Word: faustian
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...betray himself in order to survive. "The filmmakers did not make a saint of Shostakovich," observes Volkov of the movie. "There are no saints in real life. He is shown as a man forced to compromise on minor things to save himself for more important things." It is a Faustian bargain few composers would like to face, even if they could write a lifetime of masterpieces in return...
...shop owned by Mushnik (Adam Schwartz). Seymour finds a strange plant, which he names Audrey II, after the Audrey who is the object of his affections (Sibel Ergener). Seymour discovers that the plant flourishes only when fed human blood--and it talks, to boot. He must struggle with the Faustian bargain Audrey II offers him: fame and success for the store and Seymour himself, in return for fresh flesh...
This summer's environmental assaults, the author believes, have made an Ecotopian world a little more likely. "We have been messing about with the atmosphere in a truly Faustian way. That and the garbage on the shores have put people in a rotten humor." But what will really "be the key to the evolution of Ecotopia" will be a catastrophe at a nuclear plant. "One of these days a nuke is going to blow in the country, as surely as the sun goes up and comes down. It's practically bound to happen, and it will put a whole...
...whether Bush really is the generous-spirited character he intermittently displayed in his acceptance speech. I'm agnostic on that one. But even Bush's critics don't believe he's really the hate-filled demagogue of his current Mr. Hyde phase. He seems, rather, to have made a Faustian bargain: my soul for the presidency. Several of Bush's campaign advisers are well suited to the role of Mephistopheles...
Douglass Wallop's 1954 novel, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, reflects that innocent era before AstroTurf, designated hitters and utility infielders with multimillion-dollar contracts. But every middle-aged baseball fan can still appreciate the Faustian temptation at the core of both the novel and the hit Broadway musical it inspired, Damn Yankees. Joe Boyd is a paunchy real estate salesman condemned to root for his hapless hometown team, the now defunct Washington Senators. The devil, who prefers the moniker Applegate, offers to transform Joe into the greatest slugger in the history of the game. Applegate's price...