Guess who's coming for dinner
Quote of the Day: The Lord has handed down to us ten commandments by which to live. I will now read them in no particular order. [Moses from The Simpsons naturally]
So it comes to this. Couldn't think of a topic for this post, so I decided to steal something from astronomi, which in turn stole it from someone else, who I'm sure stole it from someone else and so on.
The question was - if you could invite any 5 people to dinner - who would they be?
In order to make life easy, let's set some ground rules - people can be dead or alive, but they had to exist, i.e. it can't be a fictional character. All those people will speak either Hebrew or English, and I don't care where they originated from. Not all 5 of them have to come to the same dinner, it can be 5 separate dinners. All guests must talk about whatever subject I want - they can't avoid certain subjects, lie or say "no comment".
Let's start with the easy ones:
Matt Groening
Creator of The Simpsons and Futurama. Need I say more? I imagine that would be a short dinner though... I don't know how much I can actually ask the guy... Should be fairly interesting nontheless... This guy had quite an impact on me.
Peter Jackson
Director of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Managed to bring the book alive with never before seen special effects and brilliant usage of the medium. I imagine, that unlike the dinner with Matt Groening, this one can be a fairly long one. I have so much I want to hear about the actual process of producing and directing such a gigantic project. I like the very idea of taking a project that seems maybe a tad too big for anyone and see it through. If Peter Jackson is not available I would settle for Kevin Smith, Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi, Bryan Singer or any other Class-A director.
Bill Gates
I guess he's the man everybody likes to hate. Not mine. I'm an individual. Not much of a challange hating someone everybody else hate. He's certainly someone to look up to. While some wish they could make a dent in the world, that they would be remembered somehow, this guy is responsible for how our PCs look today. It takes vision, dedication and lots and lots of brains.
Avner Alter
My class mate. Perished in the helicopter crash above Sha'ar Yeshuv on Feb 4th, 1997. I was not experienced with deaths of people I know. Even though my grandmother passed away a few years earlier, his death struck me the hardest. We were not close friends, but we grew together. I have pictures with him since the age of 1. The manner in which he died left a lot of questions unanswered, a lot of potential unfulfilled. Every memorial day, his mother gives the most touching eulogy, and the sadness just grows exponentially. If I could summon him for one last dinner, I would probably do so and invite his parents and family, and leave the room. Try to make their lives a little easier.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Reviver of the Hebrew language. Again, you can see how I appreciate men who take upon themselves a big, nay, huge project and see it through. Students should learn about him, and I'm not talking about 4th grade style, but for real. This guy had an enormous impact on all our lives (at least those of us who speak Hebrew). His story is fascinating, and dinner with him, I bet, would just fly.
You'll have to excuse me for my last pick
Adolf Hitler
Mainly for one question - WHY? I never fell for the "he was crazy" stories. Did he plan it all along, or did he just took advantage a situation that came in his way? What is the source of this unspeakable hatred? The mind cannot comprehend such brutal and inhumane deeds. This ugly little SOB is responsible for more than 60 million dead. Sixty fucking million people. Jews and German. American, French and British. Polish, Russians, Italian and Spanish. Six million jews were brutally exterminated, shot, burnt, starved, gassed. All the doing and planning of one individual. For this dinner I would come with a pair of handcuffs, a handful of matches and a 5kg hammer.
I have some odd choices, I know. When I first started thinking about it, the first names that came to mind were movie stars or other celebrities - people who are some kind of a role model for me. 3 people on that list are exactly that. The other 3 are not. The other 3 are very, very different. As I already wrote, Avner was chosen because his loss is still making a huge impact on my life, even though we weren't the closest friends. Eliezer Ben Yehuda was chosen because I wanted to meet a dreamer whose dream came true.
But the last one... I thought long and hard if I should enter his name along with the other names on my list. I finally realized that the "chosen ones" don't have to be heroes of mine, or even positive people. Just people who made an impact in their lifetime. From this point on, the choice was easier. I never understood or experienced actual anti-semitism. I can't begin to understand the motives, the atmosphere or anything that would bring civilized people to act the way they have. Someone has the unabridged answers. Someone can give me the other point of view. Someone should be made to answer for the bloody consequences. If I had the power to resurrect the dead I would bring him back in an instant and kill him over and over again. Make him pay.
...And yes, I know I picked six. Stop bothering me with details.
[Edit: 18:22]
Uri suggested William Shakespeare. Excellent choice. Guess that'll be 7 for dinner.
So it comes to this. Couldn't think of a topic for this post, so I decided to steal something from astronomi, which in turn stole it from someone else, who I'm sure stole it from someone else and so on.
The question was - if you could invite any 5 people to dinner - who would they be?
In order to make life easy, let's set some ground rules - people can be dead or alive, but they had to exist, i.e. it can't be a fictional character. All those people will speak either Hebrew or English, and I don't care where they originated from. Not all 5 of them have to come to the same dinner, it can be 5 separate dinners. All guests must talk about whatever subject I want - they can't avoid certain subjects, lie or say "no comment".
Let's start with the easy ones:
Matt Groening
Creator of The Simpsons and Futurama. Need I say more? I imagine that would be a short dinner though... I don't know how much I can actually ask the guy... Should be fairly interesting nontheless... This guy had quite an impact on me.
Peter Jackson
Director of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Managed to bring the book alive with never before seen special effects and brilliant usage of the medium. I imagine, that unlike the dinner with Matt Groening, this one can be a fairly long one. I have so much I want to hear about the actual process of producing and directing such a gigantic project. I like the very idea of taking a project that seems maybe a tad too big for anyone and see it through. If Peter Jackson is not available I would settle for Kevin Smith, Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi, Bryan Singer or any other Class-A director.
Bill Gates
I guess he's the man everybody likes to hate. Not mine. I'm an individual. Not much of a challange hating someone everybody else hate. He's certainly someone to look up to. While some wish they could make a dent in the world, that they would be remembered somehow, this guy is responsible for how our PCs look today. It takes vision, dedication and lots and lots of brains.
Avner Alter
My class mate. Perished in the helicopter crash above Sha'ar Yeshuv on Feb 4th, 1997. I was not experienced with deaths of people I know. Even though my grandmother passed away a few years earlier, his death struck me the hardest. We were not close friends, but we grew together. I have pictures with him since the age of 1. The manner in which he died left a lot of questions unanswered, a lot of potential unfulfilled. Every memorial day, his mother gives the most touching eulogy, and the sadness just grows exponentially. If I could summon him for one last dinner, I would probably do so and invite his parents and family, and leave the room. Try to make their lives a little easier.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Reviver of the Hebrew language. Again, you can see how I appreciate men who take upon themselves a big, nay, huge project and see it through. Students should learn about him, and I'm not talking about 4th grade style, but for real. This guy had an enormous impact on all our lives (at least those of us who speak Hebrew). His story is fascinating, and dinner with him, I bet, would just fly.
You'll have to excuse me for my last pick
Adolf Hitler
Mainly for one question - WHY? I never fell for the "he was crazy" stories. Did he plan it all along, or did he just took advantage a situation that came in his way? What is the source of this unspeakable hatred? The mind cannot comprehend such brutal and inhumane deeds. This ugly little SOB is responsible for more than 60 million dead. Sixty fucking million people. Jews and German. American, French and British. Polish, Russians, Italian and Spanish. Six million jews were brutally exterminated, shot, burnt, starved, gassed. All the doing and planning of one individual. For this dinner I would come with a pair of handcuffs, a handful of matches and a 5kg hammer.
I have some odd choices, I know. When I first started thinking about it, the first names that came to mind were movie stars or other celebrities - people who are some kind of a role model for me. 3 people on that list are exactly that. The other 3 are not. The other 3 are very, very different. As I already wrote, Avner was chosen because his loss is still making a huge impact on my life, even though we weren't the closest friends. Eliezer Ben Yehuda was chosen because I wanted to meet a dreamer whose dream came true.
But the last one... I thought long and hard if I should enter his name along with the other names on my list. I finally realized that the "chosen ones" don't have to be heroes of mine, or even positive people. Just people who made an impact in their lifetime. From this point on, the choice was easier. I never understood or experienced actual anti-semitism. I can't begin to understand the motives, the atmosphere or anything that would bring civilized people to act the way they have. Someone has the unabridged answers. Someone can give me the other point of view. Someone should be made to answer for the bloody consequences. If I had the power to resurrect the dead I would bring him back in an instant and kill him over and over again. Make him pay.
...And yes, I know I picked six. Stop bothering me with details.
[Edit: 18:22]
Uri suggested William Shakespeare. Excellent choice. Guess that'll be 7 for dinner.