Lawgivers are thick on the ground at the party. I see Thomas Jefferson talking with Jerry Brown, as Clarence Darrow listens in. Aristotle is pacing back and forth nearby, in conversation about the rule of law with Thurgood Marshall, Amal Clooney, Robert Mueller, and John Lewis.
Edmund Burke is grasping his head in his hands as he listens to two Williams: Buckley and Kristol. Although they have been asked to keep it down, the Greek Chorus is back, now intoning about the error of arrogance and attempts to disavow the past, and the sure retribution of the gods. This time it is Mao Tse-tung who stomps out, beckoning to Chou En-lai, who however does not budge from his conversation with Sun Yat-sen and George Kennan.
Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking are poking their fingers in each other’s chest in some dispute. Sir Isaac is carrying some papers of his that he won’t let anyone see. Stan Lee is here, as are Charles Darwin, Jonas Salk, Ralph Bunche, Ellen DeGeneres, Jack Ma, and Mark Zuckerberg, sharing a laugh. Also a VC whose name I did not catch in all the hubbub (an early investor in Uber and Spotify, natch).
All Johns Hopkins trustees for the past century and a half are gathered around an antique-looking man in a starched collar. I veer closer for a look and discover that the object of their attention is none other than Johns Hopkins himself. Despite the general din, I can hear him saying how proud he is that his bequests to the school have mushroomed into such a wonderful university, with its world-class medical school, famous hospital, and the preeminent Wilmer Eye Institute. And then he adds, “I’m also so thankful to all of you for your stewardship.” More than a few eyes seem to be moistening up as I turn away.
Nearby—this must be the Mediterranean Wing—whom should I spot but Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin, and Anwar Sadat. Mazel tov to them all for the 1978 Camp David Accords. John Lennon must agree because somewhere far across the room he has begun to sing, a cappella, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” Unless I’m mistaken, Johns Hopkins—Quaker that he was—is humming along with fellow abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
I excuse myself to greet Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson—fellow members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and far more deserving of the honor than I. I could stand here all night long, absorbing knowledge out of the air around me, the way I did at Columbia. But the band is back from its break, and my Moroccan friends Ahmed and his mother, Ilham, want to show me how well Ahmed has done since the brain operation that American medical genius had provided them.
Now I see Jay-Z; Melinda Gates; Avicii; Mr. Clean; Mindy Kaling; Bill Hewlett; Dave Grohl; Henry Ford; Kate Spade; General Ulysses Grant; Leonardo da Vinci; Robin Williams; H. R. Haldeman, standing by himself, nervously searching the crowd, probably to avoid running into Judge Sirica (John Ehrlichman flatly refused to attend); Stephen Colbert (making silly jokes to try to make Grohl and Eddie Murphy laugh).
Homer is here. He, John Milton, Maya Angelou, and Jorge Luis Borges are discussing whether music preceded poetry or evolved from it, while Henry Thoreau is trying to sell them pencils. (We sent invitations to any and all of the ancient Greek Homers, on the advice of some scholarly authorities, but only the one responded and came, so it may be that the theories that there were two Homers, or no actual Homer at all, are off base.)
Another bard, this one of Avon, has just wandered gloomily by, muttering something about life being a tale “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying …,” but I miss the last word when Søren Kierkegaard shouts in my ear (in Danish no less), “Faith sees best in dark!” I know, believe me, but tonight I’m seeing everything!
Others I have run into so far, some of whom I knew already, most of whom I did not, are Alexander Fleming, José Orozco, Friedrich Nietzsche (who came with Arthur Schopenhauer, but they have begun quarreling), John Keats, a guillotine, Bill Gates, Chuck Yeager, Grandmother Pauline’s Singer sewing machine, Prince Peter Kropotkin, Frank Sinatra (Sue insisted that his invitation go out in the first batch), and Chuang-tzu. The Ramak—Moses Cordovero of Galilee—Yosef Caro, and the Ari, Isaac ben Solomon Luria, are debating about some complicated old book. Moses Maimonides cocks his head as he listens. Why, it’s just like old times.
Harvard’s Samuel P. Huntington and Columbia’s William T. R. Fox have come up to me, still trying to convince me to go into a career in academe—as they had around the time I was a graduate student in Cambridge. Oprah is here, devising plans for arts centers in every town in America; Andrew Carnegie is feeding her tips on how he did it for libraries, while J. K. Rowling is asking Toni Morrison if she knows a good editor.
Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, and Robert Downey Jr. wander by in a kind of moving rugby scrum. I hear either “prequel” or “sequel” as they shuffle by, but I am too transfixed by Paul Klee’s Vocal Fabric of the Singer Rosa Silber to inquire further. Now, my siblings—Joel, Ruth, and Brenda—are approaching with the four sons from the Passover seder. They are explaining the basis for trust to the simple, wicked, and immature sons (the wise son already knows).
Rembrandt van Rijn says he will teach
