Friday, April 08, 2005

really doing it

My precocious young one wants us to go to a sushi restaurant and insist that the waitperson bring us "chapsticks" instead of "chopsticks," just to get a funny reaction.

When the young one was 4 she already had "a favorite opera," Salome, so we have several recordings and a couple DVD versions of Strauss's notorious score. She loves it when Salome kisses the head. The head of John the Baptist, that is.

When Macy's had a cutlery sale, this not-yet-seven-year-old insisted that I get a cleaver. I just couldn't talk her out of it. Personally, I prefer a santoku. The salesperson wisely counselled the young one to "be careful with it."

I'll say.

While driving to Winslow one day a couple years ago, the radio was broadcasting a recording of the infamous final scene, which culminates in the head-kissing and then the crushing death of Salome herself. The young one said "Leonie Rysanek." I really couldn't tell, and I have a little bit of an ear for this stuff. On a car radio it sounded like maybe Leontyne Price to me, but the young one nailed it.

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