Significant Moments: Wagner's Parsifal, Seduction-By-Proxy, and Job Harassment

In the second act of Wagner's opera Parsifal the sorcerer Klingsor attempts to use the seductress Kundry to seduce the naive character Parsifal.  In psychosexual terms, perhaps, the attempted seduction might be termed a "seduction-by-proxy" in which Klingsor discharges via Kundry his own unconscious homosexual feelings for Parsifal.
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     The second act shows . . .
John Tasker Howard, The World's Great Operas.
         . . . the cloud-piercing towers of . . .
Kurt Loder, At Ground Zero: My Neighborhood Vanished (Rolling Stone 9.11.01).
      Klingsor’s magic castle.—
Richard Wagner, Parsifal.
      The hour’s now come; the very minute bids . . .
William Shakespeare, The Tempest.
      . . . Klingsor . . .
Hermann Hesse, Klingsor’s Last Summer.
          . . . work . . .
William Shakespeare, The Tempest.. . . his magic arts to rouse Kundry from her deep sleep . . .
John Tasker Howard, The World's Great Operas.
         . . . and then order her . . .
Gareth Patterson, “The Killing Fields.”
                . . . to seduce Parsifal. Kundry protests, but Klingsor mocks her for her remorse and insists that she overcome the power of this youth whom he recognizes as the "Guileless Fool" who may break his power. The castle sinks in the darkness and . . .
John Tasker Howard, The World's Great Operas.
                       . . . lo and behold, . . .
Andrew Levin, Mysteries of the Cligeva: And Other Stunners From The Upstart Science of Female Desire.
                           . . . the scene changes to a luxuriant garden.
John Tasker Howard, The World's Great Operas.
      Here, vivid blooms give way to muted greens and grays and beiges, in spiky, droopy and phantasmagoric shapes. Towering needle-leafed tree ferns shade the curving gravel walks with greenish gloom.
Edwin Kiester, Jr., 'Not your average backyard gardener'.
      Perhaps the mysteries of evolution and the riddles of life that so puzzle us are contained in the green of the earth, among the trees and the flowers . . .
Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago.
      Parsifal enters and is surrounded by enticing flower girls . . .
John Tasker Howard, The World's Great Operas.
          . . . just like the Arabian Nights, . . .
Peter Hellman, Coming Up Harlem: A Revival of the Fabled New York Community Inspires Pride and Controversy quoting Duke Ellington.
                    . . . all running to and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging them . . .
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.
                           . . . upon him until he is . . .
Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Nabeel al-Awadhi, A Party in Paradise and a Party in Hell.
                                 . . . almost smothered with blossom.
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.
      Their existence is as limited as that of women in a harem and they look like rare hothouse plants.
Julius Meier-Graefe, Auguste Renoir in Renoir: A Retrospective (Nicholas Wadley, ed.).
      Kundry appears as a woman of bewitching beauty.
John Tasker Howard, The World's Great Operas.
      Never forthcoming about her personal life, she was "both flamboyant and mysterious . . ."
Edwin Kiester, Jr., 'Not your average backyard gardener'.
      At the time, she seemed . . .
Robert Coles, Anna Freud: The Dream of Psychoanalysis.
      . . . to live in two different worlds, one in which sexuality hardly existed and one in which it was all too frighteningly present.
Joseph Fernando, The Exceptions: Structural and Dynamic Aspects.
      She puts her arms around Parsifal and kisses his lips. For the first time Parsifal knows passion, but he also feels what seems to be the pain of Amfortas' wound. He realizes how Amfortas was tempted to sin in these same gardens. Pushing Kundry aside he denounces her.
John Tasker Howard, The World's Great Operas.
      I saw her look at me with a mixture of admiration and distaste. She was not accustomed to being spoken to in this manner. I knew that. She was looking at me and possibly wondering who I was, what I really wanted, what I intended to do . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
      The withholding of any explanation as to his background, his motivations, or his intentions, coupled with the lucidity and immediacy of . . .
Alwyn Berland, Light in August: A Study in Black and White.
        . . . his denunciation . . .
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger.
          . . . is powerful, . . .
Alwyn Berland, Light in August: A Study in Black and White.
             . . . explosive . . .
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent.
                    . . . even terrifying.
Alwyn Berland, Light in August: A Study in Black and White.
      I realized that if I followed my desires, I would be eternally damned.
David E. Lipman, Me’Am Loez on VaYashev: Joseph and His Brothers.
      Like some of her plants, Madame—she never answered to any other name—could be quite prickly.
Edwin Kiester, Jr., ‘Not your average backyard gardener.’
      Kundry calls to Klingsor. The magician hurls the Sacred Spear at Parsifal. Instead of hitting Parsifal, the Sacred Spear hangs in mid-air over his head. Parsifal grasps it and makes the sign of the cross. Kundry falls unconscious and the castle sinks in ruins.
John Tasker Howard, The World's Great Operas.
      Without doubt, what is musically the most precious and artful moment comes with . . .
Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus.
         . . . the whole tower . . .
Richard Wagner, Parsifal.
                . . . the castle and the garden. . .
Nipponia, Okayama Castle.
                      . . . vanishing suddenly . . .
Tim Friend, Maya Lived as Urban Farmers.
                             . . . astonishingly, impossibly—gone.
Kurt Loder, At Ground Zero: My Neighborhood Vanished (Rolling Stone 9.11.01).

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The following incident occurred at my last place of employment, the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld.  Perhaps the actions of legal assistant coordinator J.D. Neary might be viewed as a symbolic attempted seduction-by-proxy.  The following text is from the record on appeal in Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998).

13.  During the summer of 1988 I used to perform a certain task on Eastern for legal assistant Phil Feigen, who shared office space with legal assistant Jesse Raben.  One day Phil telephoned, requesting that I stop down to his office to pick up some work.  When I arrived, Jesse Raben was very friendly.  It was, in fact, the first time that Jesse was friendly with me since he had started working at the firm on June 13, 1988.  As Jesse and I engaged in some banter, J.D. Neary stopped at the doorway of the office.  Not saying a word, J.D. simply nodded at Jesse, as though cuing Jesse to a prearranged plan.  I took a stack of documents to a nearby Xerox room to make copies for the task I was doing for Phil.  Moments later, Jesse stopped by the Xerox room, and continued his banter in a lively manner.

The next day, I stopped at Phil’s and Jesse’s office to perform more of the same task I had been doing the previous day.  But this day, Jesse seemed more his normal self.

[This incident may be evidence of legal assistant coordinator J.D. Neary "staging" the behavior of paralegals in the manner of a "puppet master."]