# Dinner With Someone Dead Or Alive **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 21, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689 "2003-08-21T15:06:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/21 "2003-08-22T01:07:41Z")
Dinner with Pete Burns? Hummmmmmm. ---
**Author:** ![Heart\_On\_My\_Sleeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/77aa72/32.png) [@Heart\_On\_My\_Sleeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heart_On_My_Sleeve)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/22 "2003-08-22T01:20:50Z")
Well, I wouldn’t want it to be romantic or candelit, but definitely Marilyn Monroe. Discussion would be whatever… Also, –My Grandparents (discussion–their lives) –Bono (discussion–whatever he wanted 🙂 ) –Tori Amos (discussion–whatever) ---
**Author:** ![Stage\_Manager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stage_manager/32/7267_2.png) [@Stage\_Manager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stage_Manager)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/23 "2003-08-22T05:49:46Z")
Charles Ludlam. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/24 "2003-08-22T06:26:38Z")
Either individually or in groups: Douglas Adams, Richard Feynman, Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (El Cid), Benjamin Franklin, Abraham, General Patton, Christopher Hitchens, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Hannibal (the Carthaginian, not the fictional character.) Eclectic bunch, really. ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/25 "2003-08-22T07:10:10Z")
Funny, throughout my Early Am Lit class I had to write a weekly paper about one of the people we were reading and I would usually end the paper saying that I either would or wouldn’t invite this person to a dinner party. At the end of the quarter my professor expressed that she’d love to be invited as well! Inspired by that class, and listed chronologically because I’m anal retentive, I’d invite: - Ben Franklin - Thomas Jefferson - Abigail Adams - Henry David Thoreau - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Edgar Allan Poe - Harriet Jacobs - Abraham Lincoln - Emily Dickinson - Mark Twain - George Orwell The fireworks between the Transcendentalists, the Romantics, and the Realists alone would be worth the deposit on my apartment 😃 It would be best to invite them in smaller groups to several get togethers but if I had only one dinner party to throw, I’d invite 'em all just to see what happened. If I could invite as many people as I wanted, I’d also love to invite Steve Martin (circa 1976), the whole Flying Circus, The Kids in the Hall, and Marilyn Manson. And maybe Neitsche and Freud. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/26 "2003-08-22T07:26:01Z")
Add Mark Twain to my list, I forgot about him. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/27 "2003-08-22T08:21:28Z")
You know, you have to do this with appropriate seating, dinner partners, and all that. So, ladies and Gentlemen alternating, beginning on the right, from the head of the table, (Me, of course, our host) I have: (mortals only, this is a dinner party) Abigail Adams, Mohandas Gandhi, Josephine Baker, Samuel Clemens, Mary Shelley, Benjamin Franklin, (My hostess a friend of mine named) Tanya, Claudius, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Robert Heinlein, Virginia Heinlein, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Susan Sarandon. I think it would be a good party. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/28 "2003-08-22T09:41:10Z")
My Lovely Wife, Mohammed, Lincoln, Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, George C Marshal (each bringing a guest of course) Menu? Roast Beef, Briased potatoes, turnips and parsnips (Lots of surprises for Mohammed) Califlower in cheese sauce Brown gravy Fruit tarts Chocolate chip cookies with walnuts Cigars ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/29 "2003-08-22T09:52:47Z")
Frank Zappa, Grace Slick, and John Lennon ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/30 "2003-08-22T12:28:11Z")
Alice Roosevelt Longworth was an excellent choice! ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/31 "2003-08-22T17:48:18Z")
It’s not dinner, but I’ve always thought it would be really cool to share a J with Jimi Hendrix. ---
**Author:** ![drm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@drm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/32 "2003-08-22T20:15:01Z")
Albert Einstein - I’d want to learn his thoughts about things totally unrelated to science. ---
**Author:** ![eeeeevon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@eeeeevon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eeeeevon)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/33 "2003-08-22T20:31:17Z")
\>\>\>\>rockle wrote Registered: Jan 2003 Location: Sillydelphia, PA Posts: 220 My dinner party would be me, my husband, and: Douglas Adams John Cleese Jesse Ventura Eddie Vedder Lisa Simpson Dorothy Parker I’d have to serve vegetarian food, but the conversation would be worth the phlegm, I think.\<\<\<\< Count me on on that dinner party! How bout setting a seat for Katherine Hepburn and Gilda Ratner? ---
**Author:** ![sultana\_of\_slash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@sultana\_of\_slash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sultana_of_slash)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/34 "2003-08-22T20:41:02Z")
How about Samuel Johnson, with Boswell around to get him going? “If all this had happened to me” (fame and fortune), “I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody who stood in the way!” “Mrs. Montagu has dropped me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.” “Depend upon it, that if a man talks about his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.” “This man, Lord Chesterfield, I thought had been a Lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among Lords!” And how about Heinlein, Twain, and Oscar Wilde to bat the volleys back and forth? Say, wait a minnit on Heinlein: we know Twain and Wilde could talk as well as write. But could Heinlein? Or was he one of those who can only do it right when he sits to write? ---
**Author:** ![Ender\_Will](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Ender\_Will](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ender_Will)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/35 "2003-08-22T21:08:03Z")
No great ambition behind my list, just people that I think it would be interesting to talk to, wish I could see again, could brag to my friends about, or just want to meet. And I’m going to assume that everyone can understand one another, because that makes things a lot easier. My dad Jesus Adolf Hitler Kurt Cobain Leonardo Da Vinci Winston Churchill Winston Smith Thomas Jefferson Kevin Smith Neil Armstrong Will Ferrell Shannon Elizabeth, Brooke Burke and Carmen Electra as waitresses ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/36 "2003-08-22T21:15:24Z")
Dead People: Peggy Guggenheim Guy Debord Billy the Kid Live People: Johnny Rotten Rexella Van Impe And I’d probably just order Dominoe’s for them too. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/37 "2003-08-22T22:50:32Z")
My mother. May God rest her soul. Boy could she cook. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/38 "2003-08-23T00:51:48Z")
Hitler, and some very angry Holocaust survivors. Osama bin Laden, and some 9/11 orphans. Van Gogh, just to tell him how much the world loves his paintings (and how much they’re selling for). Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Mozart, Beethoven and Gershwin. Plato and Aristotle. JFK, Jackie, Caroline and John Jr. Lee Harvey Oswald Marilyn Monroe, just to find out if it was really a suicide. Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry. Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, and some of their ancestors who were slaves. Copernicus, Galileo, Edward Hubble and Carl Sagan. Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. Ben Franklin. Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. St. Paul and Harvey Fierstein. Immanuel Kant and Ayn Rand. The Wright Brothers and Neil Armstrong. Michelangelo, Rodin and the “Winged Victory” sculptor. Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley. D.W. Griffith and Steven Spielberg. My two grandparents whom I knew, and my two grandparents whom I never met. ---
**Author:** ![verbenabeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c4cdca/32.png) [@verbenabeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/verbenabeast)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/39 "2003-08-23T01:00:39Z")
First response? Osama Bin Laden… I’d like to hear what he would have to say about my size 13 paratrooper boot repeatedly and violently entering his rectal cavity ---
**Author:** ![verbenabeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c4cdca/32.png) [@verbenabeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/verbenabeast)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689/40 "2003-08-23T01:12:59Z")
after OBL, I’d like to meet - Gall, the Sioux war chief, - Crazy Horse… - Jean LaFitte… - Charlemagne… - William Wallace… - Miyamoto Musashi… - Guan Yu (General Kwan, or Kwan the Noble), - Robert E. Lee, - “Stonewall” Jackson, - J.E.B. Stuart, - A.P. Hill, - Davy Crockett, - Ethan Allen, - Marcus Aurelius - Leonarda DaVinci Caveats are we all speak a common tongue, and all at one dinner party… should be some fascinating discussion at that table. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dinner-with-someone-dead-or-alive/196689.md?page=3)