Midnight in Paris

So, I just got around to seeing Midnight in Paris the other day. For those of you who don't know, it's a romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen and starring Owen Wilson. In it, Wilson stars as a screenwriter vacationing in Paris who gets transported to the 1920s each night to party with his artistic heroes. He rubs shoulders with Earnest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso and tons of other notables. And the premise got me to thinking. If an antique car pulled up to transport me to my literary heroes, where would I go and who would be there?
Of course, on first thinking it, I run into a myriad of problems. The people I adore most occupy different times and places, how could I possibly choose between one and the other? But then I realize, there’s but one place for me, truly: Old Harlem.
Imagine it for a moment. Poetry nights with Langston Hughes on the mic, discussing folklore with Zora Neale Hurston, picking the brain of W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, or A. Phillip Randolph. Imagine crowding in to the Cotton Club, Apollo Theatre, or some other hot spot for legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong or Josephine Baker. And in the face of all that, it seems to me, that the Harlem Renaissance is where I’d want to be.
How about you?