|
Philip Spiess
Of course, we are all now at our "End Times" -- not approaching our "End Times," but at our "End Times" -- and thus it is precious for us to be able to share our reminiscences, memories, and the good times we have had, or are still having, together. (But to die at 20 is too young, a tragedy.)
To speak of Prague is to bring forth a legend from the heritage of my many Jewish friends, namely, the legend of The Golem of Prague. The Golem, a creature created from mud and which (in most legends) cannot speak, has been a part of Jewish legend since at least the 12th century (Adam, according to one legend, was at first a Golem, as he was created from the earth, or mud). But the most famous Golem is that of Prague, created by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel in the late 16th century to protect the Prague ghetto from the rapacious attacks of its enemies. After a number of exploits, Rabbi Loew had to remove the Golem's life-force when it started running amuck. It was supposedly buried in the attic of the Old New Synagogue in Prague; the Nazis actually went looking for it there during World War II, but they found nothing (a legend, however, says that the Nazi who went into the attic was struck dead). Many stories have been written about this Golem; perhaps the most renowned is Gustav Meyrink's Der Golem (The Golem, 1914; reprinted by Dover Publications in Two German Supernatural Novels). A notable German silent expressionistic film was also made of The Golem: How He Came Into the World, by Paul Wegener in 1920; it is still available on CD. The cities of Chelm and Vilna were also known to have Golems. [Is it a stretch to suggest that the Gollum in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings cycle had its origin in the Jewish Golem?]
Bruce: My own story of the moon landing is rather minimal. However, you want context? Supposedly Cyrano de Bergerac made a voyage to the moon in the 17th century (it's written up in the literature of the period); then there was Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865), wherein members of the "Baltimore Gun Club" fire a passenger rocket at the moon. It was made (Nelson Abanto, take note!) into an opera by Offenbach (1875), and made into one of the first silent movies by the Frenchman, Georges Melies, as A Trip to the Moon (1902); this is available on CD (I showed it to my Middle Schoolers when lecturing on the history of cinema). H. G. Wells also wrote an early science-fiction novel on the subject, The First Men in the Moon (1901).
But these are not my story. On the night that our astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, I was ushering at the Cincinnati Opera, which was then still located in the Cincinnati Zoo (how that came about is another story, which I'll relate at another time). I believe the opera was Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment, starring the soprano Mary Costa (Jon Marks, I think you and I have discussed this before). When she came to the line, spoken to the tenor who would become her lover, "You don't impress me like those soldiers do!", she interpolated "You don't impress me like those astronauts do!" -- and the audience went wild! The Zoo had set out numerous television sets around the beer-selling stands surrounding the Opera Pavilion, and we all went through an extended intermission, drinking beer and watching Neil Armstong land on the moon. It was pretty exhilarating. (I also know a hilarious dirty joke about the moon landing, told to me by Jeff Rosen, but I will only transmit it to you in private.)
I still find it astounding that, around 1890, H. G. Wells predicted that man would land on the moon by the year 5000; however, my grandmother, born in 1900, lived through the Wright Brothers' first manned aerial flight in 1903 -- and only 66 years later, i.e., 1969, while she was still living, a man landed on the moon!
|
