Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Lesser-Known Christmas Tales, Part Two
"I want 'us' off my name. Faustus Faustus --the other doctors tease me-- 'Faustus with the leastest', big laughs, big stupid laughs! It makes me tired."
"Ok," said jolly Satan. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, I don't wanna be no old doctor no more. Just Faust. No stinkin' responsibilities. No stinkin' old. Just Faust, young Faust!"
"Would you mind being a tenor?"
"No, fine with me!"
"Ah, then let's skip up 200 years. You want Gounod."
"Yeah, yeah, lots of gonads!"
"Sort of, it's an opera. Behold: the lovely Marguerite; Siebel who wins all hearts with his 'Flower Song' and whose life you make intolerable; Valentine, who outsings you to the bitter end; the family you hector into desolation!"
"Sounds great to me!"
"Only if they don't do the ballet in act 4. That's where you and I get disgraced."
"What else you got?"
"Well, we could skip sideways and try Goethe."
"How d'you spell that?"
"G-o-e-t-h-e"
"That's 'ghost' while holding your tongue-tip out. Other doctors tricked me into saying 'my father works in a shipyard' doing that (try it: Mah faddah wucks inna shityard). No goeth for me!"
"That's Goethe, pronounced 'Gay-tee'. You get to hook up with Helen Of Troy --a great beauty of the Mycenaean Age."
"When was that?"
"Oh, four or five thousand years ago."
"Mommy! Mommy!" Cried Doctor Faustus. "Santa wants to give me to some really old lady!" He leaped up and ran off in search of his mother. Satan picked up the intercom handset.
"Hello Santa? Satan. I think you got a problem-kid on the way. I'll have my helpers lend your helpers some pitchforks and, if that doesn't work, just mention Helen Of Troy.
24 comments:
I believe they were alphabetically consecutive on roll call all through their school days and developed mutual familiarity then.
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Not only do you have a very strange mind, but a very highly educated and well-read one. An entertaining combination, to be sure.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It is a strange mind but I'm beginning to get used to it.
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I can never seem to come up with a comment good enough to compete with your wonderful wit. But you did inspire me to go to YouTube and watch the impressive finale to Gounod's "Faust". (Mirella Freini as Marguerite).
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By the way, Satan knows I've been a good boy.Sometimes the excellent dance scene is left out if a production is short of ballerinas and danseurs, but it always ends with Faust and Satan looking like chumps. It's enough that Santa knows we're good boys.
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Thanks Laoch! And thanks again for the Santa-Satan connection.
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Thanks, Geo., for continuing with this trope! Why not now take Noel and its reverse, Leon, as in Trotsky?
ReplyDelete"Тро́цкий", a great title for a moral tale. He did not deserve what happened to him in Mexico. Neither Faust nor Satan were mean as Stalin. Perhaps a musical, eh? Mariachi balalaika ballet?
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Just goes to show ya, spelling DOES count.
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Loved it, as always. You're quite the wit, dude. (See, now if I misspelled "dude", and left the "e" off, it'd be a whole 'nother connotation.)Indeed, as dud I admit to greater uncertainty than I do as dude. Dudes are confident!
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Dear Geo,
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I loved the story! I just saw a hilarious German film, with a title that maybe your young kid above might also hsave used - IF you Americans weren't so decent. "göthe" was mispelled in the film's title. Do you want an apple from Paris,(no need to change a letter here to create confusion, ask dear Agatha C.) Waiting for part three!
Oh! "Pommes d'or du jardin des Hespérides" from The Labors of Hercule (Poirot). Close? I love Agatha.
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Haha very clever Geo. If there was a movie called Satan Santa I would watch it, I imagine it would be quite entertaining :P
ReplyDeleteThanks Lizzy. I can't imagine what such a movie would be about but I'd sure watch it too!
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I had a classmate in high school whose first name was Faust. He preferred to go by his middle name, David, for some strange reason.
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I never realized the Santa-Satan thing before. Sneaky...This story is so funny...I can easily see it being made into something bigger. Santa/Satan takes care of ALL the kids, good AND bad, LOL!Well, Helen of Troy was stolen from her husband by Paris, who was also called Alexander(previous post), and that started the Trojan War --so Faust was right to go running to his mommy and your classmate was wise to call himself David, another story in another mythic structure, rather than get mixed up with them apples. And now I'm thoroughly confused! I think they should All have department store workshops.
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I always knew there was a connection... And Santa's cold adobe is much like Satan's hell in Dante's imagination, where he's frozen at the bottom of hell.
ReplyDeletehttps://fromarockyhillside.com
or
sagecoveredhills.blogspot.com
Dear Jeff, When I was little I climbed upstairs to my father's library and got into "Dante's Inferno" --illustrated by Gustave Dore. I perused for an hour the adventures of Dante and poet Virgil, then fainted. I think they gained Hell's 9th ring on the wings of some monster, which I liked, only to find people frozen, aware and in pain forever. Afterwards I was still ok with the yearly family visit to the traveling circus because our Memorial Auditorium could accommodate only 3 rings, and Sacramentans were happy there.
DeleteI have a different view. Saying Saint Nicholas quickly with a bit of an accent gives you Santnclas. Some might interpret this to be Santa Claus.
ReplyDeleteDear Emma, I do believe you've nailed the wonderful mutability of human language. Sometimes details are absorbed in accents without loss of meaning.
DeleteWe saw a movie "Santa Claus vs. Satan", about as bad as a movie can be. Funny, though.
ReplyDeleteDear Susan, I recall, from our local newspaper's entertainment section in the 1950s and early 60s a regular selection of "Santa" spoof films that I never saw --like the one you mention involving the Devil. There were others like "Santa vs...Martians" that came later and ushered out a delightful trend. Saw some of them and bemoan the puritanical correctness that left them in the past.
DeleteI've never seen them in the same room...
ReplyDeleteNor have I, which suggests the possibility of them being each the secret identity of the other. Elementary, my dear Lisa. Even generous spirits and rebellious fallen angels need vacations.
Deleteyou make me laugh and shake my head at the same time
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear JACKIESUE, but please use cautious moderation with simultaneous head-shaking and laughing. It usually makes me fall down and forget who I am --especially when using the tv remote.
DeleteIt's sad how commercialism has changed what should be a sacred day into what it is now.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Indeed, Victor, on top of his defiance of Emperor Claudius --refusing to renounce his religion-- Valentine reportedly restored sight to his jailer's blind daughter. He was then beheaded. I guess sainthood doesn't come cheaply.
DeleteI had no idea what you were talking about until I went down some of the rabbit holes you planted. I'm still not very clear, but I'm humming The Devil Went Down to Georgia and contemplating politics and tomorrow I'm going to say Que Cera Cera at least 10 times, possibly while waiting in line for my Covid test.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, Connie Francis (I think) popularized a song by that title. "What will be will be" was much heard in company. Later, it was "c'est la vie", and all us wags would chorus "La Vee, La Vee!"
DeleteI remember that song and now I am humming it probably for the rest of the night..whatever will be will be....and swaying
DeleteWhile your mind might work in strange and unusual ways, Geo, it adds to the delight of your posts. This imaged conversation was very entertaining.
ReplyDeleteDear Beatrice, thank you. A most kind and generous comment. Much appreciated.
DeleteLOL ~ But after a year stuck inside this house, our farthest forays to get Covid vaccinations, I cannot come up with any stellar comment. My brain feels like mush. Yours remains funny and enigmatic.
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