Please do not be as dismissive of Oxford as Rick. The place has nurtured so much.

Besides, I have lined up a Great from there as one of next month's guests.

I am going to bed.

President Hu Jintao – also his nation’s Paramount leader, General Secretary of the Communist Party, and Chair of the Central Military Commission -- certainly is one of the world’s most important politicians, listened to and heeded wherever he goes. Hu, moreover, is a learned man, admired for promulgating a Confucian moral code about what self-controlled citizens in an “Harmonious Society” should regard as an honor and as a shame. Nonetheless, up to now he has not spoken, one way or another, in public at home or abroad, about (let’s be blunt about this) female orgasms (there! I wrote it -- and online at that.

Lucian Freud, Rick, and I turn to Hu as he coughs, leans forward, and puts this question to Elisabeth Lloyd: “How to say this delicately? The female orgasm -- whenever and however it occurs -- it is necessary for fertility? That’s its purpose, is that correct?”

Again, not necessarily. Elisabeth is careful to caution, “My view isn’t necessarily the right explanation. It’s just that at this time, it’s the best explanation that’s supported by evidence.”

What the evidence to date does suggest is that “female orgasm is NOT correlated with any aspect of fertility, pregnancy, or reproductive success, according to the evidence we have.” Contrary then to what purpose-seeking evolutionists have declaimed, the clitoris and female organism have not necessarily been “improved” or “adapted” by natural selection over time for better performance in fertilization.

Elisabeth has a caveat: “Of course sexual pleasure and stimulation is adaptive. The clitoris itself is adaptive in its promotion of intercourse and in its stimulating sexual excitement and lubrication and all of that. It’s clearly adaptive. But there is simply no evidence that the physical reflex of orgasm itself is adaptive. That’s a very important distinction. If that were the case, orgasm would correlate with an increase in the number of children. The women who are orgasmic would have had to have contributed more genes to the future.”

At present then, Elisabeth sees the sexual excitement of a female orgasm as just a happy accident.

Brightening, Hu says that if the male is sufficiently caring of his female partner, inciting her orgasm via her clitoris, assuredly he has proven himself worthy. In effect, Hu continues, that lover is the traditional Mr. Right: he has demonstrated that he will be caring and responsible, first as a mate and later as a father. “That inciting enables us to conclude that the orgasm, assisted or not, does serve a reasonable purpose, namely pair bonding. Elisabeth, that’s correct, isn’t it?”

Again, Elisabeth: “It seems intuitive that a female orgasm would motivate females to engage in intercourse which would naturally lead to more pregnancies or help with bonding or something like that, but the evidence simply doesn’t back that up.”...

Elisabeth Lloyd is forthright in replying to Lucian Freud about Sigmund (and in speaking to Hu Jintao and me): “Because of his conviction that female orgasm must be an evolutionary adaptation to promote reproduction, Freud insisted that women ought to have orgasms through vaginal intercourse, and labeled women who required clitoral stimulation for organism ‘frigid,’ ‘neurotic,’ and ‘dysfunctional.’ These sorts of labels have made millions of women miserable for decades, yet there is no evidence to support these theories. In the 1960s and ‘70s, (sex researchers) Masters and Johnson challenged Freud’s ideas, marshaling biological evidence indicating the women have only one type of orgasm -- clitoral -- and that [your grandfather] Freud’s oppressive standard of vaginal orgasm was a myth.”

I lose my train of thought for a while.

Lu Freud is not surprised at the inutility of male nipples, although he does acknowledge that he impulsively painted -- for shock affect (I suspect) in his depiction of “Large Interior, Notting Hill” -- a baby suckling on a naked man’s breasts. This subject, he explains with a tug at his knotted scarf, was a fairly recent inspiration.

Did Elisabeth Lloyd know of that painting when she made her point about nipple uselessness?

I venture out on a limb and suggest that male nipples can indeed both be sensually stimulated and stimulating. Firm. Whereupon Elisabeth and Hu Jintao look away from me over to Rick. They seem to almost imagine that vulpine, brooding, fit look of his -- from 4 decades ago...

Boy oh boy, do we learn a great deal about bowling. More individuals may be bowling alone now, and numbers of amateur bowlers may be declining, but pro-bowling currently has more people watching than the National Hockey League. (Rick inserts that hockey also has changed incredibly in the last 30 years.) “I love bowling. I wanted to save bowling…The only way to do that was to make it profitable,” says Chris.

Whereupon I set forth a little background from Ned next door: once he told me that ever since the disgraced Richard Nixon installed a bowling alley in the White House, the game had become déclassé. I mention Ned’s complaint that renaming alleys “lanes” and gutters “channels” did not cut it as upgrading. Chris agrees, and also ventures an opinion on President Nixon.

Danica Patrick doesn't want to talk politics. Government, she says, was the only course in high school she almost didn't pass. So she asks Chris Peters about other changes that he has introduced to pro-bowling leagues. She seems to have a sharp mind for business and finance.

Chris tells us about giving stock options to employees and players (a motivator he had learned at Microsoft), about raising prize money and hiring rock bands to pump up audiences, about re-interesting the ABC Network in televising finals, and generally about trying to heighten the league’s pizzazz. Audiences are on top of the action, thanks to new down-the-lane seats. Chris enthuses that nowadays players can express more of their personalities, shaking their fists in the air and even trash-talking their opponents. To increase head-to-head competition and create rivalries, the new PBA capped the number of players, added a trick-shot segment, and opened matches to women.

James Dean says that maybe his off-job passion should have been for bowling balls, not for racing cars. “Oh well, History’s History,” he reflects, “and nothing I can do about that now.” James's “now” is urgent, as if to prompt us fellow-diners to use our now-ness by going out and changing History tomorrow.

Danica notes that life and death go together...

James says 1955 turned out to be a miserable year for sports-cars. Months before his own accident, 82 people were killed at Le Mans. A car left the circuit and plowed into spectators. Danica adds that it was a Mercedes. Worst catastrophe in racing, ever.

About the meal to help along the discourse? If we are what we eat, we have heft and complexity, for we open with Rick’s pasta e fabioli, i.e., beans and macaroni in a basil-flecked broth that has heft and complexity from good Italian cheese. During my main course, the way James attacks his rack of lamb with garlic cream sauce, I am afraid he will break my precious china, handed-down from Grandmother Florence.

We have baby arugula with tomato vinaigrette -- freshly made mind you, not re-heated from last month’s dinner party. We also have sides of grilled langoustines and homemade ravioli with lobster and pumpkin. This is not a buffet…probably I am serving too many different items.

James pulls out a chair for Danica, insists on sitting beside her, passes her everything (sometimes twice), and delights in her every reflection about this (e. g., “Life is what you make of it”) and that (e.g., actors Adam Sander and Van Deisel are her favorites). James represents himself as a twin spirit” of Danica’s, since he grew up in the Midwest too, in the state bordering Illinois (where Danica was raised). The two of them, he boasts, escaped to the more glamorous and fabled West Coast. For this party, James plainly seeks a burst of intimacy or, more likely, a ‘Let’s Be Friends’ alliance.

I interpret that James is committed tonight to a role. He is enacting the Early Romantic. It is like a ticket to a performance by a juvenile hunk. He chatters mawkishly. He quotes Keats on truth, beauty, and the fatal illness that led that very young poet so reluctantly to relinquish his fiancé Fanny Brawne. Not so subtly, James throws off signals of exhilaration and near-obsession about Danica. Tonight's novel experience of dinner-partying with this vibrant woman seems to have amped-up his brain’s reward system with norepinephrine and dopamine.

O.K., James is a Method actor and all that. Nevertheless, my hunch is that he is sincere in the emotional butterflies he is conveying.

I suspect Rick and Chris are oblivious to James’s reaching-out…

Toting his guitar, Kenny Chesney has shown up tonight in his sleeveless T-shirt, trademark cowboy hat (which he takes off), and his drawstring pants (which he leaves on). He’s just in from his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In modern terms, Anna Amalia is hardly well-traveled. Tonight she’s curious about Caribbean scents and sounds. In her mind, the Islands have Rome’s bright allure. Anna remembers that Eternal City as enabling her to somewhat escape northern Europe’s gloomy seasons.

She asks Barb if she’s been to Rome. Barb hasn’t. Anna inquires if Barb has been to the Virgin Islands either. Nope. Dangerous trip-whetting questions, those. They manifest little empathy for our budget.

Kenny picks up on the travel theme, regretting that when he tours the U.S., his time is scheduled tightly. The complexity and pace of his mainland life never ceases to amaze him. He digs bringing together the energy of the crowd with the energy of his band. On the road, it’s “about time and place…but down there [on the Islands], you don’t always know what day it is. It’s great.” He invites Anna, and Barb too, to visit sometime and see for themselves. He knows this neat seaside bar where tourists don’t pester for autographs.

Anna says she’d like to take Kenny up on his invitation. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau simple-truths that travel goads one to shed provincial assumptions. "It reminds one what's important globally."

Anna asks if skinny-dipping goes on in and around the Virgin Islands, which she enjoys pronouncing it as ‘Vergin Isles.'

Now exactly where did that question come from? In her day, did she nude-bathe in the Trevi Fountain? Try that at the Trevi now and police will arrest you.

Kenny acknowledges that skinny-dipping is 'in' on the Vergins’ powdery beaches. To keep the conversation afloat, I add that old and creaky as I am, I still feel 'liberated' when swimming free, free at last in warm and sunlit waters, experiencing a sensuality that’s open, confident, respectful, and harmonious with nature.

I don't mind that Barb characterizes my ‘liberation’ at the lakeside cottage that she and I occasionally get to visit. (One of our kids married into a family with that often-empty cottage, and what's wrong with a little nepotism that gives us access?) Her Big Reveal is that I remove my trunks only after I’m in water over my height and can park my suit on a neighbor’s raft. So much for my ‘self-expression.'

Anna laughs and forgives my modesty, saying that we all reflect the time & place where we grew up. Coming of age in the '50s, I was as conforming and other-directed as our decade's organizational men.

My turn to speak: I characterize Barb as indulging my skinny-dipping during the day, but she's never done that herself -- until moonlight. Says it's more romantic then.

So much for sharing the unvarnished details of our sex life.

We all applaud Kenny's set, none moreso than Dietrich, who catches Kenny’s indolent message, his good ear, his reservoir of strength, his physical pleasure in singing his kind of music. ”The most important thing for a performing artist…[is] to build up a community of love for the music with the audience, to create one fellow-feeling among so many people who have come from so many different places and feelings.”

When Barb asserts that Kenny has that gift, Dietrich notes that “Anyone who’s not moved himself cannot move others with what he is doing.” Dietrich continues, “Your songs are not theoretical.”

“Kenny, you knows how to open the heart,” Anna says, sounding like Paula Abdul, the judge on American Idol,“You don’t do a theoretical job of just making a theoretical fellow-feeling.”

Dietrich adds that these days it is exceptional for newcomers to get traction, as Kenny has been able to do, in the music industry. At best, most hit singles last about a week, and only a couple of stingy corporations control much of the all-important choosing, marketing, and distributing. Thus only a few artists can achieve Kenny's widespread success.

Buoyed by our reactions, Kenny sings again, this time about frat parties and bare feet on the beach. He's into juvenile kisses, broken hearts, and lives that transition from school to adult responsibility. These are moments that everyone here tonight knows about from late in their teens. Undeniably, sadness or bitter-sweetness does mark Kenny’s texts, but not as much as in Anna/Goethe and in Schubert/Mueller.

In his ballads about chilling-out as well as his upbeat rockers, Kenny yearns for The Perfect Moment in Life and Music, yet Perfection is destined to be lost like sea foam.” All in all, Kenny takes the long view that one has to persevere. His idea, or one of his ideas, is that life’s unexpected tragedies often yield reasons for living.

At that, Presto, our critic in white, wags his tail with vigor. I don’t mean this post to come across like a film where a remark from an actor is followed by a cutesy, quizzical close-up of a dog. Just sayin’ that Presto is having a good time. His ears too are being tuned-up. (Now I’m sounding like a judge on American Idol.)