party that could spark a world war...

On to a non-evil listing, I'd go for:

Julie Birchill (to be Julie Birchill)
Tony Parsons (to argue with Julie Burchill)
Mary Whitehouse (to be morally outraged)
John Locke (to ponder morality)
Stephen Pinker (to diss what Locke's on about)
Bob Marley (to broker a peace)
Lynn Barber (to write it all up for posterity)

Hang on... That's pretty evil too. Oh well, I can see why I don't organise many dinner parties.....

posted by davehat 15 June | 10:07

Player to be named later = iconomy.
(Bring the olive oil.)

posted by Doohickie 15 June | 11:34

Oscar Wilde
Gertrude Stein
Cary Grant
Alexander the Great
and two random ancestors from different eras--one from between 1000bc and 300ad, and one from bet. 1300 and 1900.

and Doohickie : >

posted by amberglow 15 June | 12:01

(Cary Grant and i would disappear during dessert for a quickie, or maybe Alex and I)

posted by amberglow 15 June | 12:02

fictional:
Zachary from Cloud Atlas
Eliza from the Baroque Trilogy
Baltazar from Baltazar and Blimunda
Prince Myshkin from The Idiot
Elphaba from Wicked
Steerpike from Gormenghast
Maude Finlay

posted by amberglow 15 June | 12:21

Ha! iconomy, I somehow completely missed that comment you made - your finger's most definitely on the pulse, though and I'm glad to be of service.

crash, I was waiting to see who'd make the first smart ass comment about dining with the dead. Ding!

posted by Frisbee Girl 15 June | 12:22

Tom Stoppard
Douglas Adams
Carl Sagan
Bill Clinton

for starters

posted by papercake 15 June | 12:29

Douglas Adams
Richard Brautigan
Hieronymous Bosch
MFK Fisher
Queen Elizabeth I
Katherine Helmond
and, for me:
Nicolas Cage, who has to stay after dinner.

posted by mygothlaundry 15 June | 13:00

animated:
Felix the Cat
Stimpy (Ren and Stimpy)
Valerie (Josie and the Pussycats)
Leela (Futurama)
this monster from Bugs Bunny
Velma (Scooby Doo)
Betty Boop

posted by amberglow 15 June | 13:07

Hunter S. Thompson
Dean and Gene Ween
Hagbard Celine
Jon Stewart
Sarah Vowel
Sinead O'Connor

posted by Schyler523 15 June | 13:26

Dinner Party: Rosa Luxemburg, Benjamin Graham, Ghandi, Ghengis Khan, Richard I of England, Malcolm X and Chief Seattle. -- seating order is clockwise around the table w/me between Chief Seattle and Rosa.

Back-up list (or potential crashers) : Oscar Wilde, Keith Moon, King Buzzo, Martin Luther King, jr.

posted by safetyfork 15 June | 13:50

amberglow, the pic link leads to an error page. I just know you mean this guy, though...right? I love him. What's his name?

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by iconomy 15 June | 13:51

Oh it's Gossamer.

Also, I'd like to add Basil Rathbone and Rosemary Clooney to my dinner party salad course.

posted by iconomy 15 June | 13:54

Claudia Cardinale
Angie Dickinson
Grace Kelly
Cherry Poptart
Annie Oakley
Mme. de Sevigny
Sita

Why? My world would then be perfect.

posted by Hugh Janus 15 June | 14:15

*steals Cherry Poptart from Hugh Janus for the dessert table*

posted by iconomy 15 June | 14:18

She's busy, iconomy, come back later.

posted by Hugh Janus 15 June | 14:21

Wow, that was fast. She's on her way.

posted by Hugh Janus 15 June | 14:22

I'm a little embarrassed.

posted by Hugh Janus 15 June | 14:22

yup! Gossamer! (i wanna say to him, "You monsters lead such interrrresting lives. You must meet the most interrrrresting people....") : >

Jon Stewart is a great one. and Katherine Helmond!

posted by amberglow 15 June | 16:41

Lol, Hugh.

I just realized I hadn't done mine. My first would be a 'This American Life' dinner party with:

Ira Glass
David Sedaris
David Rakoff
Sarah Vowell
Starlee Kine
Jonathan Goldstein
Nancy Updike

I'd be one happy gal if I could only convince myself not to hide under the couch as soon as Ira showed up.

posted by Frisbee Girl 15 June | 16:48

Janis Joplin
Jesse James
JJ Cale
Jesse Jackson
Joan Jett
Jim Jarmusch
and Jewel, so the rest of us can beat up on her.

posted by mudpuppie 15 June | 18:41

10 years ago I read that a clerk of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was still alive. The clerk remembered talking with Justice Holmes about his great-grandmother, who had seen Redcoats marhcing on Boston.

That is an amazing connection to history and I have often wished I could meet that clerk and hear the stories. So, that is who I would want to invite to a dinner dinner party. Oh, and Daniel Ellsberg.

posted by mlis 15 June | 18:53

Doohickie beat me to it, but:

taz
amberglow
stavrosthewonderchicken
yhbc
iconomy
beth
evanizer

All for different reasons.

posted by dg 15 June | 19:15

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