Where We Stand

The White House engravers are printing the invitations. The Caligraphers are addressing the envelopes. The Marine Band is practicing. If you are coming to the party, I need a guest list. As you can see, it is shaping up to being quite an affair.

Rules: Before Sunday Night name 9 guests living or dead to sit at your table. Name a guest of Honor and a President to be voted on at a later date. Make any silly remarks you would like. Do you best not to duplicate guests, but I'll sort it out later if you do.


Host: Enigma4ever
Grandmother Flo
Ray Charles
John Amato
Keith Olbermann
George Clooney
Jimmy Carter
Peter Gabriel
Bono
The Edge
Guest of Honor: Nelson Mandela
President: JFK

Host: Jamie
Mom
Dad
Louisa May Alcott
Craig Crawford
Thomas Jefferson
Jane Austin
Bill Clinton
Elizabeth Blackwell
Boccaccio
Guest of Honor: Abraham Lincoln
President: Biden

Host: dnd
Thomas Jefferson
Alexander Hamilton
Richard Feynman, Physicist
CC Goldwater
Stephanie Miller
Kinky Friedman
Billy Joe Shaver
John Belushi
Dan Aykroyd
Guest of Honor: Molly Ivins
President: Bush (41 or 43?)

Host: The Teach
John Updike
Joyce Carol Oates
Edwidge Danticat
J. M Coetzee
Ernest J. Gaines
Amy Tan
Stephen King
Ian McEwan.President Barack Obama
Guest of Honor: Hillary ClintonU.S. Marine Band is playing which means my dear nephew, my brother's son, is there playing the French horn.

Jamie said...
Enigma, Showing up shortly Renee and dnd who are throwing a beer bash, smashing the good china, wearing blue jeans and inviting the Blues brothers to entertain.I don't have a whip and chair to keep them in line so you are welcome to join their party. At least you picked an "imported" beer.
1:59 PM
dnd said...
Jamie,Just to clarify, I'm bringing the beer. Renee is bringing the tequila. This is why Ms Ivans will be partying at our table. And in her honor, we'll have some Kinky Friedman and Billy Joe Shaver to serenade her. Enigma, you are certainly welcome.

Host: Katherine Graham Cracker
Jane Smiley
David Steinberg
Gary Trudeau
Bill and Hillary Clinton
John and Elizabeth Edwards
Bella Abzug
Shirley Chisholm
President Russ FeingoldHonored guest Al Gore


Enigma4ever said ...
Oh dear...I can not party with such a rakish bunch...and I don't go near tequila..I just wanted a sip of Heinken..sigh..and now they have gone and taken Molly from my table...sigh...so I have had to ask a replacement guest, I am bring Ray Charles, since my grandmother Flo loved him so, and he will fawn all over as she looks great in Red ( being a redhead...) oh, and he has very nicely asked if he could serenade us with America the Beautiful after dinner ? ( and I have to say Katherine Graham Cracker just melted my heart, PRESIDENT FEINGOLD .... be still my heart...)

RebelliousRenee said...
Enigma is going to join us at our table, dnd..... oh goody!I'll make some homemade Sangria as well as the margaritas.....dnd.... sweetie..... don't forget Aretha....

RebelliousRenee said...
Enigma....you're bring Ray Charles.....I'm bring Aretha Franklin.....maybe we'll get the to sing a duet...oh yeah.... dnd and I want Larry Sabato as our guest of honor.... hope he like Sangria.... :)

Host: Linda

1) Ulysses S. Grant
2) Robert E. Lee
3) Mark Twain
4) My father who would just LOVE all this!
5) My best friend Cyndi for the same reason plus I need someone to make snarky remarks with!
6) John Cusack (yeah, yeah, I'm shallow!)
7) Matt Lauer so he'll get the story straight on The Today Show8)
8) John Adams
9) Abigail Adams

President - hmmm, Stephen Colbert!
Guest of Honor: Abraham Lincoln

Host: Corey

John Mayer
Michael Buble
Amy Sedaris
Lisa Robertson (QVC)
Stan Laurel
Bobby Kennedy
Dean Martin
Ben Franklin
Sara Evans

President: Teddy Roosevelt
Honored Guest: Thomas Edison

Host: Rebellious Renee

Larry Sabato
Bronson Alcott
Richard Russo
Margaret Atwood
Judi Dench
Bill Maher
Al Franken
Keith Olbermann
Stephen King.... I get an author and a Red Sox fan

guest of honor.... Henry David Thoreau


Host: Lisa
Eleanor Roosevelt
Jerry Seinfeld
Helen Keller
Charles Gibson
Leonard da Vinci
Lewis Carroll
John Lennon
Ellen DeGeneres
Audrey Hepburn

president will be JFK
guest of honor nominee, I'll go with Abe, he's a good choice.

Rob popped in but didn't leave a table list

Host: Travis
2. Pam
3. General Alexander Archer Vandegrift, USMC
4. Lieutenant Audie L. Murphy, USA
5. Julia Roberts
6. Merle Streep
7. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth of England
8. William Shakespeare
9. Mom
10. Stepdad

You Are Cordially Invited

Your table has ten place settings. You are sitting in one of them. You can invite anyone living or dead to join you for dinner. You have two missions. Name the people seated at your table and then nominate someone to be the guest of honor and President to be seated at the President's table. We will have a vote later for the guest of honor slot from the nominees.

Just to get your creative juices flowing:

The menu, place settings & entertainment:

Celery Broth with Crispy Rock Shrimp
Newton Chardonnay "Unfiltered" 2002

Medallions of Buffalo Tenderloin
Roasted Corn
Wild Rice Pancakes
Glazed Parsnips and Young Carrots
Peter Michael Pinot Noir "Le Moulin Rouge" 2002

Mint Romaine Lettuce with Blood Orange Vinaigrette
Vermont Camembert Cheese and Spiced Walnuts

Petits Fours Cake
Chartreuse Ice Cream Red and Green Grape Sauce
Iron Horse "Wedding Cuvée" 2002

*

Dinner Table Settings and Music

The State Dining Room, The White House State Floor
Clinton China
Vermeil flatware
Gold pintuck silk tablecloths
Sprays of white phaeleanopsis orchids with camellia foliage

in the historic White House vermeil candelabras

The United States Marine Band Flute trio - The East Entrance
The United States Marine Band - The Grand Foyer
The United States Marine Band "Strolling Strings" - The State Floor

After Dinner Entertainment - The White House State Floor
Yo Yo Ma, Cellist - The East Room
Kathryn Stott, Concert Pianist - The East Room

The United States Marine Dance Band - The Grand Foyer

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Manic Monday logo courtesy of Jannagraphics

If you have never seen the object at the top of the page you have not spent much time watching murder most foul taking place in the English Country side courtesy of BBC or PBS the investigation of which is often interrupted by that most English of all games: Cricket. You might not recognize that the young gentleman on the left is a bowler while the one on the right is a batsman who could be defending a "sticky wicket".

If you have not been raised with the game that is now played in every country where the sun never set on the British Empire, it will be almost impossible to fully understand. I know this because of an extensive exchange of emails involving the finer points of baseball vs. cricket. He could probably tell you quite a bit about baseball while I, on the other hand, know that some form of cricket has been played since 1300 and tea will be served at 4:00 p.m.

I will prove this to you by posting just a bit of the article from Wikipedia

During the play of a cricket match, two members of the batting team are on the field, while their team-mates wait off the field. Those two players are the current batsmen. Each batsman stands near one of the two wickets at either end of the cricket pitch near the centre of the ground.

The two batsmen have different roles: The striker stands in front of the wicket nearest him and attempts to defend it from balls bowled by the opposing bowler from the other wicket. The non-striker stands inactive near the bowler's wicket.

Got that?

If you have the time, do at least take a look at the Wikapedia page as the pictures of the virtually incomprehensible are wonderful, and the history is fascinating and has often involved major disputes between devotees that have risen to the level of diplomatic outrage almost leading to the severing of governmental relations.

Now test matches in Cricket are known for their length. In researching this article, I found another delightful research website called The longest list of the longest stuff at the longest domain name at Long Last to find out that the longest recorded test match was between England and South Africa which began on March 03, 1939 and continued till March 14, 1939, although they did not play on the 5th, 11th or 12th. During this time they played a total of 43 hours and 16 minutes, finally calling the game a draw at 1,981 runs because the English had to take a ship home.

Arthur Salway has written a humorous poem about cricket called The English Game. Enjoy and then if you have never seen it, rent a wonderful movie called Hope and Glory about World War II through the eyes of a child with a minor theme of him learning how to throw a "googlie" that is unhittable by a cricket bat before his father comes home.

Tracking Down A Story

Manic Monday logo courtesy of Jannagraphics

Marvelous Mo has decreed that the Manic Monday word for today is "Track". As usual this produced any number of possibilities for me, but I kept coming back to the first record I ever bought for myself: The Wayward Wind by Gogi Grant

In a lonely shack by a railroad track
He spent his younger days
And I guess the sound of the outward bound
Made him a slave to his wandrin' ways

Add to this the fact that one of my favorite names for a girl comes from a song with a train in the lyrics, "And you see Laura on a train that is passing through. She gave your very first kiss to you, but she's only a dream".

Now this quite naturally made me think about train songs: Trains or tracks in the title, Name of a particular train, and events happening on a train. So I got out a paper and pen and by the time I got to the 50th song off the top of my head, it occurred to me (I can be a little slow at times) that song writers and singers from every imaginable genre like to write or sing about trains and you can make the instruments do such nice whiney sounds for the train whistle heard from the tracks when the train goes by.

The next trip was to my buddy Google. Is there a list of train songs? Of course there is ... three lonnnnnnnnnnnng pages of lists of train songs. One of the best is a blog done by a lady for her husband who loves trains: The Train Song Collection. Feel free to browse. You will be surprised at how many you not only recognize, but know well enough to sing a few bars.

This brings up the question. What is your favorite train song(s)?

Now on to You Tube for today's entertainment: Several sound tracks making up a concert of a few good train songs:

City of New Orleans - The Highway Men

Wabash Cannonball - Boxcar Willie

Take the A Train - Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald

Last Train To Clarksville - The Monkees

Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe - Judy Garland

Sentimental Journey - Les Brown & Doris Day

Chattanooga Choo Choo - Glenn Miller Orchestra - Dorothy Dandridge singing and The Nicholas Brothers Dancing

And last but not least: 500 Miles - Peter, Paul and Mary