Thursday Thread: Historical Dinner Parties! Who would you invite? 🥂 🍽️ 🎉
Your top three guests from history—for the best banter ever!
gotham girl is a newsletter for curious readers 🗞. If you love it, why not consider supporting it? For only $50/year ($4.17 a month!) or $5/month, you’ll gain access to all my articles, Thursday threads, Sunday columns, and virtual events.
Hello, Lovelies, How the hell are you?
Welcome to forever-sweater season! Huzzah! Time to bring out the cozy sh*t and light those book-scented candles!
I have been missing long, lazy dinner parties where you talk and laugh so much, the tapers melt down to the nubs, and you get wax all over your favorite white tablecloth. “Dinner parties are the fuzzy blanket of adulthood,” according to Bon Appetit—a chance to connect with people on a far more intimate, instinctual level. You’re telling them the story of your domestic life in the span of an evening. And lately, as the world and culture continue to decompensate, this bond feels more important than ever.
For my dinner party, I’d want to mix things up and ‘rom-com’ the night with a bit of edge. I’d start by inviting my mentor and fellow turtleneck sweater-wearer-in-arms… Nora Ephron because she was a singular wit at dinner and always had great menu ideas—not to mention her fantastic talent at telling the story of ‘the couple’. Then, I’d invite Josephine Baker, because between being a performer in Paris and and a spy in World War II, along with her colorful array of lovers, she’s going to have the most incredible stories to tell. My third choice would have to be Catherine the Great. According to Peter the Great, she was “capable of anything” and had a real knack for getting things done along with a deep appreciation of art and philosophy. I could use some of that Empress juju in my work right now, so I’d love to spend an evening picking her brain about palace intrigue and GSD.
Despite their different worlds, my sense is we’d have much to talk about and, after an evening together, I bet I could write a whole new historical rom-com with some fab old-school spycraft involving jazz, musical ciphers, and a couple of royals on the run.
But what about you? If you could have a dinner party with any three historical figures, who would they be? An arts seating might include Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Vermeer, El Greco, or Andy Warhol. A musical one might tap Janis Joplin, Jimmie Hendrix, Elvis, Aretha Franklin, Prince, John Lennon, or even Jim Croce. A theological fete might involve Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, or Confucius. Or maybe you’d mix things up?
You can always have more than one dinner. I’d definitely have to host a jazz one too.
But now, it’s your turn! Tell us, hospitably humble reader, who would make your party wonderful for you?
Yours in candle wax - xoxo - gotham girl
PS - I am a human typo. Amnesty appreciated.
*As an Amazon Associate, gotham girl may earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.
Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. I got chills just writing that.
Benjamin Franklin. Groucho Marx, and even though you already claimed her I'd want Nora Ephron.