“In the well-planned dinner for ten, there should be (taking out the host and hostess): two sparklies from different fields, four solid listeners and contributors from assorted professions, one charity case and one mystery guest whose classification will not be clear until after being auditioned at this dinner.” Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior by Judith Martin
As usual, Miss Manners’ prescription is firmly delivered, but is it definitive?? Many experts on entertaining suggest that six rather than eight guests is the ideal number for a perfect dinner party. Some assert that the number of men and women should be balanced (and seated boy-girl-boy-girl); a subset of this group even continues to assume that all the guests are actually couples.
Others have a more free-form approach, encompassing, say, singleton invitees (of whom, clearly, there must be two unless you include a ménage a trois among your guests as well) or gay couples (who make the boy-girl alternation infinitely more complicated to carry off). In short, who knows? Well, for purposes of this post, you do. Six guests or eight guests, it’s up to you.
A “mystery guest”? Your choice. Do you dare make every guest an A-list “sparkly” who is used to being the center of attention? Can you pick a group whose conversation will sizzle and pop without turning your dining room into an inferno of disagreement and angry discord?
This little game is your chance to show off your party-planning skillz and indulge your own Inner Miss Manners. Your task is to pick a guest list of six (or eight, but no more) whom you believe would make for an unforgettable dinner party. You may select anyone, real or fictional, from any period in history. Mixing the real and the imaginary is allowed, although true purists will pick one or the other.
If you’re a stickler for the proprieties you can further increase the degree of difficulty by balancing the female/male ratio, specifying a seating chart, or applying Miss Manners’ rules to the letter. More to the point is your brief explanation of: why this person? As a foil for another guest, or a gadfly whose inclusion will liven things up, or just because you personally would like to ask him or her a particular question (and if so, what is that question)? Is your goal to solve the problems of the world by putting Socrates and Thomas Jefferson on either side of Jane Austen, or would you rather foment World War 3 by setting a place for Michael Moore between Jan Brewer and Sarah Palin?? The possibilities are endless.
I’ll begin (though, full disclosure, this is not my Be-All-End-All guest list but simply an example.
1. Alexander the Great – Did Aristotle grade on a curve?
2. Pamela Churchill Hayward Harriman – “Greatest courtesan of the century” (W. Paley).
3. Giacomo Casanova – Will he prefer to romance Pam or Betty?
4. Betty Boop – A toss-up between her and Daria Morgendorffer.
5. Marquis de Sade – Will he prefer to torture Betty or Mary.
6. The Virgin Mary — Well, was she?? And what does she make of the Marquis?
7. Daffy Duck – Exactly when will he blow his top?
8. Emily Dickinson – What will she say at dinner? What will she write afterward?
Over to you, Crassies.
