My Boy, descendant of Herakles

While they were boys, the Spartans were not allowed to wear anything but one cloak. No shoes, no underwear, and no additional clothes were permitted -- even in winter. They slept in their military groups, on reeds they plucked at the river with their own hands. What they were given to eat was never enough, so to keep from going hungry they were forced to plan ingenious schemes to steal food. If they got caught, they got a severe whipping -- not for the moral wrong of stealing, but for the military sin of not being careful enough to avoid capture.

-Plutarch, Lycurgus, Father of Sparta

OK, the boy has more than one set of clothes, wears underwear and has shoes. Also, he has a bed. However, notwithstanding the fact that he is only fifteen months old, the boy has taken to stealing his food. I have watched him eye someone else's food basket at the beach with the shrewdness and cunning of a wolf cub. While a lesser child of non-warrior stock would walk straight up to the basket and plead for the contents, in effect, begging for his food like a common street urchin, the warrior-boy will wait until an opportune moment arrives, sneak around (i.e. outflank) the owner of the desired food, wait until they are not looking and, with a slow and steady thumb and index finger, carefully remove the item. Once in his grasp, he will "hide" it with both hands and run back to his "territory" (my chair) to eat it. He even gives me a "look what I did!" look when he gets back to his territory.

Eventually, I will have to teach him that stealing is wrong, of course. However, at this stage of the game, he is demonstrating something that can not be taught, the willingness to put one's neck out there to achieve a desired goal.

He makes me proud.

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Seriously, totally safe for work.

Just make sure the sound is on.

This is just funny

Eye of the Beholder

I am on the 6:18 train home and my iPod starts the third act of Die Walkure.

I am not going to explain the whole ring cycle here... suffice to say in the second act, Brünnhilde, the beloved daughter of Wotan, has disobeyed Wotan by vowing to protect Siegmund from harm because she believed it was what her father would have wanted her to do despite his command to let him die. Wotan arrives, sees what has happened, breaks Siegmund's sword and causes his death. Brünnhilde runs away and Wotan takes off after her.

Begin Act III - after The Ride of the Valkyrie, Wotan finds Brünnhilde and passes judgement on her: Brünnhilde pleads that in disobeying his orders she was really doing what he wished. Wotan will not rescind his command: she must lie in sleep, a prize for any man who finds her. But as Wotan's anger abates, Brünnhilde asks the favor of being surrounded in sleep by a wall of fire that only the bravest hero can pierce.

It was here that something happened. Whenever I have heard this work in the past, my heart always went out to Brünnhilde. Don't get me wrong, I could intellectually grasp why Wotan had to do what he did, but, my heart was with Brünnhilde. You know, the "establishment" doing the wrong thing in the face of noble intent. However, this time, my heart was with Wotan. I knew he did what he did because he is Wotan, the chief god. His word could not be disobeyed, no matter what the intent. However, the emotion in the words, for the first time, resonated inside me on a personal level.

My heart further softened as the music went on and the baritone voice of Wotan was singing:

"that radiant pair of eyes that I often kissed when you earned a reward and sang in childlike praise of heroes... those gleaming eyes that shone in the storm when I longed for the joys of the world amid danger and dread. One last time I kiss these eyes farewell...

my heart quivered a bit as Wotan, sadly renouncing his daughter, kisses Brünnhilde's eyes with sleep and mortality...

"On a happier man may they shine one day. For this sorrowing god, they must finally close.

There... right there... the image of my little girl flashed in my mind... and she was wearing a wedding dress...

"Now the god takes his leave and kisses your godhead away."

...and I just lifted her veil and kissed her on the head.

guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

Someone must have popped a benzyl bromide canister on my train because, well, my eyes were getting a little wet. Now, this might not seem like a big deal to some folk, but, this is unprecedented for me. I am not going to tout my "man resume", but, it is pretty solid. A week ago, I would have been more likely to believe a person who said "in seven days, the CIA will reveal that we have been at war with aliens from a different planet for the last 300 years" than a person who said "in seven days, an opera will move you to tears on a public train."

Notwithstanding this fact, there I was, doing the best I could to not look like I was a blubbering fool. Opting for the Rodin "thinking" pose, I pinched the bridge of my nose and managed to disperse any moisture that had begun to collect in and around my eyes.

That little girl is really getting the best of me.