Shakira is not truthful about not taking any belly dance lessons. She has studied Egyptian style dancing with dancers in the Miami area, including Tamalyn Dallal. Genes don't give you talent or knowledge in ANY dance form.

This still looks like more fun than the Ayn Rand Nude Band Camp I went to. They promised me Alyson Hannigan and a flute but they lied.

Plz, jeffie, where do i go to meet someone that loathes Atlas Shrugged?

Look at the unit on that guy, Mate!

You're an odd duck, Jeff.

I play laissez-faire croquet where the object is to try to win without following the opressive rules created by the governing body who determines croquet rules, but it usually ends up where I get my ass kicked with the croquet mallet and the other guy wins by default.

I like some rules in my croquet, ya know.

If you guys keep bashing Rand, I'm never going to make it through Atlas Shrugged. Sure, it's kinda tedious, but can a person (especially a capitalist like myself) claim to be well read if they haven't read a Rand or two? Is it good enough to merely have it sitting next to my bed?

It's the Randites I find especially annoying. You know who you are

Ohhh, Sondra's gonna stomp you!

I know I'll get bashed for this, but I like Ayn Rand. The novels, anyway. I read them at an impressionable age, and they stuck with me. The bad guys give some very real insights into the liberal mindset.

That said, the whole cult thing is both creepy and ridiculous. I remember reading that at one point Rand declared Latin dancing to be the highest human art form (Shakira would be proud). Happened right around the time she started sleeping with a Cuban dance instructor, as I recall.

Better than reading a Rand novel is get one on tape from the library. I hope you have long commute though. It only took me about 2 months to get through the 35 tapes of The Fountainhead.

But without a doubt, the sex in a Rand novel sounds as exciting as dry humping a throw pillow.

I liked The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged is one of my favorite books.

No it's not!!!!

Atlas Shrugged is one of my favorites too, Shakiraboy. Give Rand a little credit; in her own essays, she said she wasn't trying to create naturalistic characters or to write plausible dialogue. Although I think she was trying to write hawtt sex scenes and man, was that a catastrophe.

On a personal note, I might mention that my Significant Other's daughter is named Dagny.

I read Fountainhead about 18 months ago, and I rather enjoyed it. But, it took me a very long time to get into it. I've been stuck on page 80 of "Atlas Shrugged" for a while now.

Shakira boy. Heh.

HELLO - this is NOT the Shakira post! Scroll down!!

Jeff - As soon as Sondra gets home. . . I'M TELLING!!

As a novelist, let's just say Rand's a conservative philosopher. All of that endless talk about phallic skyscrapers gets a bit much too. (Does she worship dick, or just envy it?) Honestly, Rand's ham-handed right wing propaganda isn't any better than the leftist tracts of Brecht, Odetts, and Kushner (and they at least are capable of stringing pretty-sounding sentences together.) But then I'm a centrist who likes my art to be art and not politics, so if she rings your bell, read on.

I see we've found a whole new definition for minarchism here. :p

Perhaps discussing an Ayn Rand movie is off-topic, but for laughs The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal is just hilarious. If the ponderous Ãœbermensch dialogue in it is a fair sampling of Rand's philosophy and "art," I'm glad I've never tried one of her books. And all the subliminal sex. Oh pleeaze; just bizarre.

I tried reading Atlas Shrugged, but didn't finish it. Why read a 1,000+ page philosophical novel when the Deep Philosophical Point has been remorselessly obvious since Page 15?

Why read a 1,000+ page philosophical novel when the Deep Philosophical Point has been remorselessly obvious since Page 15?

Why WRITE a 1,000+ page philosophical novel when the Deep Philosophical Point has been remorselessly obvious since Page 15? Write a fucking essay! There's something to be said for BREVITY

I think Jeff did this just so Sondra would give him a spanking when she gets back.

Sondra: I hear you've been bad. Very bad.

Jeff: Oh yes (assumes the position with a grin).

On the typical nudist scale, that bunch actually falls towards the attractive end.

That said, the whole cult thing is both creepy and ridiculous.
...
Why WRITE a 1,000+ page philosophical novel when the Deep Philosophical Point has been remorselessly obvious since Page 15?

Why read a 1000+ page novel and form a cult around it? L. Ron Hubbard, anyone? And how is slavish devotion to a cult/novel Randian at all?

The Atlas Shrugs doorstop toss!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAA!!!

It's the pseudo-intellectualism that makes me want to jump out the fucking window. And the Internets Commandment that to be a proper Punditâ„¢, Thou Shalt Read and Parrot Ayn Rand for teh Cred.

Which one of them is Alan Greenspan?

Anthem was the perfect length, like a Maupasant story.

I think Ayn Rand is mostly forgotten outside of the states. I only know about her because I read a couple of American blogs.

There's a good Ayn Rand joke in the Simpsons - Homer leaves Maggie at the 'Ayn Rand School for Babies'. They have posters up saying things like, 'Pacifiers are for the weak!'. The whole place is like a prison camp, and the babies have to figure out a way to 'escape' it, like in a Steve McQueen movie.

We may not have Randians in Australia, but we do have nudists - even though some of them do have rather weird make up ...

http://avatarbriefs.blogspot.com/2006/05/shy-nudist-covers-toe-nails.html

Bloody brilliant bit there. Very sharp wit you have there, I'm glad you routinely stab things with it.

Right on, now I know where to vacation this summer!

Accolades.