[Psychonaut]

Happy 100th birthday!

[Mafia]

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
Happy 100th birthday!

young looking for 100.

[deej5871]

That's weird you mention her. I was just at the library with my sister earlier because she has to read The Fountainhead so that she can apply for this one scholarship.

Worlds are colliding!

[KeriVit]

I was better off not knowing what she looked like...

[spiky_dog]

Originally posted by KeriVit:
I was better off not knowing what she looked like...

ditto.

what scholarship requires one to read the fountainhead? is it from some objectivist group?

[deej5871]

Originally posted by spiky_dog:
what scholarship requires one to read the fountainhead? is it from some objectivist group?

Yeah. It's apparently from the Ayn Rand Institute, and is aptly named "The Fountainhead Essay Contest" or something like that.

[iMOTOR]

"Reading sucks a$$"

[Face Ache]

Happy spawnday!

[Cubeoid]

Isn't this woman madly hated on these forums?

[TailsToo]

[Millennium]

Originally posted by deej5871:
I was just at the library with my sister earlier because she has to read The Fountainhead...

My condolences. I've read several of her philosophical treatises (poorly disguised as novels). IMHO the only decent fiction she ever wrote was Anthem, and The Fountainhead was by far the worst of the lot.

[ReggieX]

Did she wake up, see the shadow of the oppressive liberal elites, and return underground for six months more Objectivist study?

[roberto blanco]

"what is good about it isn't very original, and what is original about it, - isn't very good." ~ o. wilde

[KeyLimePi]

You know, I read Atlas Shrugged like 15 years ago and for a long time it seemed everything I encountered went through my 'Hank Reardon/John Galt' mental filter. Even now I'd bet hardly a month goes by that I don't recall some small thing from that book.

[MacNStein]

Originally posted by Cubeoid:
Isn't this woman madly hated on these forums?

No.

[Timo]

"I seek to reach the men of intellect, where ever such may still be found."
...for my cult...


In the realm of architecture at least the Fountainheadache is responsible for an awful lot of unhappiness and broken dreams, in that lots of folks took Rand's teenager fantasies to heart.

[spiky_dog]

Originally posted by KeyLimePi:
You know, I read Atlas Shrugged like 15 years ago and for a long time it seemed everything I encountered went through my 'Hank Reardon/John Galt' mental filter. Even now I'd bet hardly a month goes by that I don't recall some small thing from that book.

if you're ever in downtown palo alto poke around a bit. there's a company there actually called "rearden steel"...

http://www.google.com/search?q=reard...8&oe=utf-8

[itistoday]

Originally posted by Millennium:
...and The Fountainhead was by far the worst of the lot.

Care to explain? I'm only about a quarter into it right now, but so far I like it.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by itistoday:
Care to explain? I'm only about a quarter into it right now, but so far I like it.

A quarter into it, huh? Hmm; OK, you probably haven't reached it yet, but you should soon. You'll know it when you see it; I'd rather not spoil things.

[Psychonaut]

Originally posted by Timo:
In the realm of architecture at least the Fountainheadache is responsible for an awful lot of unhappiness and broken dreams, in that lots of folks took Rand's teenager fantasies to heart.

"It remains, however, all too common for a young person to be told that his interest in Ayn Rand is a stage he will soon grow out of. 'It's fine to believe in that now,' the refrain goes, 'but wait until you're older. You'll discover that life is not like that.'

"But when one actually considers the essence of what Rand teaches, the accusation that her philosophy is childish over-simplification stands as condemnation not of her ideas but of the adult world from which the accusation stems.

"The key to Rand's popularity is that she appeals to the idealism of youth. She wrote in 1969: 'There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days--the conviction that ideas matter.' The nature of this conviction? 'That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters. And the radiance of that certainty, in the process of growing up, is the best aspect of youth.'"

-- Dr. Onkar Ghate

[demograph68]

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
'There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days--the conviction that ideas matter.

... and some ideas suck.

[Simon X]

The film (Fountainhead) with Gary Cooper was hilarious. It hasn't dated well.

[ironknee]

She loved America, especially NYC. Her first office was in the Empire State Building because it symbolized everything American.

She would be seen wearing a brotch of the symbol, $

fyi Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, when younger, was a part of Rand's inner circle, ironiclly called the Collective.

[scottiB]

Originally posted by Millennium:
IMHO the only decent fiction she ever wrote was Anthem, and The Fountainhead was by far the worst of the lot.

Yeah, because she wrote the same thing in Anthem's 80 pages as she did in Fountainhead's 600 or so and Atlas Shrugged's 1100. It's the same plot-theme just made larger.

On the whole, I like Atlas best; it shows America in the late 40s and early 50s, and I like the train plot line.

But once Rearden or Galt or Roark begins a multi-page treatise, I don't even bother skimming--I just turn to where they shut-up. And that's Rand's problem: the character needs to show not tell or bang me over the fricking head with it.

That said: I see or meet or read someone like Ellsworth Twohy once a week.

[chris v]

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
Happy 100th birthday!

Can you imagine what that photographer went through getting her to actually smile?

[alligator]

I read the Fountainhead and liked it a lot. Big book though. I also applied for that scholarship, but didn't get it. That was about 13 years ago. Wow.