Hey Joy,
I'm a friend of Jeanseau. I was just revisiting your site--I saw it a year ago when you guys played the Rose Garden. (What a great opportunity that was.) Anyhow I was just reading your musings and first of all, wanted to commend you on your movie picks. I love Amelie and Fight Club as well. One of my other favorites is Waking Ned Devine.

I read Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead, but I don't think she is entirely there. I once read a good critique of Objectivism in Michael Shermer's book, 'Why People Believe Weird Things'. If I recall correctly, she doesn't believe you can accept objectivism part way, or 80%, etc. You have to buy in 100%. But just like in religions, people choose different sects based on their comfortness on how deep toward fundamentalism/literalism they wish to go. So it is possible to adopt, for instance, her work ethic, while ignoring other positions. She seems to mix up synthetic and absolute morality, and suggests that her interpretation is essentially revelation. This sort of blew up into her cult of personality. Very strange personal story with exchanging spouses, etc.

In 'Virtue of Selfishness', I think she stressed that poor people are poor because they are lazy. I don't believe that is often the case, and I know plenty of rich people who have been lazy all their life.

One of the authors I'm having trouble deciding on recently is Noam Chomsky. He questions power and the media, and really comes from the other end of the spectrum than Rand. He had a book and movie called, 'Manufacturing Consent', that I think is worth considering. Now that I read it, I probably need to hunt down a book critical of him.

Two other books of late that I've appreciated are 'Fast Food Nation' and 'The Demon-Haunted World' (Carl Sagan). I have to say that the 'Demon-Haunted World' seriously influenced by paradigm and made me constructively reevaluate where I place my faith.

Wow, how is that--receiving a random book review from a stranger. Hah--Hope your studio project went well.

My own band, Mother, just took our CD to press last Thursday. Can't wait to get it back in 10 days. www.motherband.com

take it easy,
Tim

03/18/02
Joy,
First, Hello to you. Hope you are doing well. I had to check out Joy Wilson Musings, upon receiving the latest notice of your play date in Hood River, which brings us to the second topic...

Atlas Shrugged. Good book, and very entertaining, but a bit emotionally argued at points, which detracts from the argument she makes. Also, her world is a bit devoid of complicating matters to a workable philosophy. For instance, children. There aren't any. I think Ayn Rand couldn't take her philosophy of selfishness and warp it to include children. Basically, she couldn't conceive of unconditional love.....or perhaps she couldn't admit to it. Anyway, "objective reality" includes children, and her philosophy doesn't. Without including them in her philosophy, she can't truly claim "objectivism" or "realism". Just a thought, and perhaps not a very good one.

Overall, I find her writing very entertaining, and it definitely strikes the heroic chord in me. However, I think it may be the subtle emotionalism of the book that entrances, and her arguments are not as well put as they could be. Still, it is a very compelling book. I read it when I was 18 and couldn't put it down. Read it in 1 week as I recall. Once you have a taste for this type of thought, here are a few books that are less emotionally abusive, and more thoroughly argued, while still entertaining.

1. The Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek
2. The True Believer, Eric Hoffer

Other really good books
1. The Prize (History of Oil and Power in the World)....fascinating.
2. The Fed (History of the Federal Reserve in the U.S.)...basically the story of US MONEY and manipulation thereof
3. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein....Science Fiction

Anyway, there is not much news on this end, other than having bought a house. A house is roughly translated to "cut hands" I have found....and trips to Home Depot.
Take Care,
Steve