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: Louis Wain Auteur of psychedelic fractal cats Ask him about: cat memes “British cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.” – H.G. Wells If you love yourself a good cat photo, you can go ahead and thank Louis Wain. Up until the…
Have a drink with: Joseph Priestley Chemist, radical theologian, likes bubbles. Ask him about: favorite La Croix flavor? Part of social life for well-to-do Europeans in the eighteenth century was to visit a spa town – someplace like Bath in England, or the town of Spa in Belgium – and “take the waters.” Not unlike…
Have a drink with: William Banting Keto, paleo, intermittent fasting? Nope: BANTING. Ask him about: before and after pics When the Paleo diet became popular in the early oughts and the ketogenic diet more recently supplanted it as a nutritional craze, keen-eyed historians noticed something familiar about these diets’ recommendations to hork down all the…
Have a drink with: 19th Century Rock Bands Are we gonna do Stonehenge tomorrow? Ask them about: Their roadies’ workout schedule Last week I wrote for the fine folks over at Atlas Obscura about rock bands of the 19th century. Monster rock bands, to be specific, who played to sell-out crowds, caused riots and advertised…
Have a drink with: Oliver Cromwell He’ll never be the head of a major corporation. Ask him about: Karaoke hour? In the last weeks of 1962, if you dug between the photos of miniature poodles and Christmas advertising in your local paper, you may well have read about the solution to a historical mystery: the…
Have a drink with: Abdul Karim The jewel in the Crown Ask him about: Royal language lessons The movie Victoria and Abdul portrays the relationship between Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim, a young Indian man assigned to her service in the late 1880s. Karim, originally a clerk from Agra, India, came to Victoria’s service during…
Have a drink with: Dr. James Barry Poodle enthusiast, dandy, ace physician Ask them about: trans soldiers On July 26, President Trump announced a ban on transgender military service, citing the unsubstantiated likelihood that trans soldiers would subject the military to increased medical costs and an unacceptable degree of “disruption.” LGBT rights groups have since…
Have a drink with: Thomas Nashe It was the merry month of February… Ask him about: Valentine’s Day plans Though he lived in Elizabethan England, Thomas Nashe was not an unfamiliar figure to modern thinking: in his twenties, Nashe was out of college, short on funds and trying to make it as a writer in…
Have a drink of: Nice Cold 17th Century Beer Less filling; tastes great. Ask your friends: to buy you a round. In 1662 Charles II gave his charter to the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge (the “Royal Society,” for short). A hybrid of a gentleman’s club, an entrepreneurial incubator, a maker faire…
Have a drink with: The Duke of Wellington Statue “A gigantic triumph of bad taste over public opinion.” Ask it about: Free beer. In the 1830’s, the Napoleonic Wars were still fresh in memory and Britain was eager to redecorate. Since few things say classicism, patriotism and self-praise quite like a good monument, the idea…
