Danielle at There’s a Book has started up this fun Saturday Me(me) and, although I wanted to prune back a bit on the meme’s I’ve been doing, I really think this Saturday one is a great one to get to know us, as bloggers.
So the question this week is:
Name five people alive or dead that you’d love to have lunch with.
1. Jules Verne. If time-travel was real, then there is no doubt in my mind that Jules Verne is a man who experienced it. I’m sure you’ve heard of some of his more famous works (you’d have to be living in a rock to not have), but the most recent one that captured my interest and completely fascinated me was a little novel by the name of Paris in the Twentieth Century. I want to sit down with this author and ask him how in the world he was able to envision what he did and then I want to take him to the very city he wrote about and show him how very close his visions came. And then… I want to ask him questions, questions about Nemo, the captain in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, questions about his research on marine life, his research on survival living. And then.. I want to just be silent and listen to him talk. Can you imagine the wealth of information he would have had? So incredibly fascinating.
So yes, Jules Verne would be my very first choice. Does that makes me a geek?
2. Edvard Grieg. Like Danielle, I’m also a classically trained musician! I do not play the flute, however.. but I play the piano. My folks started me in on lessons when I was four years old and not a year has gone by without me tinkling the keys. As a child I was fairly sheltered and one of my favorite past-times was to listen to the radio and my dad’s collection of records (no, that would not be CD’s you young’uns). I had a list of my favorite composers, but easily atop that list was Edvard Grieg.
My love affair with this man continues to this day. His music makes me weak in the knees and nostalgic for days long past. To this day, I plan on making a journey to Norway and visiting the places he lived, and the place he now rests in his death.
3. Lucy Maud Montgomery. When I was a girl, my Aunt gave me a special book for Christmas one year. That book was Anne of Green Gables. I still own that copy I receive and pull it out every now and then to re-read some of my favorite passages. Anne had so much imagination, so much hope.. and this, my friends, was a teenager capable of the most wholesome, most dramatic.. drama capable. None of this love triangle stuff for Anne – she didn’t need a boy around for her imagination and passions to be explored.
I was sad to learn some time ago that L.M. Montgomery died by suicide – as it doesn’t seem like a death befitting the author of one of the most beloved female characters. But, this is a woman I’d still want to sit down and talk to… if only to ask her if she, like Anne, ever had a kindred spirit.
4. J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course, I can’t go much further into this list without mentoring the inspiration for my blog name and the name of another author I grew up loving. My dad introduced me to Tolkien through first, The Hobbit, and then through his Lord of the Rings series. Folks, I was even reading The Silmarillion at ten years old (and I actually made it all the way through), so deep was, and is, my fascination with this man.
I read somewhere, once, that Tolkien didn’t know who Strider was until it was revealed in the story .. and that fascinated me. How could the writer of the story not even know .. and find himself swept along the same path as you and I? I read a letter once that Tolkien wrote to a woman and in that letter he was sweet, charming and interesting. I’d like to sit down with him and encourage him to tell his tales, to talk about the origins of names .. or even sit in silence as he smoked his pipe and just know that I was sitting in the presence of a great writer.
If you haven’t read these books by Tolkien, and I know I’ve been told that some of you feel intimidated by them, don’t be. Check them out – the journey is a fantastic one.
5. Wil Wheaton. Here is where my geek side comes out. I’m a gamer, a comic book lover and a convention goer. I stumbled across Wil Wheaton’ s website several years ago and have been following him ever since (and sincerely hope that someday he will come to Dragon*Con! Are you out there Wil? Please come!)
Wil was first introduced to me through my family’s love of Star Trek: The Next Generation where he played the boy I had a huge crush on, Wesley Crusher (heehee). Today he’s an author, a blogger and continues to act on some of my most favorite shows; The Guild and The Big Bang Theory (guest appearances). He does a bunch of other work as well, but yeah.. those are my favorite.
So yes, Geek Lydia would love to sit down for lunch with Wil Wheaton. I have absolutely no idea what I would talk about as I would probably be too star-struck to say anything, but I would like to think that, at some point during the lunch, we’d be able to table-top game for a bit. Is that too much for a girl to wish for? =)
So what about you folks? Who are the top five people you’d like to sit down with?
