Thursday, December 9, 2010

A Treasure Trove of Rand-Related Media

Two pages of aural crack:

The Ayn Rand Media Library - Lectures and Interviews. I particularly enjoy Rand's method of answering questions in Q&As. "To start with, the package deal we are asked to accept here is the following: ..." - just one example of how she unrooted premises and assumptions contained in questions.

Video and Audio - All sorts of testimonials and analyses of Rand the person. A wonderful companion book is the newly-released 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand. Combined with the Letters and the Journals and the rest, you end up (assuming you aren't irreparably cynical, nihilistic or comprachico-ized) with a hero-worshipping attitude toward this wonderful human being. You end up nearly incredulous at how the widespread smears and misrepresentations and not-getting-it had gone on for SO FUCKING LONG! WHAT ON EARTH IS WRONG WITH ALL THOSE PEOPLE????? (Thanks a lot, again, Nathan, you screamingly vicious monster.)

I have what you could call a "soft" deadline on my book, but this material is just too good to pass up and not spend the extra time on; it will have been worth it.