Robert Jones

Funny how the pre-Raphaelities actually borrowed a lot of their technique from Raphael.

While I am on a David Mamet roll, I am now reading his excellent new book, "The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews." Powerful stuff: He takes aim at the self-hating Jew, the Noam Chomsky types who claim they are anti-Israel, but magically not anti-Semitic. His message is that faithful or atheist, lapsed or orthodox, while one might not consider himself Jewish, his enemies certainly WILL, and do not make such trifling differentiations. He makes a great case both for filial loyalty and for the state of Israel's right to exist and defend herself as a nation.

...she makes me cry. :cry: seriously, like that. In my opinion, Moonlight Sonata is one of the best classical pieces out there, as well as being one of the most famous. How can she not know who it is? It perplexes and saddens me. "Moonlight Sonata"? Never heard of it. Was it a filler song on a Justin Timberlake CD? Or was that Jessica Simpson?

I imagine if people were not reading anything, they'd just not answer. As far as Jenna's thread is concerned, I did not at all infer from it that the Bolshevik Revolution was a reaction to Naziism, but rather her reply seemed to deal with why people became communists in America during the "Red Decade."

Sorry, this is the kind of thing I do after a couple Southern Comforts and sodas.

I think it is because Neil does not have a personal stake in the matter that he can be more, er, objective. It is sad to see that PARC has become a litmus test on judging one's loyalty to the Objectivist movement. I have not read it, but have followed all the arguments in blogs and message boards, even at amazon. I have not read the book, simply for the reason that I don't feel the overwhelming need to be convinced of Barbara and Nathaniel Brandens' sinister deceptions any more than I have the overwhelming need to be convinced of Ayn Rand's moral and philosophical perfection. Both, frankly, are laughably cartoonish caricatures. What I do have an overwhelming need for is to see discourse that is both civil and productive; it appears that PARC is merely an extended "gotcha" book, and until someone can convince me otherwise, I will not put it in queue on my reading list (there are at least 200 books ahead of it). Until then, I am not impressed. I did read both of the books written by the Brandens when they first were issued, and did not believe them to be attacks on Rand's character or philosophy at all, but rather quite honest and open books. Flawed, yes, but fair. Only a zealot would take those books as hit pieces, and it was zealotry that drew me away from official Objectivism.

I liked Sabbath better when Ronnie James Dio was singing.

If pressed for ONE, however.... Sibelius's 7th Symphony. In 21 minutes, it says more than Beethoven or Mahler did in their overlong symphonies, IMHO.

Oh, gosh, that's a lot to ask. I have maybe 15 pieces vying for "favorite" classical piece at any given time. To narrow it down.... Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7, Tapiola Bernard Herrmann: Sinfionetta for String Orchestra, For the Fallen Piotr Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini, Serenade for Strings Sergei Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Symphonic Dances Alexander Scriabin: Poem d'Extase Richard Wagner: Bruennhilde's Immolation Scene, "Good Friday Spell" from Parsifal Johannes Brahms: Violin Concerto, Academic Festival Overture, Piano Concerto No. 1 Gustav Mahler: Symphonies Nrs. 2, 9 Hans Werner Henze: Undine Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Finale to Don Giovanni, Piano Concerto No. 20 Claude Debussy: Iberia, La Mer Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations, Cello Concerto Nino Rota: Symphony No. 1 Antonin Dvorak: Symphonies Nrs. 6, 8 Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, Alborada del Gracioso Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7, Piano Concerto No. 4 Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings, School for Scandal Overture Cesar Franck: Symhony, Psyche and Eros Ennio Morricone: Music from "Il Buono, Il Bruto, Il Cattivo" Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring Miklos Roszca: Violin Concerto Franz Liszt: Totentanz, Les Preludes Erik Satie: Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear, Gymnopaedies Giaccomo Puccini: La Boheme

Reading essays by David Mamet, "Writing in Restaurants."

TOO LONG!!!! How about.... A=A ?

I think "chewing on ideas" will be too labor intensive for the iPod generation. Perhaps we can dumb-down objectivism with "idea smoothies," so that concepts can be truncated to the length and breadth of a bumper sticker.

P.S. : Although I'm a non-smoker, I'll be there with my dollar-sign smokes, and dashing black cape as well! :devil:

On the other hand, sci-fi movies with overt "futuristic" sets tend to pidgeonhole the movie into a sci-fi rut. ?I would prefer a more subtle, "future indeterminate" look, such as with "Gattaca," in which the future looked a lot like 1963 Sweden.

Yup. Nothing like being thrown out of the comfort zone! I guess that means the Republican Party hasn't been informed of that then.

This is why I think Chuck Heston would have been a great Howard Roark: "It's a MADHOUSE!!!! A MADHOUSE!!!!"

I would suggest, Elizabeth, that you may have hit upon something: What are getting at has to do with the realm of metaphysics -- which can quite accurately be described as a set of laws (an "unseen order," perhaps) which govern existence. Materialists vehemently disagree with this conception of a governing force over reality. I do believe that if there is such a thing as metaphysics, to a degree it has to be taken on faith.

Well, I don't like Lenny Peikoff in the main because he's sort of got this Norman Bates quality of having taken Mother (or, the philosophy of Objectivism and Ayn Rand's legacy), and filled it up with sawdust, and put in glass eyeballs, etc. Thus, while the slowly-rotting taxidermized corpse of Objectivism is ostensibly "pure," it is nonetheless beyond the stages of atrophy and rigor mortis. And, it kinda smells, too. Besides that, I have nothing against Leonard Peikoff. His speaking style was better in the 1980s, before he first took over the Bates Motel, er, I mean the Ayn Rand Institute. But it has become, shall we say, a bit shrill as of late: That business about endorsing evil if one votes for Republicans was way out of left field, and a very paranoiac way of viewing politics. And I'm not saying that because I'm a Republican, because I'm not; I'm a Democrat. But, stating that the goal of ALL the politicians in the Republican Party is to impose a theocracy on the rest of us is irresponsible. If he meant it facetiously(a la Bill Maher or Michael Moore), I could've chuckled, and taken it for what it's worth. But he really believes this stuff 100% seriously..... It's as though he lives all alone in a musty house atop a hill, having done nothing for 25 years but tend to the needs of his mummy (pun intended). Seriously, Peikoff lives in the real world as much as does the Scientology crowd.

Ha ha !!! I love the one about Rachmaninoff vs. Tschaikowsky! LOL I have a 26th, a line I use in relation to Nathaniel Branden's book "The Six Pillars of Self Esteem." When it came out, I showed it to my wife and assured her "I only need ONE pillar of self-esteem to make you happy, baby"! ;)

Ellen: Please consider the context of exactly when "Atlas Shrugged" was published, in 1957. For its time, it was rather -- please forgive the pun-- randy, as was "The Fountainhead." Also, in over-analysing Rand, it is possible to lsoe sight she was a Romantic, not a Naturalist (although she did from time to time, employ Naturalistic description in her novels, esp. "The Fountainhead" in her description of the town of Stanton, etc.). She held an especial disdain for the laundry-list making of journalistic approaches to the novel. Even in a Naturalist's novel, descriptions of the characters' sex lives are better when dealing with their romantic exploits rather than the minutiae of their workaday sexual history. This is why Sinclair Lewis's novel "Dodsworth" seems more modern than the more sexually graphic "Ann Vickers." In the former, more old-fashioned "boudoir" scenes make up the entirety of its sexual content, albeit frankly discussed; in the latter, Lewis seems to almost catalogue Ann's sexual contacts, her menstruation is obliquely mentioned and the reasons for her abortion are discussed. "Vickers" comes off feeling not so much alluring as clinical, which is why "Dodsworth" is remembered as one of Lewis's best novels, and "Ann Vickers" is regarded as missing the mark. Thank God Ayn Rand did not get "clinical" in Atlas Shrugged!

Most of what I have is on vinyl, but here is some of the best of what's available on CD: Schuber: 24 Lieder (EMI) The Very Best of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf (EMI) Songs You Love by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (EMI) Wagner: Goetterdaemmerung Bayrueth Festspiel Orchestra (Melodram) Mozart: Don Giovanni. w/Philharmonia Orchestra, Giulini (EMI) Elizabeth Schwarzkopf: Mozart Arias (EMI)

One of my personal flaws is that I will never read anything objectivists write about "chewing on ideas." It is sad, but nonetheless true. Not that I mind the concept, or the analogy, but I have a very vivid imagination. I first encountered the term "chewing" in a Leonard Peikoff taped lecture. Ever since then, I could not help but to form images in my head of Leonard Peikoff spelling out concepts with Alpha Bits cereal letters, and then chewing on them. Chewing ceaselessly, the processed oat cereal grinding between his molars.... ....the milk dribbling from his chin.... ....his eyes opening and closing in sync behind his TV set glasses.... ....all the while, he doesn't stop his lecture, he just talks and talks and talks. That's why I have an aversion to that phrase from the objectivist lexicon.

I've seen that poster, but never noticed which book she was holding! Was too busy looking elsewhere on her person. ;)

Edward Elgar's 9th "Enigma" Variation, "Nimrod" (after A.J. Jaeger), as conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, with the Halle Orchestra. I can listen to it over and over again, and I close my eyes, and in my mind's eye I see the great Sir Winston Churchill, seated, stogey in hand, stern and resolute as photographed by Youssef Karsh, hearing him intoning these immortal lines from Shakespeare's Richard II: This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by nature for herself, Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in a silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

It's not as if she were Leni Riefenstahl, who used concentration camp prisoners as extras in a drama she directed, or make a documelodrama glorifying Hitler. Schwarzkopf was a soprano for crying out loud! (Still, even when approaching a Riefenstahl work of legitimate artistic and technical excellence os "Olympia," even despite her ambiguous Nazi associations, one has to approach it almost exclusively from the POV of an artist, not propagandist. but, I digress). I listenened again to my recording of Don Giovanni (conducted by Giulini) and she was magnificent in it! While not as dramatic as Flagstad, Schwarzkopf had this achingly beautiful purity of tone I've not heard in any other soprano, and she could hit the coloratura notes without cracking.