Democratic Deals

Earlier in the semester, Prof. Tobin posted an article from the New York Times suggesting that Obama and the Democrats had made a Faustian bargain. Apparently, that's a comparison that the New York Times has been making for decades, since I found an article describing Clinton's deal with the devil (I'm talking former President, not current Secretary of State).

The article says that the deal Bill made was that we, as a nation, would agree to overlook his infidelities in exchange for his policies. If you're interested, you can read it here.

I'll have to look into whether or not similar comparisons are made about the Republicans.

Holland!

Particular attention was paid today about Faust's land reclamation and creation of Holland in Act V of Goethe's Faust II. It's pretty crazy stuff, all those canals and Faust's vexation at the ocean.

The Holland thing reminded me of my awesome 6th grade world geography class. I remembered how my teacher went on about how Holland should be underwater. So just now, I Wikipedia-ed Holland, and, sure enough, Holland does have a precarious geography.

Holland had major problems with the ocean breaking through the sand dunes and the major rivers flooding. Most of the area was marsh, and, in the 10th century, people cultivated the land by draining it, which lead to soil sinkage. This soil sinkage put the country at very great risk of catastrophic flooding from the ocean. To avoid making Holland a series of barrier islands, dikes were built to protect against the ocean. In the 16th century, the people of Holland took the offense and began land reclamation projects, in which they turned lakes, marshes and mudflats in polders (low-lying land enclosed by dikes).

And the photo is of two levees in Holland.

Faust in modern artwork

I was looking around YouTube and I stumbled onto a series of videos depicting scenes from Faust. Here's one of the links.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdoTFVAJwXY

This particular video focuses on Faust, Mephisto, and Marguerite.

Modern Margarete

While listening to my usual bitter, angry fem-rock the other day Alanis Morrisette's "Hands Clean" came onto the play list. It is about a young woman who has a lustfully forbidden romance with a (much) older man. An affair that ends up causing her pain, yet it was a pain she wanted to experience.

Sound familiar?

The video , I thought I might post on here, it is subtle and artistic, yet comprehensible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GP_yr-UA7E&ob=av2e

Faust Idol...

Does this remind anyone else of the first Walpurgis Night scene?
Amazingness.

Not so much the lyrics, but the setting.

African-American Faust

faust - the african-american, in the witch's kitchen :-)

http://theater.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/theater/reviews/04faus.html

Homunculus

Here's one visualization ....