Q: You have the opportunity to host a dinner party for up to five other people who lived at any time in world history, with language being no barrier. Whom do you invite, and why?
A: I have been sitting on this one for most of the month, with one seat left open at the table until today.
St. Francis of Assisi, Isadora Duncan, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Cole Porter have been on the guest list since the question was asked. I am not exactly sure when the fifth space was so difficult to fill.
St. Francis may be the odd man out in this bunch, but he was first on the list. I have been fascinated with the saint since some time ago in college. A friend had drawn parallels between the mythos of this saint and the archetype of a pagan high priest. It wasn’t the first time someone had reference the idea of pagan priests overlapping with the Catholic clergy. I am at least a bit interested in this idea; the penultimate ‘hiding in plain sight’…
Isadora Duncan makes the list simply for the ironic tragedy of her death. Okay, maybe not just for that… such a woman. I mean, really, how many people are personally responsible for the creation of new and unique art forms…?
Henri da Toulouse-Lautrec. Well… what dinner party would I host that wasn’t at least a certain bit tawdry…? Really! He would be a perfect addition, I think, especially if I had the bar fully stocked!
Cole Porter. If he was in life anything as he was portrayed in De-Lovely, well! How could any dinner party be anything without him…? Charming, delightful, inspiring… and queer! Not to be missed.
So that brings us to the final spot. She was the first potential add-on and for some reason, I never fully sealed the idea, until today.
The final seat at my dinner table would be for Annie Lennox. Seriously. I was roaming around YouTube today, looking for various tunes of hers… and I fell across this: she does a video blog series on her YouTube page, including a series of questions from her fans. That is pretty sweet, I think. And then… well, her voice. Her power. Her presence. She is stellar. And her refusal to cave to the powers-that-be and their insistence that a woman need to forever struggle with being cut and poked and stretched to be beautiful, well, makes her even more beautiful in my world.
On top of that, have you ever heard her sing Cole Porter’s music…? Holy crap.
In all, I think it would be a fascinating celebration of life and love.
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