Very interesting, thinketh both Host and Indweller

[mesila]

The choronzon.org/involution.org mailservers seem to be on crack right now. Overheated and positive-ion atmosphere today, yuck.

Memo to choronzon333 - since I can't mail you with this information, I thought you as well might find this interesting, in regards to both Panic Pandemic and New World Chaos and their various yet connected themata:

"Lethal Text"

Comments

[hurricanecarol]

I have tried to make it through Atlas Shrugged at least twice and my dad was a big fan of Rand who kept trying to get me to read the thing. I am a voracious reader, but alas, these books defied my ability to get past the first 100 pages. Not knocking her philosophy - there are some concepts there that have merit - but I much prefer someone like Orwell who gets his message across in well...less words. Efficiency in words is a very desirable quality as far as I am concerned and while Ayn could think, she couldn't write. Period. Maybe I'll give her a whirl again when I am 60, but for now, should I ever run into her in some parallel universe, I will have to scold her soundly... "Less words, Ayn. Less words!"

[paulkienitz]

Why didn't Atlas Shrugged get made into a movie? Because Rand insisted that not one word of the 150 page speech where whatsisname addresses the nation be cut.

I haven't read that, but I have read The Fountainhead (and it was my dad who gave it to me) and she struck me very much like one of those tiresome S&M people who thinks that S&M-ness is the truth of everything and everyone who doesn't see life in those terms is just kidding themselves.

[hurricanecarol]

Glad I never read it then. I have only had her thoughts and ideas explained to me by the "true believers" and fans. The idea of personal responsibility is a good one (which, as I understand it, was part of her ideal), but it needs to be balanced by the concept of mutual aid. I have no idea where she stood on that part of it because the excruciating nature of her prose was prohibitive of actually accessing her point. I even tried skip-reading to other parts of the book to see if it was just one of those "slow starters." It wasn't..it was a slow start, a slow middle, and for all I know, a slow end. 150 page speech? Holy crap! Where is a hard-nosed editor when you need one?

[mesila]

I think C-East is testing my will by recommending the Ayn Rand. Also as some kind of general counter balancer. It's hard to explain...

[hurricanecarol]

I'll be interested in reading your take on it when you finish it. Will you post a "review?"

[mesila]

Of course!

I see you are finally waking up over there. Yell Choronzon! really, really loud because our server is down and I have to ask the other member of Choronzon something. (And figure out something to call him, because this is getting SO confusing.)

[hurricanecarol]

Something to call him...hmmmm...does he respond well to, "Yo, Big Dude!" Methinks he has a rich sense of humor so perhaps...

Re waking up...oh yes...wait until I post on the weekend I just had...lots of thoroughly delightful noise, chaos and community. I was going to post it last night but was thoroughly exhausted from spending about 2 hours banging on the metal barricades the city of St. Pete so kindly put up - with a cow bell and about 6 other musicians who were using everything from "C" clamps to car keys to drum sticks. I have the feeling Choronzon would really enjoy the sound :-)

[choronzon333]

You can call me Ishmael

[mesila]

Yeah, what he said.

It was all the hell she went through with Communism in her youth, it would be analogous to me writing the Great American Anti-Corporatist Novel that explained, using really flattened yet exaggerated big screen characters because I had it in my head people needed to have that to appreciate it since they were weaned on lame movies. Not a totally perfect metaphor but close enough. She had passion. I remember really enjoying Anthem when I was 17 but I totally misinterpreted it.

[mesila]

That little cattie in your new icon here looks so much like Waa...like what she would have looked like as a kitten. Damn it, I miss my little girl so much. Is this your cat?

[mesila]

Your server be down. (I know, isn't it fun? I just got mine back this morning.)

[choronzon333]

she is about passion

Thank you.