as an exploratory journey through that old party question: if you could have a drink with anyone in history, who would it be? History is full of people you’d love to have a drink with. Let’s meet a few.
as an exploratory journey through that old party question: if you could have a drink with anyone in history, who would it be? History is full of people you’d love to have a drink with. Let’s meet a few.
Have a drink with: You. Just have a drink. 2021’s off to a start, huh? Talk about: What wine goes with an attempted coup? Yesterday’s breach of the United States Capitol by a shaggy horde of insurrectionists egged on by the President of the United States was a historical anomaly of the worst kind: the…
Have a drink with: The 1919 Anti-Mask League NO BARS, okay? NO. Ask them about: Coughing in large groups Since COVID-19 became a public health emergency in March, different cities and states have responded with protective measures, many of them including a recommendation or a requirement to wear a mask when in proximity to other…
The Flour Rioters of 1837 Bread, meat, rent and fuel Ask them about: sourdough starter? In the pandemic months of 2020, one of the most initially surprising facts of life was the desolation of the supermarket baking aisle, with flour in desperately short supply as we all stress-baked our way through isolation. It isn’t the first…
Have a drink at: Your College Dining Hall Cabbage: now with extra protein! Discuss: FOOD FIGHT Today, a college’s dining hall is part of its overall outreach in the competition to attract students, and to keep them happy and achieving while they’re on campus. So much is put into the food and the architecture that…
Have a drink with: The Yale Medical School Class of 1824 Did you bring a shovel? Ask them about: Buying your own school supplies On a cold January morning almost 200 years ago in New Haven, Connecticut, someone came knocking on Jonathan Knight’s door. This itself was not necessarily unusual, as Knight had his thumb…
Have a drink with: The West Point Cadets of 1826 Cold cuts, eggnog, muskets. Ask them about: really aggressive wassailing “1408. No cadet shall drink, nor shall bring, or cause to be brought, into either barracks or camp, nor shall have in his rooms or otherwise in his possession, wine, porter, or any other spiritous…
Have a drink with: Edwin Forrest & William Charles Macready The play’s the thing… Ask them about: Dead sheep as theater criticism The New York Public Theater’s recent production of Julius Casear, in which the emperor bears a striking and not unintentional resemblance to Donald Trump, was hounded by controversy throughout its run. On June…
Have a drink at: The Central Park Zoo Gordon Bennett! Ask about: Does the gift shop sell firearms? Highly partisan news engineered to manipulate media and line the owners’ pockets has become particularly virulent in current politics – and, thanks to the wackadoo likes of Alex Jones, highly visible as well – but it is not…
Have a drink with: The 19th Century Anti-Gun Lobby “We’re all hot at the same time, and we should do somethin’ about it!” Ask them about: Background checks If you watch enough movies – Civil War dramas, Wild West adventures, Five Points gangland brawls, Mel Brooks – you’d be forgiven for thinking that the 19th…
Have a drink with: Halloween hooligans Trick or treat, smell my feet… Ask them about: Mayhem, outhouses, peanut scramble. It was 1933, and Charles J. Dalthorp had had it. Writing in the Journal of Education in 1937, the superintendent of schools in Aberdeen, South Dakota, bemoaned the Halloween holiday and its attendant juvenile warfare. Describing…
