wholly fanciful list, ignoring how much less fun many of these would have been for a woman, and the other myriad horrors of oppression throughout history, and instead imagining i could be right there in the heat of it.

• the lost generation and their cafe hangouts and salons on the left bank of paris. more than anything in the world, i wish i could have experienced this.
• the beat generation
• any of the premier runs of any of shakespeare's plays at the globe.
• watching josephine baker perform in la creole. or at all.
• working for mi6 during the cold war.
• if there was really a king arthur, then camelot.
• with the rolling stones in morocco.
• paris may '68.
• the premiere of waiting for godot at the royal court in london.
• oscar wilde's dinner parties. in or around oscar's life at all, really.
• with the beatles in hamburg. or maybe on their first trip stateside.
• in the chelsea hotel in several moments throughout its history, but mostly when thomas or cohen would've been there.
• new york in the '70s
• london in the '50s, '60s, '70s.
• prague, the premiere of don giovanni.
• at a grand guignol during their height.
• watching ella fitzgerald perform with marilyn monroe at the mocambo.
• at the villa diodati with the young romantics when mary started frankenstein.
• any opportunity to speak even the smallest of kindnesses to vincent van gogh.