Do you know those interviews where they ask people which great
historical figures or fictional characters they’d like to have dinner with, and
people always say something noble and uplifting – Charles Darwin or Ophelia or Joan of Arc
or whoever? Well, of course you do.
But equally, you and I know it would never work that way. You never get
to have dinner with the perfect companions.
There’s always somebody there who hogs the conversation or says nothing
at all or gets drunk or refuses to eat the food. It’s a bit like those records
you’re supposed to select for Desert Island Discs, when you know perfectly well
that if you were shipwrecked on a desert island you’d be guaranteed to end up
with a bunch of records you couldn’t stand.
Barbara Streisand in the NYT went for
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Edward Hopper, Gustav
Klimt and Fanny Brice. One major issue here is that even though you might have fascinating things you want
to say to Gustav Klimt (that's him above), the chances are he'd have nothing whatsoever to
say to you, even if you were Barbra Streisand.
I note that she doesn’t include Henry Kissinger among her selected
guests, but maybe once you've done it you cross them off the list.
Anyway, I just found this devastatingly
wonderful picture of Marilyn Monroe being kissed by Carson McCullers, while
Isak Dinesen drinks and looks on. I can hardly believe I never saw it before.
Who
wouldn’t want to be sitting at that table? On
the other hand, whoever you were, I suspect you'd feel massively out of place, that the three women in question
not only would have nothing to say to you, but they’d probably call security to
have you removed. I'll bet Arthur Miller didn't exactly feel at home there.
Maybe it’d be better
just to be a fly on the wall, or possibly a waiter or busboy. Which raises another question: which characters
from history or literature would you want to clean up after?
No comments:
Post a Comment