# Algonquin Round Table or Bloomsbury Group? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 17, 2005, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015 "2005-12-17T02:49:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/1 "2005-12-17T02:49:42Z")
Which self-obsessed, whiney, incestuous, self-destructive intellectual and artistic lightweights do _you_ prefer? Me, I’m an Algonquin girl. For one thing, the Algonquin is one of my own favorite hangouts. I also have a bit of a crush on Robert Benchley, and identify (not in a good way, mind you) with Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott. So, who’s for you? **Algonquin** : Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, Franklin Pierce Adams, Edna Ferber, Harpo Marx, et al? **Bloomsbury** : Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, Adrian Stephen, Thoby Stephen, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, E.M. Forster? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/2 "2005-12-17T02:52:00Z")
Algonquin - Dorothy Parker plus Harpo Marx? There’s no contest, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/3 "2005-12-17T02:54:41Z")
Yeah, got to go with the Algonquin crowd, too. I don’t agree with Mrs. Parker’s opinion on bespectacled women, but that’s about it. Eve, scratch Matilda behind the ear for me. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/4 "2005-12-17T02:55:52Z")
No one for the more Serious Ahrt of the Bloomies? ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/5 "2005-12-17T03:00:23Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > No one for the more Serious Ahrt of the Bloomies? I’d pick them, but I am afraid of Virginia Woolf. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/6 "2005-12-17T03:25:50Z")
> [@adam yax](#): > > I’d pick them, but I am afraid of Virginia Woolf. _What_ a _dump_. C’mon, Adam, who said that? You know: “_What_ a _dump_.” ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/7 "2005-12-17T03:45:24Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > _What_ a _dump_. C’mon, Adam, who said that? You know: “_What_ a _dump_.” Well, my parents said it when they came to visit me once. But I’m guessing you’re thinking of Margaret Mitchell. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/8 "2005-12-17T04:26:07Z")
Party with the Algonquin bunch, but the Bloomsbury bunch are the ones you bring home to meet the parents. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/9 "2005-12-17T04:48:35Z")
No contest. The Algonquin Hotel’s food’s better. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/10 "2005-12-17T05:07:09Z")
**Bloomsbury**. I’d like to be able to destroy my enemies with a poem, then float around on a willowy lake for the rest of the afternoon while somebody else rows. Do I have that right, or did I mix it up with some Merchant Ivory shit I saw the other night? ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/11 "2005-12-17T06:46:56Z")
Well, I enjoy Franklin P Adams (who can be heard [here](http://www.otrcat.com/informationplease.htm)), so Algonquin it is. ---
**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/12 "2005-12-17T07:30:58Z")
Hang out with Dorothy Parker? Perchance to _quip_?! No contest! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/13 "2005-12-17T07:57:37Z")
Algonquin for sure. Not only did they let Harpo in, but when I went there for lunch, they didn’t throw me out. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/14 "2005-12-17T08:56:01Z")
I’d have to pick . . . the Rive Gauche with Joyce, Stein, Hemingway, Picasso . . . Although, limited to the available choices, I’d like to think I’d pick Bloomsbury, posterity awaits and all that, but the Algonquin would be way more fun. But the Algonquin (my impression) was a place you visited; Bloomsbury, you lived there. ---
**Author:** ![Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/15 "2005-12-17T14:12:04Z")
**[Pathetic attempt at claim to fame hijack]** My second cousin (a few times removed) was Philip Morrell, MP, the rather hapless husband of the notorious Lady Ottoline Morrell, hostess and occasional guest-fucker of the Blooomsbury Group. She had a 20-year affair with Bertrand Russell and probably diddled a few others of them. Philip was the only MP to vote against Britain’s involvement in World War I, much to his conservative family’s consternation.[/Pathetic attempt at claim to fame hijack] Having said that, Bloomsbury still wins, because I would probably have wanted to know Bertrand Russell more than any of them. Just not in the way that Ottoline did… ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/16 "2005-12-17T14:34:12Z")
No contest - Algonquin I’m a newspaperman and there is something about newspaper people that lets them communicate with other newspaper people better than anyone else and they were newspaper people, well the core was. Yeah, some became authors, critics and magazine writers etc. but FPA, Wolcott, Benchley, Ross all began as newspapermen. The other reason is sort of a newspaper thing, too. The greatest excuse for sitting down and talking for newspaper people is a poker game. You can just sit and listen (as Harpo used to) and people won’t give you a bad time about not being pithy. “After all,” they will say, “he’s just concentrating on his cards.” On the flip side, if you do choose to pontificate, others can tolerate it if you are losing money while doing it. And the catty aside (ala Dotty Parker) somehow seems less mean spirited when it is accompanied with the tossing in of a chip for a bet. Somehow, I just don’t see the Bloomsbury group playing five-card draw with one-eyed jacks wild. TV ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/17 "2005-12-17T15:24:19Z")
Algonquin all the way! (I’m a short moody brunette with glasses - I think you can see where this is heading) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/18 "2005-12-17T15:44:24Z")
Algonquin all the way! Part deux The _bon mots_ of that crowd would be something to hear, and I love Dorothy Parker. ---
**Author:** ![Jackie\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/22d042/32.png) [@Jackie\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackie_Blue)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/19 "2005-12-17T16:15:46Z")
Algonquin, hands down. Anything with Harpo Marx gets my vote anyway! ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015/20 "2005-12-17T17:26:17Z")
> [@Jackie Blue](#): > > Anything with Harpo Marx gets my vote anyway! Yes, but did he talk?? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/algonquin-round-table-or-bloomsbury-group/336015.md?page=2)