Word: faustian
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...Inexhaustibly, it seems. Either somebody up there likes the Clintons, or they have made a Faustian bargain...
What we're just beginning to understand is how water development has, like nuclear energy, amounted to a Faustian bargain between civilization and the natural world--which, as it happens, supports civilization. Hydroelectricity from Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State smelted enough aluminum during World War II to build tens of thousands of warplanes, with enough surplus power to make plutonium for the first atom bombs. But now, in the form of devastated salmon fisheries, Grand Coulee (along with countless other dams) is extracting an awful price for its creation...
...Buddha, Goethe and 2200 year-old Hellenistic art have in common? Apart from their (obvious) connection to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less, they each play into the development of Craig Lucas' The Dying Gaul (through April 29 at the Boston Center for the Arts). A modern Faustian fable, The Dying Gaul follows a struggling writer, Robert (John P. Arnold), as he attempts to express his grief over his lover's death in the form of a screenplay. Jeffery (Will Lyman) is a closeted Hollywood producer who offers Robert one million dollars for the script-if he will rewrite...
LENI RIEFENSTAHL has an almost Faustian knack for survival. The infamous German filmmaker, who directed the 1934 Nazi propagandist film Triumph of the Will, weathered World War II and the international ostracism that resulted from her association with the Third Reich. Now 97, she suffered relatively minor injuries last week when a helicopter in which she was riding crashed in the Sudan. She is being treated in Germany for a few broken ribs. Riefenstahl was in Africa to revisit the Nuba tribe, which she photographed during the 1970s, a project that drew criticism for its perceived objectification of tribe members...
...Jackson has made a career of giving dictators such as Slobodan Milosevic a chance to show their gentler side by releasing captives at his request. It's not mere ego tripping, as some cynics charge, or an expression of Jackson's deeply held belief in nonviolence. It's almost Faustian. I think he needs the rush that only bargaining with evil can provide...