Louis Rukeyser's interview with Ayn Rand

[9thdoctor]

Someone's just uploaded this to YouTube. I haven't seen it before, though it was transcribed as the last part of the book Objectively Speaking. There's not much to it. This was her actual last public appearance, coming right after the Sanction of the Victims talk. She looks a little better here, and that's probably just the lighting.

This actually makes me nostalgic for Louis Rukeyser, I used to watch him every week.

[Kyle Jacob Biodrowski]

This is a treasure. She was succint and clear, especially given her poor health.

[Brant Gaede]

It would appear she had recovered from any URI she got from her trip to New Orleans, but notice her rather quick, shallow breathing. I believe that would be indicative of congestive heart failure she probably died from. CHF probably came out of her smoking.

She was still mentally sharp. Mentally she was perhaps at the very top of her game in the very early 1960s judging from some extremporaneous material I once read that went on for paragraph after paragraph I can no longer reference.

In her coffin she looked 20 even 30 years younger and I was surprised by how small she was therein even though I had seen her many times in life. The former is part of an undertaker's art, I suppose.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Rand looks dreadful. And no wonder. At the time of the interview she -was- on Death's Door. Very sad. I saw her in the flesh in 1968 and she was a live wire then.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Backlighting]

Hopefully, her appearance on the Les Crane Show will surface on Youtube.