Weekend Engagement 87: Dinner with Immortals Among Men
While this may initially appear as an easy #weekend-engagement topic this week, it is deceptively difficult to say the least. I chose who I would invite to a dinner party and when I began to contemplate who I wanted to share a ribeye and coffee with my mind begin to reel at the possibilities.
Of course you could go with the obvious and say "Jesus" for unlimited cheap wine, but I figure I'll see him soon enough and ask all the questions I want. On a side note, I know it sound silly and unnecessary, but I really, really want to know what he bent over and drew in the dirt! Ok back to my dream dinner party. There are so many staggering figures alive presently and that have graced our humble planet throughout history that this decision was absolutely agonizing! Seriously! It is like saying, "Hey, here is a chance to count the starts....or number the sands of the sea!". And though I'm sure there are many more amazing dinner guests than the ones I chose (I'm imagining Genghis Khan throat singing for me in front of the fireplace as Freud attempts to analyze him!). I finally narrowed it down to two historical figures who greatly influenced me in different ways and a contemporary who I find absolutely, positively intriguing.
Ernest Hemingway
My first guest would be Ernest Hemingway. Like most American youth, I was first introduced to Mr. Hemingway in school around middle school age by his short story, "Old Man and the Sea". Up until this point I liked to read, but his mastery of the language so that he painted vivid pictures with his words absolutely enthralled me and it was here that I developed my life-long love affair with the written word and with writing. His prose was so saturated with imagery and meaning and it is truly immortal.
As a matter of fact, my screen name, in part, came from my adoration of Hemingway because he was fondly called "Papa" Hemingway by his closest friends and family. I have read everything he has written mulitple times, but I would love nothing more to sit down by this master weaver of words and hear him explain how he chose this path over another for this charter or that plot. I can imagine he was just as monumental in person as he was in print and I like to imagine he was not much different than his character in Midnight in Paris of which I included a clip below. I have been so moved by Hemingway's writings and life that I composed a poem about him many years ago and submitted it here on blockchain quite awhile back.
The only issue I can foresee is that I don't drink or serve alcohol in my home and we all know Mr. Hemingway as a legendary consumer of spirits and I don't think I have what it takes to face him in a boxing match!
Salvador Dali
My second guest that would be invited to my dinner party would be the phenomenal and otherworldly surrealist, Salvador Dali. I have been an art lover and appreciator since a very young age and it may come from the fact that I can't draw a stick figure! lolol I remember seeing my first Dali painting, The Average Bureaucrat in elementary school and even though I was far too young to grasp the intimate details and political connotations of this piece, nevertheless it moved me to my core and I'm sure I was the only 4th grader to have a poster print of it on my bedroom wall....lol. I've always been a bit eccentric though! This is not one of his more famous paintings but it will always rank up in the top for me because it was how I found the magic of Dali.
I have been fortunate enough over the years to visit his museum five times and each time was the most fundamentally life-changing experience of my life and I vividly remember weeping uncontrollably in front of the massive piece, The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and how thoroughly light-headed I felt when I first saw the actual physical painting of The Average Bureaucrat. I will carry these memories and his paintings in my soul until I leave this earth.
Dali was just as grandiose in personality as his paintings and he was forever the showman. I am transfixed and mesmerized by any interviews or filmed appearances he made while he was alive and I would just relish the chance to hear his unique accent fill the entirety of a room with the flavor and flourish he was so known for! I had forgotten how many great characters and what a great movie Midnight in Paris was until I started writing this and I remembered Dali was a character in that movie too, so I added his clip as well.
The only issue that might arise out of Dali is that his over-the-top personality might be mistaken for rudeness by Mr. Hemingway and he would destroy Dali in a fight!
Elon Musk
My third and final guest for the meal would be the unbelievably intriguing Elon Musk. I can not get enough of hearing his thoughts and ideas for our humble world and that alone would qualify him as a top three pick for a dinner party.
Mr. Musk is operating at a level so far above the rest of us mere mortals that he physically has to pause and figure out how to communicate with us earthlings. It is fascinating to watch and he literally has ideas pinging around in his head that will not only change the world but our solar system within a decade or so. To watch him have to slow down and recalculate how to speak to regular people is so intriguing to me and I would really enjoy sitting at the table enjoying a meal and learning how he is going to take us to the farthest reaches of what we know as our solar system. He is a literal genius and I find his mannerism, speech patterns, and ideas so very, very interesting. He is definitely someone I can see hanging out with and I want to know how his mind works, what moves him, what he adores, what he finds beautiful, and what his favorite movie, song, and book is.
He seems intelligent enough not to pick a fight with Mr. Hemingway for no reason, but I can definitely see Dali getting a bit flustered at Mr. Musk commanding the attention of other party guests and Dali would be enraged to not be the center of attention. Below I linked a video of highlights from his most recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Show, who, by the way, would definitely be in the top ten for a larger dinner party along with Jordan Peterson, Lex Friedman, Jocko Willink, Rickson Gracie, Genghis Khan, and so, so many others.
Now that I have listed the three people I would invite to my little dinner party, I thought it would be cool to share with you all the menu I would prepare for these giants of men! Although I am a fairly strict carnivore, I would forego that for the evening and prepare some of my specialties.
For starters, I would prepare some homemade tuna, shrimp tempera, and eel rolls as appetizers. I would then move on to select squares of the finest sourdough and marble rye to accompany my caviar butter. I always cook like there is an Army battalion coming over and multiple main courses are the norm when I have guests over so I would move on to a tender and perfectly reverse-seared tomahawk ribeye for each guest. I would also serve two options of homemade angelhair alfredo in the form of shrimp alfredo and a homemade sweet and spicy Italian meatball alfredo. I would be remiss id I didn't honor my southern lowland roots and not prepare a low country boil consisting of fat, plump shrimp, hot hickory sausage, sweet Vidalia onions, a truck load of seasonings, red potatoes, and corn nibblers. After I made sure my guests were fully satisfied with the main courses, there would, of course, be a coffee bar with all the elements anyone could desire in a cup of coffee and I would make sure I had a southern pound cake fresh and ready to go or they could have the choice of my family recipe banana pudding or my (almost) world famous dirt cake!
At this point, we would all retire to the back deck and listen to the cicadas, crows, and all the other summer creatures the serenade the souls in the south. We would tell lies and belly laugh at each other's tales as the night lingered on and the stars smiled at my good fortune!
I really, really enjoyed participating in this weekend's topic for the #weekend-egagement and if you made it all the way to the end...Thanks! lololol
All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter,
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
-Tolkien