Sally Quinn, the Treasury Secretary, and Tom Hanks

Posted on January 14, 2010 | 5 Comments

I have tried not to write this post.  I really have.  I know it is going to expose the dark, mean-spirited corners of my personality, show my worst side and be based in part on envy.  But I can’t help myself.  This week’s column by Sally Quinn in the “Washington Post” put me over the edge.

I remember Sally Quinn when she wrote for the Style section of the Post, back in the late ’60s, early 70’s. She wrote great stuff, most of it designed to deflate the egos of the pompous, and skewer pretension wherever she found it.  She was fabulous at her craft, and her writing was the talk of the town. Her columns were irresistable mood lifters, the kind of thing that starts your day out on the right foot, knowing that someone is already having a worse day than you could possibly have.

Then Sally married Ben Bradlee, (formerly editor of the Post, for anyone who is reading this from Mars), moved into a humongous house in Georgetown, and slowly but surely over the years, became a grand dame, and then a Grande Dame. She writes a religion column for the Post, that I have to admit I have never read. And recently, she has been gracing us with articles about social niceties, helping the uninformed masses know how to behave when we give dinners parties or, mirabile dictu, get invited to one.

This week’s column started with Quinn referring reverentially to “one of the fabled Georgetown hostesses, Oatsie Charles.” The article described a party at Charles’ house, where Quinn’s dinner partners were ignoring her and talking about business, “as if I didn’t exist.” But our gal Sal got her revenge when one of these boors (described as an “out-of-towner,” the ultimate insult) rushed up to her and gushed “I just learned that you are Sally Quinn.  I would love to talk to you.”  Quinn, always ready with a quip, said, “It’s too late, Buster.”  Zing.  Must have levelled the guy.

The point of this anecdote was not, I repeat, not that people want to talk to Sally Quinn once they come to their senses. It apparently was to remind us that a) when we are seating people at a dinner party that we are giving, either seat them next to someone they know and/or mix it up and put them next to someone they don’t know and b) as a hostess, if someone is really stuck in a problem conversation, draw them out. Above all, talking “business” is a no-no. Check. Got it.

She cites the example of a secretary of the Treasury who was at her dinner table and allowed as how he didn’t know who Tom Hanks was.  What?? Never seen “Big?” “Sleepless in Seattle?”  Come on, you couldn’t have missed “Turner and Hooch” or “Joe and the Volcano”.  How on earth did this doofus get to be a Cabinet member? The other folks at the table “started hooting at him for being so out of it”, so Sal moved in to rescue the outcast, and asked him what impact the movie business has on our economy.  OMG! The cleverness of it all!! What a gracious segue to help our lost soul get back on familiar ground. I will remember this next time a clueless and ostracized member of the Cabinet is at my table.

Well into the article, Sally delivers her insider tip, based apparently on years and years of giving glamoroso dinner parties: “. . . it is just plain rude to carry on a conversation in front of someone who you know will feel left out.”  Get out! I never thought of that!  I wonder if people in Annandale, Dale City or Gaithersburg know about all this.  Let’s hope they subscribe to the Post.

Seriously folks, newspapers are in trouble, and the Post is no exception.  Why do they print stuff like this?? Oh, that’s right.  Never mind.