P.S. Resistance Was Futile

 

Reminder: A Love Supreme was recorded on December 9th, 1964. Give it a spin in honor of its 57th Anniversary.

Another Reason Not To Buy From Amazon

My aversion to Amazon (no purchases other than via Gift Certificates which were given to me in the past year) is because they failed to assist me when someone used my credit card fraudulently, even though (1) it was an Amazon card and (2) they had information about the person who committed the fraudulent purchases, but refused to give that information to me. And I'm sure that they couldn't care less, but it gives me some satisfaction to know that they have lost a couple of thousand dollars a year from me. 

By the way, I've spoken to several friends who have also been ripped off via their Amazon account. So check those credit card records carefully, brahs and tahs. The way it works is they make very small purchases...like $2.99 or so...so that when it shows up it doesn't attract your attention...and on the credit card account page it doesn't give you any information about the purchase, so you're tempted to look at it, see "Amazon," and think, "I wonder what that was?" (if that). One of the fraudulent purchases on my account was for a month of Amazon Prime. 

Also by the way, when I called to ask about these small purchases, about a dozen Amazon people told me that it was not a fraudulent purchase at all, don't worry. So that's another reason not to want to deal with these motherfuckers.

But that's not what I wanted to write about today. Today I was breezing through Walmart, looking for some headphones for my son for his birthday (a purchase which would formerly have been made at Amazon, of course), and I saw a copy of John Coltrane's A Love Superme on vinyl. Blue vinyl. Well. They had me at Coltrane. Also, the 57th Anniversary of the recording of A Love Supreme is coming up (December 9th if you want to mark your calendar--and yes, the whole album was recorded in one day), and I don't have the slightest idea where my CD of it is. Besides, it should really be on vinyl, right? Preferably blue vinyl. * So I really REALly wanted it...but it was kind of pricey...

                             ...so I reluctantly put it back on the shelf. Went to look for headphones. Didn't find what I wanted. Circled back for another look and feel at / of the Coltrane. Put it back. Walked towards the front of the store. Stopped. No. Left the store.

When I got home I decided that I'd see how much the album was going for on Amazon, purely for comparison's sake. (Unless I happened to get an Amazon gift card for Christmas, of course.) I was surprised to find that they also had a blue vinyl version, but check this out:

I'll do the math: that's $16.02 more than the Walmart copy. As in almost 60% more expensive. 

So yeah...Amazon sucks in other ways, too.

Eye Before You Buy, folks!

* I found a copy of the album at Target, but it was on orange vinyl. No, really. ORANGE. What the fuck were THEY thinking?

This Week's Comics: November 26th, 2021

Checkmate #6 Okay, so on the one hand, this was just the death rattle of a book which started out in the Quite Good category in both story and art and quickly deteriorated on both fronts. In fact, I wasn't at all excited about buying this last issue of the series...and might have even passed on it if not for the old comic book OCD factor. But that would have been a mistake. Because...and this is a SPOILER, so we'll switch to white print here, and you can highlight to read if you so desire...turns out that one of the Mysterious Characters in Checkmate, one Mr. King...is revealed to be none other than Kamandi. Say what? Yes, Kamandi. Now how is that possible? Well, it's a fuckin' comic book, so that's not really a question is it. The better question is why did it happen. And I'm not talking about this particular story, because seriously, this Mr. King could have been revealed to be Captain Carrot and it would have made no difference whatsoever. I'm talking about why did Brian Michael Bendis, who has some real power in the current rendition of the DC Universe...choose to bring The Last Boy on Earth into the frontline of this book? A book which did a fairly good business out of the chute-- according to the June 2021 Comic Book Sales on Comichron, the first issue sold 33,000 copies, making it 88 out of 446 books that came out that month. (And from there the story gets a little more interesting: #2 was 127 out of 450 with 11,440 copies, #3 was 143 of 460 with 18,000, #4 was 147 of 454 with 20,000 copies, and I couldn't find figures for issues 5 and 6. But check out that arc. Looks pretty typical initially, with the first issue spike falling off with the second issue, but then popping back up quite a bit with issue 3 and then popping up even more with issue #4.) In other words, a fairly prominent DC title. Makes me wonder if this is yet another re-introduction of Kamandi into the mainstream current (direct, of course) of DC. Pretty exciting though, huh? The only bad news here is that I'm now going to have to go back and re-read this whole series so that I can have a focus on this Mr. King. See what he did, allathat. Not to mention see if BMB dropped any hints that went past me the first time through. Sigh.

Clans of Belari #1 I wrote about being interested in one of the later issues of this book a few weeks back. Checked to see if Hoopla had it up...nope. Decided that I would wait until a collection was released, hoping that the public library would get it, and if that didn't happen, planned on throwing down some dollars at The Great Escape. But TGE had a 20% off sale for Black Friday, and I only had two new books this week (see above and below), so I thought I'd go ahead and snag this from the back issue bin. And you know...it was well worth the cost. First off, Aftershock Comics does a superb job of packaging their stuff. The covers are cardstock, the interior pages are slick and glossy, and the production values are high. Also, I don't know if it was just because this was a first issue, but there were 24 story & art pages, and the only ads were (1) in-house and (2) clustered at the end of the book, so the story was never interrupted by Twinkies or Ho-Hos. So to speak. I thought the cover art was excellent, and while the interior art wasn't as good, it was still more than serviceable. So good, then. And the story, by first time comic book writing brothers Peter and Rob Blackie, was very interesting. The overall concept seems a bit stupid to me--in the Belari System, the people are divided into different clans (hence...), and each clan is responsible for / limited to a specific function in the economy. If you step out of line, you get a visit from a scary guy with a weapon. But within that stupid concept, I think the Blackie boys played well. I care enough about the lead characters...Gummy and Te'a...that I want to and will be reading issue #2 in the near future. I knew I should have picked up issues 2 and 3 while I was looking at them (and gotten that 20% off)! But I was afraid that the book wouldn't be any good, and then I'd have spent an extra $10 for shit. Not that that hasn't happened before, but you know, you avoid it when you can. But for you, Dear Reader, I'd say if you see 'em, get 'em...and 20% off be damned. 

Usagi Yojimbo #24 Well, you know how this goes, right? It's a good, solid comic book. The art is excellent, and the addition of color to Usagi Yojimbo is a great thing. The story is well-paced, the characters individuated and quite real--especially considering that they're bunny rabbits, etc. But...it's just very predictable. I will probably continue to buy this book until it stops, but it will never be my first read (unless it's the only book that week), and that's a shame. But I need something to change here, Stan. Radically. Like for Usagi to get old. Or lose his ability to fight. Or lose a limb or two. SOMEthing to change the playing field. Sorry, because I love Usagi immensely, and have been following him for many years, and own almost every issue of the regular magazines, and many of the special stuffs (mini-series, graphic novels, goes appearances) as well. But I feel like we're just swimming in a fish bowl, y'know? 

This & Last Week's Comics: November 12th and 19th, 2021

Didn't make it to The Great Escape last week...and there was a bit of a shipping calamity this week, so only new DC books made it to the stands. But since I was a week behind, I ended up getting what for me was a pretty good haul. To wit:

Action Comics #1036

Regarding the Matter of Oswald's Body #1

Static: Season One #4

Suicide Squad #9

I also thought pretty hard about some other books, including What's the Furthest Place From Here? #1--which looked like a hell of a deal (60 pages for $4.99)...but I had a walk-through and decided that it wasn't for me. To be honest, it looked kind of semi-professional in terms of the art. And I'm kind of tired of the old post-apocalypse schtick. So I left it for somebody else. 

Also thought pretty hard about The Thing #1...especially when I saw that Walter Mosley was the writer...but I looked through it and didn't think it looked like anything new, and then I realized that I actually didn't know who the hell Walter Mosley was (I had managed to conflate him with Ernest J. Gaines ...who just died two weeks ago, I'm sorry to say). And I looked high and low for Mamo #5, but it was not to be found. I thought it was due out last week, so it's possible that it sold out. But I'm sure I'll find it next week or so. And of course, I'm assuming that Hoopla will have it up soon (since they have #1 through #4 up right now). Lastly, I looked to see if Clans of Belari was available. But there weren't any issues on the stands, and I couldn't get to the back issues because the store employees were scrambling to get the new non-DC issues out (they had just arrived an hour before due to some problems at Diamond), and they had blocked off the back issues with their work. The first Clans of Belari trade paperback is due out February 22, 2022, though, and I'm sure the library will help me out with that. Right?

As for this Action Comics #1,036.... What was it that The League of Comic Book Geeks said about this book? Ahem..."...the biggest Superman event since the Death and Return of Superman begins HERE!" Well. I suppose that could be true. And certainly this was a competently done comic book with some interesting bits here and there. (To wit: Superman has lost some of his powers, and two other characters, Enchantress and Manchester Black, have been using their powers to disguise that fact. So Supes is seriously underpowered...even grey at the temples...and about to face off against Warworld (!). As for the aforementioned Enchantress and Manchester Black...they and some other characters--O.M.A.C. (who is quite different from the Jack Kirby version of the character), Lightray (ditto), Apollo, Midnighter, and Steel (now a female)--are accompanying Superman. And they're aboard a spaceship as they journey to Warworld (!), so either Superman has lost the power to travel through space or else he's being sociable. At any rate, I don't know any of these other characters, but the cover says they're from a group called The Authority, I don't know this group, but it looks like (1) it was a Wildstorm thing, (2) created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, and (3) actually it looks like only some of the aforementioned characters were ever in The Authority. So I don't actually know what's going on there. At any rate... this is obviously just the set-up for a big saga, so I think I'll come back for the next issue. I do like checking in on Action Comics every once in awhile...especially given that it's the longest running American comic book around. (I also like to dip into Detective Comics every now and then, but lately they've been doing long running things that are also crossover-ish, and I don't want to be in the middle of things in either sense of the words. P.S. The colorist on this issue of Action really should go back to colorist school. It is so garish that it makes me wish I could opt for a black and white version of the book. 

Surprise, surprise, surprise...Ambush Bug is back for Suicide Squad #9. I would have sworn that it was over for The Bug after #8. And it looks like him be back for more, so I guess this title will be on my buy list for awhile yet. As for this issue...well it was pretty much the same old same old except for A. Bug, but his little interjections--mostly meta-comments--were good enough to make it a worthwhile read. 

Regarding the Matter of Oswald's Body #1 probably gets an award for the longest comic book title ever. Other than that...(1) it had a super cool cover:

That alone is probably worth the $3.99 cover price. Unfortunately, the rest of the comic...30 pages, by the way, which is quite a good deal...didn't do much for me. Even the art...which is by the same guy who did that beautiful cover (Luca Casalanguida)...didn't do much for me. I think part of the problem there was the color, which obscured many of the good qualities of Casalanguida's linework. It would have been much better to release this book in black and white. And the story...well, it was all set-up, and  it was the kind of set-up you've seen many a time before: mysterious guy shows up in people's lives and recruits them for a project To Be Named Later. It's possible that Issue #2 will lead us into a thrilling story about the exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald...but I don't think I'll be there for it. Unless it has a really cool cover, of course. Oh, P.S. some of the 30 story pages were given over to text, but even so there are 26 pages of story / art, so yes, it is a good deal on that end of things. 

Static: Season One #4 I didn't really mean to save the best for last, but that's the way it played out. Also as it played out, this wasn't really the best this week. Or maybe it was, but it wasn't nearly as good as last month's issue was. For one thing, the art looks substantially different. Which is strange, since the art team--Pencils by ChrisCross, Inks & Colors by Nikolas Draper-Ivey--is the same as it was in the previous issues. But this time around it looks stiff...as if the art had been left in the freezer too long and lost its elasticity. And the story...well, it was okay. But it really just felt like Another Comic Book. No way I'm abandoning this book, but I just wanted to say that if this was Your first issue, don't let it be your last. Consider this to be a moment of taking in breath before the Grand Finale of the last two issues of Season One.

Also, I finally re-re-read John  Porcellino's Perfect Example--which I checked out of the library September 7th and just kept renewing until the dread 0 Renewals showed up and the final due date was a few days away. Not for lack of desire to read it for the third time...there's just so many other things I'm anxious to read. But last night I sat down and read straight through until I was finished, and it reminded me of why I love John Porcellino's work...and made me want to read the other books that I have on hand. And since they were on hand, I went ahead and pulled out The Hospital Suite and knocked that back. Wow. What a fantastic read that was. I now not only want to go back and read all of my other JP books, I also want to go online and buy the ones that I haven't yet acquired. So I think I'm going to do that. 

"The Library of Babel"

Through a series of unlikely & unimportant coincidences, I bumped into a three book series of Conversations between  Jorge Luis Borges and Osvaldo Ferrari. I know very little about the former, and nothing about latter. But I was powerfully drawn to the covers of those three books...

...and wanted to justify the expense of buying them. Fortunately, I had a copy of Borges's Collected Fictions on my shelf (acquired from Goodwill some time ago for a buck), so I pulled it down and took a look at the table of contents. It only took a few seconds before a title leaped out at me: "The Library of Babel."

I started to read. The television was on in the background, but after a page I turned it off, as I didn't want anything in this story to get past me because I was failing to give it my full attention.

In brief, the story...if it is a story, since I don't think it follows any conventions of a story (no plot, no characters)...describes the ultimate library which contains every possible variation of the 25 characters used in the language: 22 letters, a space, a comma, and a period. Thus every actual & every possible book is in this library. 

Somewhere along the line it hit me that this concept of the Library of Babel was an exact replication of my (so far as I know original) idea that God is the sum total of every possible variation of human life. Which I'm pretty sure also intersects with John Lennon's speculation that "God is a concept by which we measure our pain."

So I'm going to go read another "story" from this Collected Fictions, but I'm pretty sure that it is pro forma, as my desire for those fish cover books is growing unbearable.

Speaking of which...I'm sorry to say that the best prices for these volumes is on Amazon, but I've found some pretty good deals on eBay as well...and it's always worth checking Better World Books, Thrift Books, AbeBooks, Alibris, and Biblio.com. 

DDR: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

For no particular reason that I can discern, I've been thinking about Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead a lot lately. So much so that I actually went on several reconnaissance / archaeological digs around the house to see if I could find a copy either in my or my #1🌞's books. I know that at least one of us HAD a copy once upon a time...but I had the sneaking suspicion that I had sent my copy on for other hands and eyes, thinking that I would never read another Ayn Rand written word. I had no luck with Fountainhead, but I did find a copy of Atlas Shrugged, which I would have thought would also have moved on, so it gave me renewed hope and I had another look. But if there's a copy on the premises, it has managed to elude me. 

Then I made a trip to Half-Price Books this morning, which has become something of a Sunday ritual for me. And there in the Special Books, Some Of Which Are Pricey section, I spotted a copy of The Fountainhead. A hardback copy. For a mere $8. But the back flap of the dustcover was torn...and I started thinking, "I've already read this book. And I kind of hate Ayn Rand, anyway." And I put it back on the shelf.

Then I looked at the Regular Hardback Fiction and the Regular Softcover Fiction stuff...and I'll confess that I did look to see if there was any Ayn Rand there. And there was...mostly Atlas Shrugged. And no The Fountainhead. So I decided that that was that, I was through with looking for The Fountainhead. And I decided to have a quick look at the Bargain Bin books before I left the store, because you never know what you're going to find there, but sometimes it's stuff you Have To Have. 

And...Whoomp! There it is!:

And the price?

So, yes, of course I bought it. Ignore the universe at your own risk.

But is it going to be my 37th Daily Devotional Reading subject? I don't know. But I've got at least 11 1/2 hours to think about that.

ADDENDUM:

Pros:

This is a novel which is thought-filled...one might even say provocative.

Ayn Rand really bothers me immensely. And I like that in a book.

The Universe told me that I should read this book.

And then The Universe practically put a copy in my hands when I couldn't find it in my house.

Cons:

I've already read this book. DDR isn't for mulligans, is it? It never has been before.

It's a really long book. Over 700 pages. Even at 20 pages a day, that means it would take me over a month to put it away.

Ayn Rand is kind of a shit writer.

There's a rape in the book. And after being raped, the woman falls in love with her rapist. That's not okay.

So...this could go either way. This is one of those times when I wish I had a Traveling Buddy to talk things over with, though. 

Day 1 (DDRD 1,482) November 22, 2021

And? Well. I spent the morning finishing Stephen King's Billy Summers. (Which was not particularly satisfying, by the way. My thoughts on it HERE.) And then I looked at my $1 copy of The Fountainhead and asked myself, Do I really want to read this again? And then I thought, Maybe I'll just read Ayn Rand's "Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition." 7 pages. A minor investment of time. So I did that.

It was kind of interesting. Among other things, Rand explains why she had decided not to use a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche from the front of the book. The quotation was, "The noble soul has reverence for itself." (From Beyond Good and Evil, btw.) Her reason for its omission (it had been on her manuscript for the novel) primarily boiled down to, "I didn't want anybody to think I was affirming any kind of belief in religion."

And other than that, she was pretty much just being Ayn Rand: confident to the point of obnoxiousness, unwavering in her faith in Capitalism, allathat. 

I felt my disdain for her rising up in me. But it didn't matter. I was caught in the tractor beam.

I read to page 20. Stopped.

Howard Roark...well, he was just Ayn Rand with a dick, wasn't he? And his Novel was Architecture. 

But his disdain for the Architecture of the past actually made a lot of sense. His diatribe on how Roman architecture just did things the way they did because they were mimicking in marble what had previously been done in wood...not because it was necessary or functional, but because they were slavishly following the patterns of the past...struck a chord in me. 

I went back and counted how many actual text pages of the novel proper I had read. It was only 6. Plus the 7 Introduction pages still only made 13. So I read to page 30. 

As my youngest son once wrote in a short essay on making a hamburger, "Yes I'm going to eat it." 

So we're off, you know.

ADDENDUM: Shortly after reading "Today's Twenty" and writing the above, I downloaded a sample of a book I had bumped into randomly...just because I was searching for some Hungarian stuff. The book was The Glance of the Medusa: The Physiognomy of Mysticism by László F. Földényi...and, of course, they had me at Mysticism. I started reading the sample and this bit stopped me:

"God created Something out of Nothing; Faust, however, can only create Something new from something already existing."

In seemed very much in line with the Howard Roark stuff that I'd just been reading in The Fountainhead. Then I had to do some stuff, and when I came back to the sample I realized that it had automatically opened to the first page of text, and that there was some other stuff that preceded that page. So I went back to look at it. Here's what I found on the first page of the sample:

Yep. Good old Fred Nietzsche. How's that for the universe talking to me?

Day 2 (DDRD 1,483) November 23, 2021

Read to page 51.

One of the things that strikes mean a major contributing factor to my opinion (previously stated) that Ayn Rand is a shit writer is that her dialogue (especially her dialogue, though the same criticism could be applied to her characterizations, plot, tone) lacks realism. It reminds me of why I don't like plays very much: because in most of them, people talk as if they are in a play. Too much declamation, too much bombast.

On the other hand...I was thinking about a novel a friend had given me, and since I thought he wanted my actual opinion rather than just support via praise, I said that I thought that the dialogue wasn't very realistic. He replied, "Why would I want realism?"

And it's true, isn't it. I mean...I love opera, and that certainly is filled to the brim with declamation, bombast, and histrionics. But it's the reason that I prefer the Adam West Batman to the Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, etc. Batmen: because it's not aiming for realism. Realism is not going to be cohesive when you're talking about a man dressing up as a bat and going out to fight criminals. 

Besides, I've got to admit that Rand's words have power. It was no chore whatsoever to drink down twenty (+ one, for the record) pages this morning. And I actually didn't feel like stopping then.

At one point in the story, Peter Keating enters the architectural firm which has employed him straight out of college, and observes that the front office wall has pilasters. I had no idea what that was, so I looked it up and got this:

"In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall surface, usually treated as though it were a column, with a capital at the top, plinth (base) at the bottom, and the various other column elements. In contrast to a pilaster, an engaged column or buttress can support the structure of a wall and roof above."                           (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilaster)

And it was obvious that that was it in a nutshell: a pilaster is decorative, not functional. And that's what Roark was railing against: how building design had sacrificed function for appearance. It's the old classical / romantic split that Pirsig spent most of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance discussing. And it's why Roark admires the Dana building built by his soon to be employer, the now disgraced Henry Cameron. He, like young Roark, doesn't give a gram of shit about what other people think or about "pretty" work; he designs according to the context and the need. Thus people who work in his Dana building love the place, while people who pass it by on the street think of it as an ugly, warehouse-looking building.

I'm guessing that Rand did more than a little bit of work learning about architecture. She refers to some terms later on that I also looked up...an ornamental stringcourse...which Keating suggests to his boss. And it is basically just decoration...a line of protruding bricks than runs along the face of a building. It's a great hit with his boss, and, more importantly, with an architectural critic who writes for a popular magazine. But it has no function, so you can bet that Roark would have taken a sledgehammer to it if someone had put it onto his building. 

At the bottom of page 45, Rand has somebody...I think it was Roark ...think this: "Men hate passion, any great passion." And that made me stop and think. Not in a bad, You've interrupted the story way, but in a, Hmmm, that's interesting way. And I started thinking about people who display passion in various ways. And it seemed to me that what Rand had said was true. And I wondered why. And it occurred to me that it might be the same reason that some older men seem to hate beautiful women: because they know there is no way, no day, that they're going to get even a sniff of that pie. So those who lead their lives of quiet desperation and muted frustration see people living passionately and it is like a slap in the face. It also makes me think of how every woman with whom I had a relationship during my teaching years would praise me for me dedication to my profession...and then would heap scorn upon me for working so hard, even when it had no impact upon them whatsoever. In other words, it wasn't because I neglected them. It was because in addition to my love for them, I had a love for something else...and they didn't like that. 

It also hit me that somebody really should make another movie based on this novel. I've seen the Gary Cooper / Patricia Neal one...the one that was stolen from Barbara Stanwyck...and, in fact, have just requested it from the library, so I'll be watching it again soon...but it's not a good movie. So come on, Zach Snyder, let's get moving on that four hour monster that's been hiding in your basement for the past decade or so. 

Well...I thought I was finished for the day. But then I found myself thinking about the book...and I didn't have any pressing need to read anything else (though I did try to take a little dip into Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges...mostly because I saw the covers for a three volume series of conversations with JLB* and really wanted to buy them, but since I've read very little of his work I didn't think I should take that plunge until I took a peek)...so I went back for another nip of The Fountainhead. And before I knew it, I had another 20 pages down. So that's a good sign, ennit?

*

I mean...SERIOUSly...am I supposed to be able to resist those covers? But it would be a $56 bill (best deals I could find without resorting to Amazon), so that's not cheap. Then again, retail is $79.50...+ $11 shipping ( = $90.50) from the publisher, Seagull Books, or $42.82 from Amazon, but to be honest, I'd rather pay the extra $14 to get the books from Thrift & eBay.

Day 3 (DDRD 1,484) November 24, 2021

Read to page 112. It's interesting to see how Peter, who seemed like a pretty nice guy in college, is now finding his way to success via toadying, manipulation, and worse. I'm also starting to think about sex with respect to this novel. So far as I can tell, no character has had any at this point...and we're talking about character who are in their early 20s. Kind of strange.

Also, The Fountainhead is still following me around. Somebody tell her that I'm good now.

Day 4 (DDRD 1,485) 🦃November 25, 2021🦃

Read to page 150.

I'm tired of Peter Keating calling Katie "fool."Also, confirmation that Katie Halsey and Dominique Francon are both virgins. Mmm-hmm.

Day 5 (DDRD 1,486) November 26, 2021

Read to page 200...which is also the end of Part One.

I've been thinking about Roark and his refusal to "compromise" on his building plans. Rand prevaricates a little bit, but it seems clear that she sees his adamant obstinacy as a great characteristic, as a man who holds to the Ideal even when it costs him dearly (not getting jobs, not being able to pay his rent, etcetera). But it strikes me as bullshit. For one thing, if a person hires you to build a house, it doesn't seem unwarranted for them to say, "I want this or that." If I went to a restaurant and order fish and the waiter brought me squid pie, because that's what the cook envisioned for me, I wouldn't accept it, after all. But even more than that, I wonder if Rand really believes what she seems to be saying. After all, Peter wins his big award and makes his way up the ladder of success because he had Roark "correct" his plans. That seems to suggest that if Roark would just not be such an absolute pain in the ass that his buildings would not only bring him material rewards, but would also make people happy. More than that, too: with respect to the bank job, all that they wanted him to change was the facade; the interior plans would have stayed exactly as Roark drew them. It's not as simple as him being obdurate...but it's not all that complex, either.

In other news...TYPO on page 188, 2nd full ¶ lines 6-7: "He was right; right at the number of people who believed it." I'm going to keep track of this and any other typos and email the Ayn Rand Institute at the end of my reading. I have the feeling that they might actually give a shit about such things.

Day 6 (DDRD 1,487) November 27, 2021

Read to page 250. Which included The Rape Scene. Which I am not at all happy about. If I'm supposed to admire Roark because of his refusal to compromise his vision, then turning him into a rapist is not going to keep that admiration afloat. Perhaps its fortunate that I don't admire that "refusal"--since I see it as an inability to understand that he is not the only person in the world. But that just makes it harder to care about Roark at all. And I don't think that that was what Ayn Rand was aiming for. Which makes me wonder...did she really think that this rape scene was okay...that it wasn't going to make Roark a contemptible character...a villain? Hard to believe, but I don't know. I get the distinct impression that Ayn Rand was a lot more fucked up than I would previously have guessed. For one thing, she sets this rape up in ways that I don't think she was conscious of. When Dominique first sees Roark, for instance, Rand dwells on the fact that he's standing in a gigantic gash in the earth, and that he is pounding the granite of that earth with a jackhammer. And later when she asks him to come into her bedroom to work on her fireplace (oh come ON now), he looks at the scratch on the piece of marble, takes out a hammer and chisel and puts the chisel into the scratch, hits it and breaks it. That's a whole lot of breaking into gashes by the man who then rapes the woman. Beyond that, we're also told that Dominique has some bruises following the rape...and worst of all, we're told that she experienced an orgasm while she was being raped.

And there's this:

"One gesture of tenderness from him - and she would have remained cold, untouched by the thing done to her body. But the act of a master taking shameful, contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted."

The kind of rapture she wanted.

Rapture.

I mean...that is beyond fucked up. Normally it'd be enough for me to stop reading then and there, but I guess just putting it in the context of Ayn Rand and her own Fucked-Up-edness doesn't make it a deal breaker this time around. Plus the fact that it's a woman, I suppose. I can't imagine keeping on with this if it had been written by a man.

So there it is.

Obviously the pages have been flying by. My daily average at this point is almost 42. If this keeps up, I'll be finished in less than two weeks. 

And then? Hmmm. I did mention that I'd found my copy of Atlas Shurgged....

Day 7 (DDRD 1,488) November 28, 2021

Read to page 312. 

Here's a thing: "There are two things we must get rid of early in life: a feeling of personal superiority and an exaggerated reverence for the sexual act."

Well. I wish I'd read the latter about twenty years ago. I passed up some primo stuff for the sake of that exaggerated reverence. Sigh. Oh well. 

Here's a thing that's not quite as funny: Rand makes reference to "defective children." That goes way into the danger zone for me, as the dad of two special needs adult children. Not bailing out, but feeling more than a little bit of scorn for Ms. Rand right now.

Day 8 (DDRD 1,489) November 29, 2021

Read to page 350. Probably going to read some more, but there are a lot of social events happing at the K Manse this afternoon and evening, so I thought I'd better tie it off JiC.

In Today's Twe--uh, Forty. -Ish. There was this follow-up to my last comment on yesterday's reading: Rand refers to special needs kids as "subnormal" and calls them "blighted ones." 

Well. Fuck that bitch.

Still not bailing, but...well, FUCK that bitch.

On a less seminal note, I thought that this--

"It's something made me very sick once, but then it turned out it make no difference at all, in the long run. " (348)

                                                                    --actually did jibe with my personal experience. So at least there's that.

ADDENDUM: Read to page 362. Speaking of which...I'm past the halfway point now. Definitely going to finish this up way before I thought I would.

Day 9 (DDRD 1,490) November 30, 2021

Read to page 400.

"Then he knew that he had always wanted this woman, that it was the kind of feeling he would have for a whore, only lasting and hopeless and vicious. My wife, he thought for the first time, without a trace of respect in the word." (373)

Nobody tells a 🌹love story🌹 like Ayn Rand, am I right? 

Also, here's another fine typo: 

"If I demanded it, I'd destroy you. That's why I won't stop you." (376)

Pretty clearly that first "I" should be "you," ennit?

And oh my...a bit later on came typo #3:

"But don't they know that if suffering could be measured, there's no suffering in Stephen Mallory when he can't do the work he wants to do, than in a whole field of victims mowed down by a tank? (388)

Clearly the "no" should have been "more." Or maybe Ayn was aiming for "mo"...ahead of her time again. At any rate...I can't imAGine that The Institute will be happy about this.

Day 10 (DDRD 1,491) December 1, 2021

Hey, lookee there: it's 1,491 and Day 1.  I guess we'll be in sync again for a little while.

Read to page 450.

And here's Ayn Rand on Donald Trump...about 75 years early:

"He gave people what they wanted, plus a justification for indulging the taste of which they had been ashamed." (408, & actually talking about the way Gail Wynand ran his newspaper, The Banner.)

Hmmm. ANOTher typo (#4, I believe):

"Whatever that bastard Wynand is after," people said, " it's not after money." (411)

Obviously this should be either "he's not after money" or "it's not money."

Y'know, for the most part I tend to focus on the shittier qualities in Rand's writing. Her dialogue is preposterous much of the time, her characters do things that no real person would ever do without ingesting large quantities of dangerous drugs, etc. But one thing I will say for her: even though it was first published 78 years ago, this novel does not seem dated at all. And that really is something.

Day 11 (DDRD 1,492) December 2, 2021

Read to page 500.

Had some real groaners today. Especially irritating was the whole bit about the play that was so bad that it should have been thrown away, but instead became a huge hit...because people are so stupid that if they are Emperor's New Clothes-ed about something they will immediately capitulate. Ergo...

"It was an air of inanities uttered as revelations and insolently demanding acceptance as such; an air, not of innocent presumption, but of conscious effrontery; as if the author knew the nature of his work and boasted of his power to make it appear sublime in the minds of his audience and thus destroy the capacity for the sublime within them." (491)

Not that it's completely without truth. Certainly the popular taste can be corroded by bad works, especially if they're wrapped up in political correctness and Fear of Not Being Correct Enough--isn't that how Hamilton became a hit? But as always, Rand takes it too far, far beyond any realistic possibility. 

And just in case THAT's not enough, there's this:

Mmm-hmm.

Day 12 (DDRD 1,493) December 3, 2021

Read to page 570. That's right, a 70 page day. I wish that I could say it's because the story is so compelling, but that's not it. In part it's just because I had some waiting in the car time today. In part it's because I don't have an "extra" book I'm particularly interested in reading right now (just the "usual" 8). And in part it's because I kind of want to get this over with. Which is not to say that I'm not interested, because I am. But the dialogue is So Fucking Bad now that it chafes me to read it. You'd think that the person who wrote this book had never spent any time around actual human beings and had constructed all of the dialogue around what she knew from operas and comic books. (And I say that as a Big Fan of operas and comic books.) It's pretentious and bombastic and completely lacking in authenticity. And it's just kind of embarrassing, actually.

No typos in this stretch, though, so that's something.

Day 13 (DDRD 1,494) December 4, 2021

Only read to page 594...a mere 24 pages...but also read the Afterword (10 pages) &  Reader's Guide (10 pages), mostly so that I wouldn't have to read them after I finish the novel. Stopped at 594 because that means I only have 100 pages of text left to read. And I may do a little more reading later today, we'll see. But I'm thinking that I'm down to at most two days until I finish this thing off, and yes, I am looking forward to that. And no, I shan't be reading Atlas Shrugged next...or ever again, most likely. I think my Ayn Rand stomach is as full as it can ever be. I am thinking about reading Zombie Capitalism next, though...

I've had it for a long time, been meaning to get around to reading it, and think it might be just the thing to wash Ayn Rand's semen out of my mouth.

P.S. Read a little bit more...to page 604.

Day 14 (DDRD 1,495) December 5, 2021

So later today I'll be going down to the Main Library...for the first time in a couple of years...to listen to

'Cause of the Architect thing, see. I will confess that for all its faults ...and there are MANy...reading The Fountainhead has really pushed my Architecture Lust into overdrive, so when I saw this lecture listed on the library's website, I immediately registered for it. News as it happens.

Meanwhile...

Read to page 644. Which leaves 50 pages.

It can't come too soon for me at this point. 

But first, here's a thing from yesterday's reading which I meant to comment upon:

Because I have to give this to Ms. Rand: her idealism with respect to the individual does have an inspirational aura on occasion. Reading this made me stop and think about my own writing, for instance. My frustration at not being able to get published was a large contributor to my finally saying to hell with it and stopping work on several projects, including two novels in progress. Obviously "Others" had become my motive power. And thinking about it in that way made me go back to have another shot at my own writing. So I have to give a nod of thanks for that feeling, and hope that it isn't fleeting.

Ahn de otter hund...

My God. Tooey goes on and on for about six pages, almost completely unbroken. Constant posturing by all characters. It's just so overblown, so histrionic, that it makes me cringe.

And there's snide shit, like this from page 623: a reference to "...the bookkeeper who had wanted to be a pianist, but had the excuse of a sister to support..." Because, you see, it's never a good thing to sacrifice yourself or your dreams for the good of another. And worse than that, to do so is an indication that you are a weakling. See, you're not really a good person who wants to help your sister, you're a weakling who uses that as an exCUSE to avoid following your dream. For fuck's sake.

And this bit, which is, in a nutshell, what's wrong with Ms. Rand's writing: on page 625, she tells us that "The Banner editorials were written by Gail Wynand as he stood at a table in the composing room, written as always on a huge piece of print stock, with a blue pencil, in letters an inch high." Right. Now imagine an editorial which has been hand-written in letters one inch high. That would take a lot of paper, wouldn't it? It's just fucking ridiculous.

And the typos are coming fast and furious now. 

Typo page 629 third full paragraph first and second line: "He saw the white flesh, the mouth hanging open in triumphs, the face...." Obviously "triumphs" should be "triumph."

Typo page 633, lines 22 and 23: "...they'll beat him with rubber hose if he doesn't obey...." And here "hose" should either be "hoses" or rubber should be preceded by "a."

Typo from last line of page 644 to second line of page 645: "And one thing I won't do is I won't picket line. No, sir. The way I feel is, pickets right or wrong." I would suppose that what was meant here is "I won't cross a picket line." 

Typo page 645 near the end of the second full paragraph" "We must have some say in the running of the place where, we make our living." Obviously there should not be a comma after "where."

Maybe at this point the proofreader and / or editor just couldn't stand to read the text too closely any more.

Day 15 (DDRD 1,496) December 6, 2021

And...it's a wrap. The last 20 pages were actually painful, though. That tedious and absurd courtroom speech by Roark. The jury finding him not guilty. Oh, my aching balls. In fact, these last pages made me question whether it was worthwhile to spend my time reading this book at all...and had me answering, "No." That should wrap it up for me with Ayn Rand, I think. Except for the email I'm about to send to the Ayn Rand Institute, to see if they care about the typos. 

Speaking of...here's one more for the road:

On page 647, lines 9 and 10 from the bottom: "...he's so friendly and witty, and what an erudition!" 

There should not be an "an" before erudition.

As for the aforementioned email, it goes like this:

Dear Ayn Rand Institute Representative:

I recently finished reading the Centennial Edition of The Fountainhead. In the course of my reading, I found 9 proofreading errors. Would you like a list of these so that future printings of this book can be corrected?

Yours,
Brother K.

I'll let you know if I hear back from them.

Oh...one more thing. This bit:

"The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary." (679-680)

I just have to note that this is complete bullshit. As I recall, Mozart, one of the greatest artists of all time, had a patron who placed various compulsions upon him. As did Michelangelo. And...well, pretty much every artist you could name. In fact, it'd be more reasonable to argue that the "reasoning mind" cannot work without some form of compulsion. 

Ayn Rand is full of shit, man.

As for those 8 typos...

1. On page 188, 2nd full paragraph, lines 6-7: "He was right; right at the number of people who believed it." 

Correction: "right as the number of people...."

2. On page 376, 12 line from the bottom: "If I demanded it, I'd destroy you. That's why I won't stop you."

"I" should be "you."

3. On page 388, 3rd line from top: "But don't they know that if suffering could be measured, there's no suffering in Stephen Mallory when he can't do the work he wants to do, than in a whole field of victims mowed down by a tank? (388) 

The "no" should be "more."

4. On page 411, 9 lines from the bottom: "Whatever that bastard Wynand is after," people said, "it's not after money."

This should be either "he's not after money" or "it's not after money."

5. Typo page 629 third full paragraph first and second line: "He saw the white flesh, the mouth hanging open in triumphs, the face...." Obviously "triumphs" should be "triumph."

6. On page 633, lines 22 and 23: "...they'll beat him with rubber hose if he doesn't obey...." 

Here "hose" should either be "hoses" or rubber should be preceded by "a."

7. From the last line of page 644 to the second line of page 645: "And one thing I won't do is I won't picket line. No, sir. The way I feel is, pickets right or wrong." 

I would suppose that what was meant here is "I won't cross a picket line." 

8. On page 645 near the end of the second full paragraph: "We must have some say in the running of the place where, we make our living." 

Obviously there should not be a comma after "where."

9. On page 647, lines 9 and 10 from the bottom: "...he's so friendly and witty, and what an erudition!" 

There should not be an "an" before erudition.

Contact Information for The Ayn Rand Institute:

MAILING ADDRESS:

The Ayn Rand Institute

6 Hutton Centre Drive, Suite 600

Santa Ana, CA 92707

EMAIL

mail@aynrand.org

PHONE 949-222-6550

DDR Day 1000 to Day 2000:

(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages

(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages

(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages

(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 

Sub-Total: 6,970 pages...more than 1/2 of my first 1,000 DDR days' total (13,449 pages), btw.

(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages

(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages

(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages

(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages

(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages

Sub-total: 10,985 pages...over 81% of the first 1,000 DDR days' total.  

(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages

Attention Iggy Pop Fans

 If you're a true Iggy Pop fan, you might have done a better job of keeping up with some of his more obscure releases, but just in case you haven't, here are some things I happened upon by accident.

First & Second, two Sea Pirate songs from the album Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys (2013): 

"Asshole Rules the Navy"

"The Dreadnought"

And by the way, just in case you're wondering, "Did Iggy have any songs on the (obvious) first compilation album, Rogue's Gallery: etc (2006)?" I'm sorry to say that the answer is no, but if you're an Iggy Pop fan, you're probably a Lou Reed fan, too, right? And believe it or not, Lou did have a song on that first album: "Leave Her Johnny."

Hmmm? Oh, of course. Here you go:

Yeah, I was more than a little surprised, too.

Meanwhile, I also found 3 songs featuring Iggy's vocals on /bandcamp (wonderful site, by the way; check it out soon) on the album Loneliness Road by Jamie Saft, Steve Swallow and Bobby Previte (2017). The tracks are 

"Don't Lose Yourself" 👂

"Loneliness Road"👂

&

"Everyday"👂

(In case it's not obvious, click on the ear and it will take you to the song.)

The Sea Pirate songs are kind of fun, I suppose, but the Loneliness Road stuff is really quite excellent, well worth a few minutes of your time. And one of the many great things about /bandcamp is that they'll give you multiple listens before you have to decide whether or not to slap down those hundred dollar bills. On this particular album you can only go download or cd, but there are quite a few on /bandcamp where you can buy vinyl. In fact, the majority of my vinyl buys are from /bandcamp these days. 

Also, check this out:

   /bandcamp says...

So buying from them puts a whole lot more banging bucks into the artists' hands.

Just sayin', sir.

ADDENDUM: Oh. I was in Walmart, of all places, and found a vinyl copy of a tribute to the Velvet Underground album. Of course I had to see who was on it. And...IGgy! He and some fellow named Matt Sweeney have a go at "European Son." It's a little light on Iggy for my tastes, but still...worth a spin.

The Book I'm About to Read: The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac Asimov

I'd knocked back Isaac Asimov's first novel, Pebble in the Sky, in about a week, courtesy of the Louisville Free Public Library's e-collection, and found that this had just whetted the Asimov appetite that had started growing in me a couple of years ago. (Yes, before I knew that Apple TV+ was going to bless us with their most excellent & interesting Foundation series. I do not follow trends, I anticipate them.)

So I checked the Asimov Bibliography on Wikipedia to see what his second novel was, found that it was The Stars, Like Dust (first published February 15, 1951), and I went to see if the library had a book book first. Much to my surprise, they did not. They did have an e-book, but only one copy...and that was checked out. Which meant at minimum a two week wait. I don't wait well, so I went to Internet Archive (HERE), which often solves such problems as this for me. Much to my delight, I found that they had not one, not two, not even three, but four copies of the novel available for check out:

So I chose the one with the coolest cover, clicked on it, and...found this puzzling message: Renewable every hour, pending availability. That wasn't what I wanted, so I clicked on the second coolest cover. Same message. Third coolest? Same. Least cool? Same. Sigh. If I were only going to be reading this book at home I suppose it would just be a minor inconvenience to have to check the book out every hour, but my Kindle travels with me, and we don't do public wifi. So I went back to the LFPL and placed a hold on their one copy of the book.

But then I started thinking: hey...this is the 21st Century. Everything is on the internet somewhere, right? So I thought about it some more. Checked back on Wikipedia and found that originally this novel was published in Galaxy magazine...under the title Tyrann. Specifically in the January, February, and March 1951 issues of Galaxy. Which is kind of puzzling. Unless I'm missing something (always a possibility to consider), that means the book was published before the final installment of the serial version hit the stands. And possibly before the second, actually. That doesn't seem normal, does it?

Anyway, I went back to the Internet Archive and searched for Galaxy January 1951. And...Whoomp! There it was!

And not only did this give you the whole 164 pages of the magazine without even checking it out...it also gave you 9 different download options. And just to sweeten that pot a little more, there were illustrations for the story. 7 of them. 

Well. They had me at illustrations, for sure.

So I don't have to wait after all. Going to go back and cancel that hold and give somebody else a chance at it.

More news as it happens. But meanwhile...Internet Archive, brahs and tahs. It's where things happen.