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: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Elementary, my dear Watson. Ask him about: ghosts In the early 1920s, folks in America were generally worn out, in a not unfamiliar way. The geopolitical situation was fraught in the wake of World War I, racial tension was high after the 1919 “Red Summer” race riots,…
Have a drink with: Your Local Mountebank Healthcare! Fireworks! Toads! Ask him about: What ails you We’re all getting a lot of weird healthcare advice lately, and I admit that it’s hard to stomach the idea that our country, which vanquished polio and smallpox with scientific elbow grease, is entertaining the medical expertise of a…
Have a drink with: Single Ladies (Halloween Edition) Burning hair, apples, chicken guts, lead poisoning. Ask her about: Do you know the Heimlich maneuver? For most of American history, Halloween was not a holiday for children. Quite the opposite: to the extent Halloween was celebrated at all, by the 19th century it was known as…
Have a drink with: Sarah Winchester 40BR, 30BA; move-in ready! Ask her about: Extreme Home Makeover, Spectral Edition You’d be forgiven for thinking that the star of the recent suspense film Winchester is Helen Mirren. She is, after all, a certified badass; a superb actress; and well kitted out for the job in a dour…
Have a drink with: Mary Todd Lincoln Bad taste in psychics; good taste in jewelry Ask her about: Levitating pianos George Saunders’ novel Lincoln in the Bardo looks at the metaphysics of the Lincoln family, with what on first glance might seem to be wild creative license. Dramatizing the doubt and grief that colored the…
Have a drink with: Spirit Photographers Ray? When someone asks you if you’re a god, you say yes. Ask them about: Selfies with your dead relatives In 1848, two sisters from Hydesville, New York spread word that they heard mysterious rapping noises on the walls and furniture of their home, and could speak with spirits…
Have a drink with: Leonardo da Vinci Polymath, painter, engineer, left-handed gay underdog genius Ask him about: flying psychic unicorn voyages of the mind The surgeon and writer Leonard Shlain was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008 and died less than a year later, just a week after finishing the manuscript for his book “Leonardo’s…
Have a drink with: St. Teresa of Avila Reformer, mystic, dreamer, smart lady. Ask her about: that time she told the devil to piss off. I grew up thinking saints were terribly stodgy, righteous people who had somehow gotten themselves onto life’s “Do Not Call” list for doubt and temptation. It wasn’t until later in…
