quotes:

"Most people are in arrested development and cannot use logic." Jacob.
"Competition and capitalism are hated to-day because of their tendency to destroy poverty and privilege." William Hutt
"America is unique in that our economy is totally dependent on global charity." Peter Schiff

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Thoughts on Starting Goethe's Faust

He really hit the nail on the head.
Here are a few lines from his first act, with Smiling Dave's additions and corrections to adapt this masterpiece to modern times. Goethe gets the italics; I get the plain font.

I've studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—
And even, alas! Theology,—
From end to end, with labor keen;
And here, poor fool! with all my lore
I stand, no wiser than before.


[I have no wisdom, just a diploma,
And a mocking leer from Lisa Mona.
I can't get a job with all that junk
I leave school as I entered, a lazy punk.]

These ten years long, with many woes,
I've led my scholars by the nose,—
And see, that nothing can be known!
That knowledge cuts me to the bone.


[My parents tear their hair from woes
As I blow cocaine up through my nose.
And see, they'll in the poorhouse lie
Cause I majored in Philosophy.]

I'm cleverer, true, than those fops of teachers,
Doctors and Magisters, Scribes and Preachers;

[But they are the ones who have the jobs
And I'll have to look for banks to rob.]
Neither scruples nor doubts come now to smite me,
Nor Hell nor Devil can longer affright me.


For this, all pleasure am I foregoing;
I do not pretend to aught worth knowing,
I do not pretend I could be a teacher
To help or convert a fellow-creature.

[All that nothing cost me two hundred grand
And leaves me begging with an outstretched hand.]
Then, too, I've neither lands nor gold,
Nor the world's least pomp or honor hold—
No dog would endure such a curst existence!
Wherefore, from Magic
[the Govt] I seek assistance,

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