Greybird

What I want to say to those in the crowds I've seen tonight, at Ground Zero and on Pennsylvania Avenue: Will bin Laden's death bring back one life lost among the military or civilians? Will it restore one ambition, hope, or plan for the future dashed by a trillion dollars in taxes and inflation? No? Then stop exulting and waving the damn flags. A crawling pest was exterminated, and it has the same importance as wielding a can of Raid. Now let's restore the Bill of Rights and be done with it.

Well, the taxidermists and makeup artists now have their moment for artifice in flesh. After the Photoshop experts strutted their stuff last week on paper. Wonder what Obama paid both sets of 'em. {/inevitable_cynicism}

Well, I don't know about the "sceptre," given what was hidden by that red uniform. But it's clear that the genetics of Kate Middleton's family ended up allowing her to provide a quite respectable pair of "orbs" for the ceremony {rat-a-tat-BING} ... Love-er-ley dress, dear! Lest we forget the true import of this day (hat tip to J. Kent Hastings) — Twue Wuve usuawy is vewy expenshive fowe de beweagered taxpayers when de ruwwing mediocwities have to be "pwotected" fwum de former empwowees of Militawy "Intewigence," now known as "terrowists."

I would suggest actually watching that channel and deciding for oneself. What a concept, in Objectiv-ish circles! Try actually viewing what you're talking about, as a wild and crazy experiment. It's easier than ever to do so. Not only does english.aljazeera.net stream its English broadcasts, many local nonprofit and PBS stations are carrying half-hour news digests on digital over-the-air sub-channels. I was impressed with their even-handed coverage and risking of personal life and limb, not just in reporting (despite Arab government repression!) from venues such as Tahrir Square in Cairo, but on such stories as the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan. In the latter cases, they got local detail and flavor that I never saw on "our" hype-and-celebrity-obsessed media. It was different and distinctly refreshing. The original posting is an "argument" from the unseen, for anyone here who doesn't speak Arabic, and I'm sure that takes in most of us. It also equivocates between desires and actual bullets. (And doesn't distinguish between feelings toward Jews, as such, and those toward Zionists.)

Yeah, it clearly was machismo. If not toward Rand herself, then at her being a screenwriting employee of Hal Wallis, whom Warner had run out of the studio six years earlier, after two decades of collaboration. Barbara Branden wrote about the cutting of that line from Roark's courtroom speech — "I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others" — that Rand felt at the premiere: And I remember, in the moment of reading this, that I wanted to reach back to 1949, grab Rand on both her shoulders, shake her vigorously, and say (to this effect): Destroyed? You have no reason to believe that. You dealt with Woods's trashing of your play. You've seen Hollywood from the inside for twenty years. You knew what mediocrities do to nastily assert their prerogatives when they can't win an argument. And yet you got your ideas onto the screen. Why are you letting this affect your own appraisal of your own written creation? And its depiction through the work of other talented creators? You got more, in this culture, than you had any right to expect. Far more. Then I might have, a la Cher with Nicolas Cage in "Moonstruck," slapped her and said, Snap out of it! (But, no, I don't believe in initiating force {rueful smile} ... still, I wish Nathaniel, who actually was in a position to do something similar, had done that by mid-1958, about another creation.) Anyway, I remember that being the first time (of several) in reading Barbara's Passion "plot" / narrative — and it often reads like a work of fiction, with the tropes of fiction — that I wanted Rand to drop what was, especially in her, an unbecoming and worthless attitude, that of self-pity. If ever a writer existed who had no excuse for it, it was Ayn Rand.

Well, she didn't do so in her book — but she did, somewhat, in her screenplay: Roark brings the drunken Cameron from the street into his office, who then rants, "You took over when I gave it up. My — my heir, eh?" (His emphasis.) He then points to Roark's mere four buildings thus far, pictured on the walls of the office; predicts that the world will defeat Roark; waxes wroth about a world ruled by "Gail Wynand's Banner, the foulest newspaper on Earth," and then collapses. So Rand wasn't quite "appalled" enough to forego using that formulation, or something close to it, though she put it in Cameron's mouth, and Roark doesn't at all contradict him. Edit: I checked the DVD to be sure I quoted and described this correctly. The post below quotes my original post, which had my recollection of it. I didn't want to misrepresent anything. In context (about three minutes into the film), the "heir"-ship referred to here is that of ideas and principles, of an "intellectual" sort, at least in relation to the theory and practice of architecture, and not merely that of Cameron's papers and records. Clearly, Rand was warming to such a formulation.

Paul Beaird, who appears to be the writer and editor for the estimable Objectivist student newspaper Ergo at MIT for many years, has shown up on the Kickstarter site for this movie. He first was praising it lavishly, and then he withdrew his praise because Valliant has supposedly shown the Brandens' betrayal of Rand, et cetera, ad nauseam. My reply to him in the site's comment section is below. Come on, folks, especially those of you who were disgusted by Valliant's opus: Pledge at least ten dollars, earning you a digital download, so you can show Duncan Scott he's not alone. You can manage that, can't you?

The answer to the thread-topic question is "Yes." Whether help or hindrance depends on the context: what the message is, who is delivering it, who is likely to listen, and what the working definition is of "liberty." I doubt that'll be settled in any of these respects in one evening, but having known the formidable Mrs. Enright, I wouldn't bet against her.

Be honest, folks. If condescension were a shooting offense, all Objectiv-ish forums would have run out of bullets years ago. (I usually see that as being inevitable, given Rand's personality and rhetorical style.) In the present instance, so many are — or are presumed to be — scrambling up the sides of Mount Olympus that it's become impossible to trace them without a scorecard. If, apropos of recent thoughts, you'll pardon that expression. This being the "garbage pile" — a moniker and destination I never cared for — I'm not inclined to scrabble through the stale coffee grounds (as in being hopped up) and moldy banana peels (as in rhetorically slipping on same) to try to find one. Why not find something more productive to chew on? Determinism hasn't been espoused or eviscerated in the last hour or so, unlike every three-minute interval before that on the last 20 years of the ObjectiNet. (That was meant to be wearily sardonic, not condescending.)

Not me, though I think there'd better be a few drinks in each of us, when next we meet, before I tell you where "Greybird" is derived from ...

Barbara, your saying this touched me, and reminded me of what had consciously gone through my mind late last week. And which I haven't seen anyone say, and which — even with the intimation of mortality — has to be said: I am delighted that this finally came to the big screen while you — and Nathaniel — were here to see it and to be swept up in it. It should have been possible for the author herself to have been sitting beside the two of you. And now, tomorrow, after my submitting for the time being to the firepower of the State (filing tax returns), I go off to a matinee showing of a movie that exemplifies the opposite. (With the company of Neil Schulman, as it happens.) I'll next post, after my own wait of a mere third of a century, my own reaction.

I was going to say that I reject the premise ... but screw it. Deism — it was merely good enough for Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, and it didn't get in the way of their achieving, oh, a few things of value.

What I'd especially like to see is Sterling Silliphant's mid-'70s finished teleplay for an Atlas miniseries, which he wrote with considerable input from Rand. Galt's radio speech was turned into a fifteen-minute TV speech, the length (then) of one act between commercials. The project was canceled with a change in executive regimes at NBC, but it nonetheless was the only one that got to the stage of a finished screenplay or teleplay. I'm not sure we could divine that much from Rand's own take, which was only one-third finished at the time she passed.

NOBODY in the entire STATE of California uses turn signals. (I know that's a generalization, but 95-percent-plus is reasonable evidence of a correlation. I'm in the 5 percent.)

That thread title makes this link irresistible. From deviantART, with artist's comment: Ayn Rand's Swagger by LackingInCharm Ayn Rand and her hip-hop crew are f**king s**t up in the rap world, using rhymes born out of hip Objectivism-type slang. Watch out Wu-Tang.

The first midnight showings here in Los Angeles let out two hours ago. They already have a baker's dozen of pro reviews linked on Rotten Tomatoes. And the RT rating for this movie is currently ... zero percent. Oh-for-13. Did you expect anything different? The reviews are not hatchet jobs, by and large. Most regret what had been done with the book on screen, and at least acknowledge the novel's importance, though many note their disagreements with it. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle decries its quality but finds it entertaining nonetheless, saying he's ready to see Part II right now, possibly to make up for this one. Others decry waste or amateurism, and note expectations are likely to be dashed. These include Roger Ebert, Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal (two paragraphs in a multiple-openings-today overview), and Michael Phillips, in both the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times — which movie-colony paper didn't assign any of its own three critics. These are not money reviews. They are, however, notably mixed and show some signs of the reviewers wanting to try to find elements that are worthwhile, which is more generosity of spirit than is lent to many productions. Nearly all praise the focus and acting quality of Taylor Schilling as Dagny. ... Well, somebody had to be the first to post this. Don't kill the (insomniac) messenger, please.

Kurt Loder pans damn near everything. He's a cultural-critic functional equivalent to a near-nihilist. I fail to grasp how so many media and individuals persist in describing him as "a libertarian." No one taking that much delight in denigration, unleavened even by wit, deserves the moniker. Scroll down to the bottom of that page for a set of links to "additional Reason coverage" that clearly was inserted at the behest of the editors and other staff, who patently disagree with Loder.

After four months on the Internet I am still learning the language. Thread Drift is what I formerly thought of as Conversation. Thread drift isn't at all a bad thing, as such. It gets byways of intriguing thought onto the discussion table that we wouldn't know about otherwise. It only becomes less helpful when a thread is intended for a more utilitarian or functional purpose. As for its being "conversation," that generally is better suited to real-time chat rooms, whether on Webpages or through channels such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC). More linear and more considered thoughts work better in a forum such as this. Not that the two categories won't overlap, but it's a matter of trying to use tools to fit their intended design. If you frequently use a screwdriver as a crowbar, it'll get chipped and won't stay in the screwhead slots. If too much thread drift occurs, any more direct purpose soon gets lost.

Yeah, Steve, keep posting them as you find them. I don't mind reading through all the unrelated stuff that's now on the thread - some of it is even interesting - but I'm very strongly interested in the mission you had in mind when you established the thread. I can't say I really had any "mission" beyond decluttering. Dozens of threads, started for each review, become a real trial. It also, I thought, would concentrate matters of assessing what elements of praise or criticism were being raised repeatedly. That's easier to compare among reviews when they're in one thread. Unfortunately, I consistently underestimate thread drift, and have done so for nearly thirty years on the Net, from precursors such as CompuServe onward. Constant dwelling on personalities in the O-milieu doesn't help.

Enough of Lindsay Perigo's esthetics and predilections. Please spare us. I'm not going to post or link to any more reviews (the ostensible purpose of this thread, after all). Nobody appears to notice them.

Films are rarely delivered to multiplexes (especially those built within the last decade) on, well, film any more. When they are shown, they're typically opened in several theaters at once, and later moved to the smaller theaters as interest diminishes. Multiple simultaneous showings or changes of venue aren't easily done with reels of film, as striking the prints in the first place is hugely expensive. Most theaters have gone to digital distribution, where the movie is sent to each multiplex as an ultra-high-resolution file, usually over a private network. Digital projection systems show the film in each theater, controlled by a single office worker, rather than projectionists. Smaller and older theaters, of course, still have projectors. And any project that doesn't have the clout of a typical national "wide" opening — such as "Scream 4," opening on at least 3,000 screens this Friday — won't justify using the digital distribution system, which does have its own costs. So for such venues and movies, actual film prints are still struck. The producers are undoubtedly ready to serve up a digitally-distributed version if "Atlas I" adds screens in the coming weeks, but getting into that network will take considerable persuasion and, probably, a hefty up-front fee from Aglialoro.

That's not the Times's review, which typically runs on opening day. It's a backgrounder article which, again typically, appears the Sunday before an opening, for any film which has generated unusual buzz or involves many industry players. This city being the Movie Colony, and the Times's entertainment coverage (which is one of its few true strengths) being what the movers and shakers peruse over their Sunday croissants.

The first major review has appeared, in Variety. It is not favorable, and not from the reviewer disliking or disrespecting the book, as his first phrase attests. This last element had always worried me. Without enough backstory, it's not easy for newcomers to the novel to keep Rand's huge cast straight, as to inner motivations and subtleties of character interactions. (Atlas needed a treatment in Cliffs Notes well before its having been in print for 40 years, which is about when it got one.) Debruge concludes, "For the record, the onscreen title reads 'Atlas Shrugged,' sans any 'Part I' delineation." They would do well to include a "To Be Continued ..." closing title, but I've gathered that many in the industry see this as presumptuous — or somehow jinx-inducing. It would be more honest, though. It's not as if this isn't well known already to be the first of a planned trilogy. Unlike, say, "Back to the Future," which had plans for its two sequels (shot back-to-back) develop only after its box-office success, with a "To Be Continued ..." only being added when it appeared on video.

From that history (the fullest summary yet of the travails in bringing this to the screen) and on-the-set report, this comment from the director: That attitude augurs very well for this movie, methinks. Anyone who'd even consider the absurdity of shaping such a film according to what's called for on Objectivist Living — or SOLO Passion or Speicher's fan-site or Objectivism Online, for that matter — would be certifiably insane. Fandoms are not creative. Individuals are.