Freidrich Nietzsche and Lou Salome Pt. 1- The Springtime Birth of Prince Vogelfrei
Friedrich Nietzsche, a man who more than any other embodied the fiery devil in man's heart that the 19th century had sought so manically to excorcise, had once been in love. Anyone who knows Nietzsche superficially from the simplistic tongues of PHIL 101 will be shocked- how could this hard man who savaged the concept of "pity", who looked to the birth of the self-mastered "overman", who held forth on the difference between slave and master morality- how can this sharp, cold "blond beast" feel something as light and a nimble as love?? Like he himself would say, "Above all, do not take mistake for someone else!" - this antichrist had likened true philosophy to dancing, to making art and music, to style and sweetness. He laughed at whose mind's heavy feet couldn't step lightly and with joy. Even his oft-repeated admonition to "philosophize with a hammer" was referring, in fact, to the delicate strike of a sounding hammer, executed with the subtlety of a safecracker and the nimble fingers of a tender lover, to "sound out" the false statues of idols. That's to say, my dear seekers of truth, that he was capable of love and more than love......
Nietzsche was lonely and searching in his season just before meeting Lou Salome, glorying in his best imitation of Schopenhauer which he would later come to laugh at himself. Lou, a precocious russian emigre who had been making herself known as a girl with the intellectual chops to compete with some of Europe's greatest minds, was beautiful and brilliant; to grab an opportunity for education in the 1870's cockcentric culture she had teased and seduced a stodgy Dutch preacher more than twice her age, resulting in his abortive attempt to ditch his (probably insufferable) shrew and marry Lou. Of course, when Nietzsche first met her in 1882 through their mutual friend, nebbishy philospher-wannabe Paul Ree, he was instantly taken with the 20-year old Lou. A tender rosebud version of his own philosphy, wrapped in a highnecked Victorian dress and bearing dark eyes that by all accounts promised deep discusions while lying langorously in bed after an afternoon of frenzied sex- something that for Nietzsche, standing against the bullshit veneer of his age in matters of both mind and body, could not help but become hopelessly drawn to. Nietzsche's eyesight was so poor his doctors had advised him to drop writng altogether, his small apartments were bristling with bottles of medicines for his blinding migraines and painful stomachaches, he was forced to suck down laudanum and opium to overcome his constant insomnia- and now a new source of pain and addiction he would heap onto his plate, happily. The young Lou would leave Nietzsche smitten in heart and mind, panting like the great Lion he praises in his works and encourage him to surpass the Lion, great as it is and yet still infected with the Will to Power, toward his real ideal, the true personifcation of enlightened "love of fate": the laughing , pure child. When Nietzsche first met Lou in the brilliant sun-dappled interior of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, he could only wonder aloud "From what stars have we two fallen to meet here?"
That spring and summer a strange triangle developed between Nietzsche, Ree and Lou; two males held in happy bondage by that slender sculpture fashioned of sensual and intellectual lodestone. They began to make plans to winter together in an "academic commune" in Paris, sharing quarters and hopefully stimulating each others' collective thoughts(among other things...)...Of course my bisexual heart and dick would like to think that there were some rather festive three-way oral sessions also planned for that winter, or at least a deeply contemplative DP of the youngest member of the trio, all in the most shockingly non-academic sense of the terms. Our small troupe of dangerous young minds spent the next few months frolicking across Europe, meeting intermittently and planning their daring winter. At Orta in the cool spring of northern Italy Nietzsche and Lou went on an "hour long hike" alone that turned into an all day absence, leaving Lou's mother understandably dismayed- her daughter's virgin mind and (perhaps not so...)virginal body spirited away by a madman with a passion for the destruction of morality. Nietzsche, who had long been looking for an intellectual heir for his fevered and prophetic ideas, was shocked and elated to find out just how sharp and hungry Lou was- he had thoughts of her as disciple, as heir, as collaborator, and of course as lover. In Lucerne, Switzerland in May Nietzsche arranged a photo of the three to be taken, with Ree and himself as carthorses drawing forth the young Salome's magnificence, as she whips them from behind with a flower studded lash. A sadomasochistic orgy fantasy of flesh and mind, with noble aims and unknown promise took shape in the crisp Swiss air......
Nietzsche, inspired and running on dope tincture and lust, completed the introduction to his most incredible work, The Gay Science, and would soon write to Lou that "...the mocking birds are singing all night long at my window. In everything, Rée is a better friend than I am and could be: please observes this difference carefully! - When I am entirely alone, I very often say your name out loud - to my greatest delight!"..clouds of soft white were gathering between the antichrist and the one woman he proclaimed was as "sharp as an eagle and as brave as a lion"- but of what portent??.......
.......stay tuned for part two, and see our mustached rebel hero use his alchemy of will to turn the sting of fate's bitch-slap into something that truly matters!!