Even if you took Martha Stewart, Julia Child, Two Fat Ladies, Regine, Suzanne Bartsch, Nigella Lawson, Diane Brill, Carmen D’Allessio, Pat Buckley, Amy Sacco, and Phyllis Diller and threw them all into a giant blender, you would still fall short of producing anyone as compelling and scrumptious as the late, uber-hostess Elsa Maxwell.
~Simon Doonan
My father is a dying breed, the last of the old time socialites. He can turn a dull event into a jovial affair through sharp wit and an inventive guest list. You will never find a more eclectic social roster than the ones he dreams up. At dad’s dinner parties, never am I surprised to find myself seated with the unknown locksmith to the left, and yes, on the same occasion, the city’s mayor to the right. Invariably, by the end of the night, all barriers will be down and new friends made.
Dad insists that he learned how to socialize from his mother, a grande dame of D.C. society in the years leading up to and after WWII. He often recounts fond memories of grandma doing her early morning “marketing” (which in her day consisted of telling the cook and the driver what she needed) before that evening’s soiree.
On a visit home to Gloucester, MA last March dad bestowed a copy of Elsa Maxwell’s (1883-1963) book How to Do It or the Lively Art of Entertaining. Maxwell and my father have a lot in common: both love a good laugh, spirited conversation, and wearing men’s trousers. The actual Ms. Maxwell, it seems, was nothing like the eminent society hostess I envisioned. She was quite a bit piggish, enjoyed costuming up as great historical male figures, and lacked the pedigree of many refined socialites. She was a self-made woman, hailing from none other than Keokuk, Iowa.
A renewed interest in Ms. Maxwell’s particular brand of entertainment will do culture a favor. As a newly married woman socializing in various contexts from Chelsea art galleries to Lower East Side scenester bars, I find that we have grown socially lazy. The “lively art of entertaining” in 2009 is, I must say, rather boring.
In the chapter “The Perfect Guest – and Others,” Maxwell expressed the issue:
Stock in trade of the agreeable personality – that is, the good guest – is his ability as a conversationalist, an art that is, I fear, slated for oblivion in this country unless something is done to revive in us the habit of original thinking, a taste for the cultivation of fresh ideas, as opposed to our current mania for blank-eyed hearing and viewing and the cultivation in consequence of no taste whatever. Radios and television screens that are never dark are making us mentally crusty.
Thank heavens she didn’t live to see the Crackberry. . .
It’s time to practice conversing, to craft meaningful moments that cultivate the integrity of our individual selves and enrich our culture.
So, put on a party infusing Maxwell’s Maxims into the mix!
Maxwell’s Big Six Alluring Personalities
- Beauty
- Glamour
- Intelligence
- Charm
- Wit
- Gaiety
Have you tried this formula for entertaining? Mixed up the guest list and were surprised by the results?
