Laowai

It may not look it in some of the innocent pictures on this blog but there’s a struggle going on for our young daughter’s soul. It is a battle of biblical proportions, one the world hasn’t seen for many centuries. Goethe only imagined such a colossal confrontation when imagining the Faust legend. And our little Bea is in the middle of this maelstrom.

The protagonist, and I hope you don’t mind me assuming that you the reader will eagerly take my side, is me. This isn’t a matter of whether or not my mom decides to dunk the kid in the kitchen sink to try to make her a good Catholic. She often has dried milk on her face and could use the bath anyway. No, this is serious stuff. If you pass by our place and hear opera outside kind of loud, you’ll know the battle is raging. You’ll know that I am trying desperately to inoculate her little soul against the evils of the world. My theory is that once a brain has had a taste of the real thing, the immensely satisfying complexity of classical music, you can’t go back. That nip on the proverbial fifth of Beethoven will swirl in the mind until some silly Beach Boys song about a surf board is an insult to all five senses. One night I shot straight upright in bed, awakened no doubt by her crying but perhaps also by the horrible thought that my own flesh and blood could grow up some day to love smooth jazz. Jazz. People, we’re talking life or death here. What if I lost her head to hip-hop or the putrid mist of metal were to penetrate her mind? I would never forgive myself for the loss of her soul.

So far, I have good news to report. We are making progress in the battle against evil. Twice we subdued the beast with Beethoven; the late string quartets seem to do the trick. Twice in fear of the ferocity of her malcontent, I brought out Bastianini in Verdi. The serious operas of Donizetti, especially the sweet bel canto tenor arias, offer promise. We haven’t tried Mahler yet (one doesn’t want to overwhelm a fragile mind quite so early) but we’ll be there soon. My friends, there is so much work to be done. Kathy thinks that she would stop to listen to nearly any music and since she often cries and just wants to be held, the fact that I am playing loud music while rocking her is fairly immaterial. Just like nobody is an atheist at their best friend’s funeral, I don’t subscribe to such discouraging theories. We’re getting through to her my friends. Take heart. Ah, but there is so much work to be done!