The Meaning of Lorelei

This week we celebrated Lorelei’s first birthday.  My wife and I couldn’t agree on a name that we both really liked until we came up with Lorelei.

We first heard the name because of Lorelai Gilmore from the TV show The Gilmore Girls.  This TV character was smart, witty, fun loving, adventurous, and independent. All values that Katy and I hold dearly.  And plus, the name sounded cool.

Turned out the name Lorelei has quite an interesting history.  The name Lorelei comes from a  large rock formation on a bend in the Rhine River in Germany.  This has traditionally been a dangerous spot for sailors and Lorelei, perched on this rock formation, would lure navigators of this river to their  watery doom with her alluring singing.

The legend was popularized by the German-Jewish writer Heinrich Heine in the poem Die Lorelei. During World War II, the Nazis tried to stamp out all Jewish cultural remnants, but this poem proved to be too popular.  Instead, Heine’s name was taken off as author of the poem and replaced with “author unknown.” Heine is famous for saying “where they burn books, they will burn people,” and this quote can be found at Yad Veshem and the U.S. Holocaust museum.

The name Lorelei has also popped up quite a bit in pop culture.  Lorelei is a comic book hero on a few different fronts.  In  the Lorelei series, she is  “A redheaded angel of vengeance who preys on those who would prey on the weak.” In Thor, Lorelei is a Norse God whoes “great beauty and seductive manner enable her to persuade virtually any male god or mortal to do whatever she wants”

In pop music, two Lorelei songs stick out (though there are quite a bit more).  Styx’s 1976 song, Lorelei, made it no. 27 in the charts and Ella Fitzgerald had a hit song called Lorelei too.  I like the Ella song much better.

Finally, Marlyn Monroe’s character in Some Like It Hot was named Lorelei. This film was named the greatest comedy of all time by the American Film Institute.

Filed under: Pop Music, film, germany, parenting , death, nazi, hitler, germany, Lorelei, Rhine, Heinrich Heine, Heine, Jewish culture, Jews, Die Lorelei, names, poem, poetry, Styx, Third Reich, book burning, sailors, sirens, Thor, superheros, comic books, Ella Fitzgerald, Holocaust, Yad Vashem, Norse God, Gilmore Girls, Lorelai Gilmore, Maryilyn Monroe, Monroe, Some Like It Hot, family

Happy Birthday to Lorelei!

Lorelei and Aunt Lizzie, Age 1 day

Lorelei Oles, age 11 monhs old

Lorelei and her friend Max, 11 months

My daughter, Lorelei Catherine Oles, was born one year ago today.  She arrived in this world at 10:37 PM, Tuesday, August 26, 2008.

Katy, her mom and my wife, had been in the hospital for 36 hours before the decision was made to have a c-section.  There is so much I remember that night:  the love I felt for Katy,  the feeling of total exhaustion and hunger (and all I had to do was stand there and be supportive!), how surreal the operating room was  in the middle of the night, the fact that I didn’t faint, and, finally, how beautiful it was to have the love and support of our families.

I will never forget hearing Lorelei cry for the first time and then holding her for the first time, only a few minutes later.   I went out to the waiting room about five minutes after her birth  and exclaimed  “she is awesome!” to her grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Lorelei has been a healthy baby –only a couple of ear infections–and is super adventurous and curious about the world.  She loves being outdoors and waves hello to about everyone.  She sleeps through the night most days and has an  addiction to blueberries.  Her sense of humor is well developed and thinks it is hilarious to pull  little tricks on her parents and grandparents.

So, now, I am just being one of those annoying parents who brag about their kids.  It’s hard not too as proud parent.    Happy Birthday Lorelei!

Filed under: family life, parenting , family life, fatherhood, happy birthday, Lorelei Oles, parenting

Taken: The Perfect fantasy for the backlash

 

I watched the movie Taken last night.  Its currently the sixth most watched  movie so far this year at the cineplex (just behind Paul Blart: Mall Cop) and was the most popluar movie at the video store late last month.  Though it might not stay in the top ten, good chance most red-blooded Americans will see this movie sometime in 2009. 

The movie is complete garbage (Liam Neelson, for real?) but is fascintating for what it is trying to say and how American audiences have for the most part responded to it.  Made at the twillight of the  GW Bush years and released during the first months of the Obama era, this movie is the  perfect fantasy  of the white/conservative  backlash. 

It has it all.  France is dangerous and corrupt and full of turncoats (give me my freedom fries!)  France is so vile that Liam Neelson’s character has to shoot the wife (who is not in on the whole conspiracy)  of a former French coworker to get information. 

The swarthy masses and their criminal networks  (ultimately funded by a fat Arab) are a deep threat to  the virginity of rich, white American teenage girls. There is a bunch of bad guys in this movie.  Albanians, French Intelligence officers, random bussiness men, and Arabs.  But the whole thing is funded by a Shiek who desires him some loving from an underage white teenager.  

 And most thriling of all, we have Dad or  as the New York Times call him, Papa-Bear.  Liam Neelson’s retired CIA agent, divorcee  character is the perfect archetype of the 2009 backlash.   Imagine the psychosis of Bill O’Reilly transplanted into a non-rogue Jason Bourne, Anyway, according to Taken,  torture and vigilante violence works!   Nothing like leaving a guy on a homemade electric chair with the on button pressed.  Yes, the myth of redepemptive violence is well at hand here.  

Oh yeah, here is a nice question from USA Today (I can’t believe I wrote that), 

 

Since when did a couple of dozen brutal murders, torture and sex slavery qualify a movie for a PG-13 rating? Because of that inappropriate assessment by the MPAA, parents might be tempted to bring their 10-year-olds to see Taken. Don’t do it.

What might be a guilty pleasure for adult fans of revenge thrillers could be deeply disturbing to an adolescent. At the very least, it might make a kid never want to travel abroad.

Since when did a couple of dozen brutal murders, torture and sex slavery qualify a movie for a PG-13 rating? Because of that inappropriate assessment by the MPAA, parents might be tempted to bring their 10-year-olds to see Taken. Don’t do it.

What might be a guilty pleasure for adult fans of revenge thrillers could be deeply disturbing to an adolescent. At the very least, it might make a kid never want to travel abroad.

 

Filed under: Barack Obama, film, parenting , hollywood, Liam Neelson, movie review, myth of redemptive violence, new york times, Taken, torture, USA Today, violence