ONE UNFORGETTABLE DINNER

The standard had been set in many judgments, etched in many stones: Your friends are who you are. The statement is sweeping, vulnerable and inaccurate. It calls for other, more specified yardsticks, ranging in this wise: Tell me what you read and I will find your place in the political spectrum, or, Your music is your attitude.

I make my own measure. You are what you dream. All of life is not our own choosing and many times we are forced to make do with what's around, whichever is available. But in our dreams, we build up ourselves, we build up our ideals, we make our call, we make what's available. What comes out of us is the real us because that is what we dream us to be.

Let's continue with this dream to create the dream measure. We will host our respective dinners with seven people in our guest lists. As specified yardstick, We are who we invite for dinner. So here's my dreamlist and I will dream on:

1.) William Shakespeare - the saviour of language, the curator of letters. Harold Bloom states the extreme, WS is the inventor of the human, and so he tops this list. I will put him at the head of the table and, since dinner is the avenue for interaction, I will ask for him him to break the ice, on whatever issue: Hamlet or King Lear? Tragedy or comedy? Are thee for Tolstoy, sayeth naught? He can do a Polonius to Laertes, to our hearts delight, as we wait for our soup: Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice, Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment;

2.) Fernando Pessoa - Forming one half of the soul of my literature, he is to me what Shakespeare is to Bloom. This Portuguese poet of the heteronymous world will bring the needed melancholia to this meal, probably saying to my stunned self, My acceptance to your invitation is my cowardice, and thereafter engage William Shakespeare to the great debate of the Faith;

3.) Mark Twain - He will be there to remind us, us seven as well as you outside of the seven, that we are all by his vision, Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns of this world;

4.) Apolinario Mabini - My favorite Filipino, he will be there to remind them great people that greatness does not lie in the strength of one's knees, or the absence of wheels in one's chair. I will wait for him to ask, on everyone's bated breath, the question of the night, Hey guys, have you ever planned a revolution?;

5.) Jose Saramago - The other half of my literature's soul, forming a 1-2 Portuguese punch with my Master Fernando. Senhor Jose, the greatest living writer in my mind, will have to come to eat my food and autograph my books;

6.) Molly Giles - She will be there not to establish the balance between the dead and the living nor to represent the female gender, such insult. She will be there because she deserves it, and to show us men that with the sensibility of paper and sensitivity of the pen, she too can be a masculine and the rest of us can be feminine;

7.) Bono - For some music, for some poetry, for some politics, for some vision. I will ask, Excuse me sirs and madam, this is a little difficult, but what is your favorite U2 song? And then I'll suggest, Will you please, Mr. Bono, while we're served with coffee and parfait, do my favorite U2 song...

"Sweet the sin
Bitter taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice..."

And then we'll retire to the receiving room, to talk, to have fun, to bid our goodbyes.

I can keep a secret. Who are on your guestlist?