A very confused Bob Hope

January 1, 2012 5:47 PM

A Salvador Dali dinner party featuring unicorn heads
posted by boygeorge (19 comments total)

I think "Featuring a bemused Bob Hope and live frogs" is more of a selling point.
posted by Decani at 5:51 PM on January 1, 2012 [7 favorites]

"bemused, irritated, and disgusted Bob Hope," perhaps....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:57 PM on January 1, 2012

George Orwell's essay, Some Notes on Salvador Dali is relevant.
posted by Blasdelb at 5:57 PM on January 1, 2012 [4 favorites]

"bemused, irritated, and disgusted

I'll sing to him,
each spring to him...
posted by villanelles at dawn at 6:13 PM on January 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

I get the feeling that Lady Gaga would have looked perfectly normal at one of these soirées.
posted by sbutler at 6:24 PM on January 1, 2012

I like the way he screws up the scriptwriter's joke. "The theme is SURrealism, but them frogs is REAL", when the deliver was plainly intended to be to be "but them frogs IS real".

I like old-time balls ups. Like ancient graffiti, they make you feel in touch with a real person in a real past.
posted by howfar at 6:25 PM on January 1, 2012

(I have included the balls ups in the above comment for the benefit of Metafilter readers in the year 2083)
posted by howfar at 6:27 PM on January 1, 2012

Oh, wow! That was shot at a building a mile away from where I'm sitting right now. The Del Monte Hotel was one of America's first luxury resorts and was the forerunner to today's Pebble Beach Company. The golf course built as part of the resort, Del Monte Golf Course, still exists and is the oldest continually operating golf course west of the Mississippi. Visitors in the early days could take day trips to a little hunting lodge, owned by Del Monte, called Pebble Beach.

The Del Monte Hotel and grounds were given to the Department of Defense for military training in 1942. The building and a large portion of the grounds are now the Naval Postgraduate School. I took a tour of the building and I've been in the room where this was shot. (I believe it's this room here: http://www.nps.edu/Services/MWR/Services/DiningServices/LaNovia.html)

The Del Monte Hotel has a fascinating history and was a getaway for the rich and famous from the 1880s through the 1930s. I love seeing stuff like this turn up.
posted by rednikki at 6:56 PM on January 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

I get the feeling that Lady Gaga would have looked perfectly normal at one of these soirées.
posted by sbutler at 2:24 AM on January 2

I get the feeling that Lady Gaga would have been shown up for the sad giftless phoney she is at one of these soirées.
posted by Decani at 7:25 PM on January 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

On first glance I saw “Bob Hope” and thought “marijuana” because I’m currently on my fourth read-through of Infinite Jest.

Then I stayed for the live frogs and what appeared to be lion cubs. I love surrealism.
posted by spitefulcrow at 7:50 PM on January 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

If you haven't seen Midnight in Paris yet, Adrian Brody has a memorable scene as Dali.
posted by cazoo at 7:54 PM on January 1, 2012

It kind of reminds me of the awesome Surrealist Soiree that do ever year in the Baton Rogue Center for Contempory Arts. It was pretty cheap. $10 bucks for all you could drink and music performances.
posted by roguewraith at 8:24 PM on January 1, 2012

Every time a Dali post gets made I want to take it as an opportunity to say that he is my favorite and that my Gala Dali approves of this dinner and would have had a wonderful time with a dish of frogs.
posted by JackarypQQ at 9:11 PM on January 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Brody as Dali is relevant
posted by victors at 9:51 PM on January 1, 2012

Sorry, as much as I hate the popiness of Breton, I would have to side with Andy on Dali's expulsion from the Surrealist movement. His first decade of painting I like, pretty much, but his final fifty years of narcissistic religious fascist paintings and weirdo posturings are pretty much repulsive and contrary to the liberationist spirit which Max Ernst, Duchamp (the outlier in the group), Man Ray, Tanguy, Arp, Eluard, and others worked. Others, like Francis Bacon and Tex Avery, (and the invaluable Penelope and Franklin Rosemont of Chicago) have furthered the genuine revolutionary spirit of the movement. The pseudo-Surrealists of the Juxtapos generation have their own authenticity, too, I think.
posted by kozad at 10:02 PM on January 1, 2012

Also featuring unicorn heads.
posted by Apropos of Something at 10:48 PM on January 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

The last time I ate at a Surrealist restaurant I was disappointed. The clock wasn't melted enough, the eyeball was sliced too thin, and twelve midgets wearing leotards threw kumquats at a lepidopterist.
posted by twoleftfeet at 12:18 AM on January 2, 2012 [4 favorites]

That was worth it just to see what Jackie Coogan looked like between being in The Kid and being Uncle Fester. Seriously, I think that's the only time I've seen a photo of him taken between 1921 and 1964.
posted by lordrunningclam at 6:08 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

I get the feeling that Lady Gaga would have looked perfectly normal at one of these soirées

From what I gather from George Orwell's on Dali, Dali would have stomped on that bitch for stealing attention from him, kick her in the head and claim it's art.
posted by elpapacito at 12:56 AM on January 3, 2012