The Last Supper

Hello.

I thought I'd write a fairly general sort of post, because I shall be 'away' for about three weeks from the 25/26th of this month until the 17/18th of next month. Where will I be? As Roy Orbison might say when visiting Dusseldorf, "Attending to certain matters." Exactly what it is to which I am attending, may, to some slight degree, become known in the future. Anyway, the point is, I don't know how much Internet access I'll have during that period, so it's possible this will be my last post for a while.

Not that I have anything important to say here. I feel a bit depressed. I'm not really a morning person, but this morning, perhaps due partly to the pressure of having to arrange my away-ness, I managed to get up reasonably early. The result of this was that I was semi-conscious while the radio alarm was still on, giving me all the latest from, I believe, BBC Wales. It was pretty depressing, anyway. Gary Glitter, water footprints (as in, the hundreds or thousands or whatever it was litres of water the average British citizen uses in a single day), some kind of freak weather incident on the North Wales coast – not the kind of thing that you should really be exposing yourself to in a suggestible, hypnopompic state. I seem to be someone who feels a vague duty to 'keep informed', but the news, basically, seems to be that the human race has had its day. The only problem is, I still have to wake up the next day, and the next day. I think maybe I should tune my radio to a different station. I used to wake up to Classic FM once upon a time. Maybe I'll see if I can find that again.

This is probably a bit of a waste of time and blogspace, really. There are a number of blogposts I've been thinking of writing recently that I just haven't got round to. For instance, I've been meaning to write in depth about the documentary Dangerous Knowledge. I've also been meaning to write about how children are not innately little savages, as the Victorian age, the middle-class Freud and William Golding would have us believe, and more about books, and… probably some other things I've forgotten because I didn't make anything other than a mental note of them. However, I'm too groggy and tired and pissed off to concentrate on anything so edifying, so I might as well write about something very silly instead.

The other day I was talking to a friend on the phone, who, describing himself as agnostic, told me that he'd started reading the Bible again recently. He mentioned some parts of the Old Testament… Oh yes, the Binding of Isaac, and probably some other stuff… and said that he was particularly interested in the Gospel according to Mark. He ended up making some comment about a conversation he'd had with another friend along the lines of that old parlour game (or whatever it is) where you have to say what famous historical figures you would most like to invite to dinner, if you could choose anyone at all. His friend had been saying people like Oscar Wilde and Stephen Fry, and he said, to me, something like the following, "But, if you can choose anyone, why fart around inviting Oscar Wilde and Stephen Fry? I mean, how can you not invite Jesus?" I reserved judgement on the matter, though saw his point (and there's certainly no reason to invite Oscar Wilde and Stephen Fry), and he began to wonder aloud about what kind of person Jesus might be. At some point I interjected to express a doubt as to whether there had been any historical Jesus anyway, making conjecture on what person he might have been redundant, unless it was meant in a whimsical/hypothetical way. He seemed to think that there had indeed been a historical Jesus. It's been so long since I've read anything on the subject that I can't now recall any of the arguments for or against on this question. "But," I said, "I'm not sure about inviting Jesus, anyway. I mean, he might monopolise people's attentions. You know, he might be a bit intense." It seemed unfair on the other guests, as if the whole evening would then just be about Jesus.

Anyway, the conversation didn't go anywhere in particular after that, except that I recommended a couple of books, since my friend also seemed keen to compare different religious texts. I remembered the conversation later when I made a bit of a find on the bookshelves of this house. The library of books here (upstairs and down), is really one of the best I've ever laid eyes upon, in many ways better than my own collection of books, which is now scattered in different locations across Britain. I can't look at the bookshelves here without thinking that I should just try and clear six months or a year or my life to sit down and go through the books one by one. So, unable to resist the urge any longer, I began plucking volumes at random off the shelf the other night. I picked, first, The Green Child by Herbert Read. Apparently it was his only novel. I started reading, and found the prose very precise and finely tooled (it reminded me of some of the virtues of English literature, which I have been disparaging so recently); in particular the phrase "sensitive wrist" from one passage sticks in my mind as somehow representative of what was good in his style. However, I found that I had to urge myself on, and was not drawn in. After a few pages of this, I plucked another volume from the shelf. This was The World I Live In, by Helen Keller. Of course, I already knew the name Helen Keller, and the fact that she was deaf and blind. I was familiar with some of her quotes ("Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing," is one that I seem to remember, as well as her quote regarding the breakthrough that came when finally she understood the word/concept "water"). I've never been especially interested in Helen Keller, so it was in very idle curiosity that I opened the book and began to read. I had only read about a page when I found myself deeply moved. I was moved by Helen Keller as a writer. Her prose was utterly wonderful. I have since read about half of the book (I haven't yet got back to The Green Child).

Anyway, the upshot of this (or one upshot of it) was that I began to think again about the whole idea of the ultimate dinner party. I would definitely want to invite Helen Keller. But how many other people should be invited? I realised that, if there were rules to this game, I didn't know what they were, but the association of Jesus that I now had with the game, made me think of the Last Supper. Besides oneself, it seemed to me, there should be twelve guests. But for me, at least, Jesus would not be one of them. I then became absorbed in the problem of who else to invite. A few names suggested themselves without any especial rationale – Magibon, Nagai Kafu, Mishima Yukio, H.P. Lovecraft. Hmmm. It seemed to be getting a bit too heavy on the writers. I seem to be a writer-heavy person. Actually, there aren't that many people I have a long-standing desire to meet. Okay, let's do the stream-of-consciousness thing: Annette Funicello, Derek Griffiths, Michael someoneorother, Nagai Kafu (we've already had), James someoneelse, Katsushika Hokusai, Chiku-chan from the band Tama, some other Japanese guy whose name I'm straining to remember now, and who maybe doesn't exist outside my imagination, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Tori Amos, Ian Curtis, William Burroughs, Georg Cantor. How many is that? I think that's more than twelve. Oh, with actually identifiable individuals, altogether, that makes fourteen, I think. No, fifteen with Helen Keller. I've got to pare this down a bit. Well, now the list is a bit chick-heavy. Or is it? No, it's just that "Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Tori Amos" has a certain monotony about it. Anyway, let's remove them. That should leave twelve. But am I really happy with these twelve? Let's review it: Helen Keller, Magibon, Nagai Kafu, Mishima Yukio, H.P. Lovecraft, Annette Funicello, Derek Griffiths, Katsushika Hokusai, Chiku-chan, Ian Curtis, William Burroughs, Georg Cantor.

I have to say, I feel it's a bit stodgy, somehow. I mean, don't get me wrong. If someone said to me, "Oh, I'm having a dinner party on Thursday (because it's the new Friday), and Helen Keller, Magibon, Nagai Kafu, Mishima Yukio, H.P. Lovecraft, Annette Funicello, Derek Griffiths, Katsushika Hokusai, Chiku-chan, Ian Curtis, William Burroughs and Georg Cantor will all be there," I probably would accept the invitation with some eagerness, and might even cancel something else if my evening was not already free on Thursday.

I don't know. Maybe I should invite Jesus, after all. In fact, it's already occurred to me that one way to make sure that Jesus did not monopolise the whole conversation, and the make the evening acceptably interesting, would be to invite Richard Dawkins, too. Perfect. Okay, let's start again. Jesus. Richard Dawkins. Lalla Ward. Tom Baker. (You see, I've added another interesting dynamic right there.) Helen Keller. Anne Sullivan. Now, you see, Anne Sullivan was the person who taught Helen Keller language, and became her close companion in life, mediating between Helen and others by tapping out words on her hand. It would be selfish and perhaps (not sure) useless of me to invite Helen without Anne. Besides which, Anne's story seems overshadowed by that of Helen's, and I'm sure that Anne, who brought Helen into the light of language and thought, would also prove to be fascinating. So, now we have six guests. I think I'll cut down a bit on the writers. Let's have Nagai Kafu and H.P. Lovecraft. Then Magibon. Only three more left. This is difficult. M.C. Escher. You weren't expecting that, were you? I don't actually know a lot about Escher, but I love his work, so it might be interesting to find out more about him. Then… Bettie Page. There's only one more left. This is very difficult. I think it has to be… Derek Griffiths.

Okay, so, for now, this is my ultimate dinner party guest-list:

Jesus Christ, Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward, Tom Baker, Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan, Nagai Kafu, H.P. Lovecraft, Magibon, M.C. Escher, Bettie Page and Derek Griffiths.

What do you think? Not an Oscar Wilde or a Stephen Fry in sight.

Please feel free to tell me how wrong I am and suggest your own lists.

(Damn! I've just realised I've left off Ulrich Haarburste.)