From Anne C. Heller's "Ayn Rand and the World She Made", p. 400 and 403 -- from her (Jewish) former secretary) --
After the Blumenthals' [=Brandens] departure, Weiss decided that Rand was not, after all, unconscious of the turbulence and pain she had caused in the lives of people who had cared for her, including [Ayn's husband] Frank. "She just robbed him of everything," the secretary said. "I [came to] look on her as a killer of people."
...
Perhaps it's not surprising that he drank heavily whenever he could. He apparently ordered beer or hard liquor from neighborhood stores and took delivery in his studio, where he still spent many afternoons, or when [Ayn] was out of the apartment. "If Ayn happened to open the door, she'd send it back," said a regular visitor during those years. "Once he asked her about it. 'Are you trying to take this away from me, too?'"
. . .
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Addendum.
I also just crossed out the last date in my 2008-2009 planner. I've had the book for two years, and now I can start my new planner (though to be honest, I had already started putting dates in it weeks ago, right after I purchased it).
I can also put my old planner in my envelope of things I save, just like I did 2 years ago with my last planner after I used it up!
I can also put my old planner in my envelope of things I save, just like I did 2 years ago with my last planner after I used it up!
New Year's Resolution?
I can't think of a good New Year's Resolution for myself. I tend to be very disciplined, so, for example, the other year when I realized I should be flossing more, I incorporated that into my routine no problem, and instead I made a resolution never to floss when drunk, just in case.
Perhaps this year, though, I should make one about taking the mail in everyday and reading it/throwing it out, rather than letting it accumulate in my mailbox for weeks, I as I tend to do.
Perhaps this year, though, I should make one about taking the mail in everyday and reading it/throwing it out, rather than letting it accumulate in my mailbox for weeks, I as I tend to do.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
New Years plans.
I'm stoked for New Year's Eve. I usually hate it since I dislike all holidays and special occasions, and in addition to that because I usually have no plans, but this year is great...
The other day when I stopped through the African goods store where I used to buy Obama buttons during the campaign to say hi to the owner ("Sister Rose", this short little lady who wears earthtoned burlap-looking robes with designs in black on them, and a big frumpy hat kind of like the mad hatters, and who is originally from Tanzania and speaks with an accent, which is esp. noticeable because she turns her /r/s into /w/s), she invited me to her end-of-the-year thank-you party for her customers and friends, which will have free African food and drinks and dancing.
"Pwecious," she was like - she always calls me 'Pwecious' -- "Get weady to meet the Afwicans."
The other day when I stopped through the African goods store where I used to buy Obama buttons during the campaign to say hi to the owner ("Sister Rose", this short little lady who wears earthtoned burlap-looking robes with designs in black on them, and a big frumpy hat kind of like the mad hatters, and who is originally from Tanzania and speaks with an accent, which is esp. noticeable because she turns her /r/s into /w/s), she invited me to her end-of-the-year thank-you party for her customers and friends, which will have free African food and drinks and dancing.
"Pwecious," she was like - she always calls me 'Pwecious' -- "Get weady to meet the Afwicans."
Yet more on Ayn Rand - her sister!
From Anne C. Heller's "Ayn Rand and the World She Made", pp. 395-7 - when in 1973 her little sister turns out to be alive and Ayn sponsors her and her husband to come over to the U.S., hopefully to defect:
If Rand hadn't fundamentally changed, Nora had... Now she appeared to be an average, aging Russian woman, satisfied to be cared for by the state. She and Fedor were childless, and they lived in a one-room apartment that was regarded as luxurious in a period when many Russian families had to double or triple up... Although they were not communists, they thought of themselves as loyal Soviet citizens, attended shul, and were proud of their relatively comfortable position. When Rand or one of her circle argued against Soviet totalitarianism and in favor of individual liberties, Nora responded, "What good is political freedom to me? I'm not an activist." She quarreled with her sister over the benefits of capitalism and the evils of altruism, about which she later said, "It was the altruism of our entire family that enable Alyssa [=Ayn] to get out to the United States in the first place."
Worse, perhaps, Nora didn't approve of America. She disliked American conveniences, which left her with nothing to do all day; she preferred her old routine of waiting in food lines and gossiping with her friends...
Worst of all, Nora did not admire Rand's novels. On the Drobyrshevs' first evening in New York, Rand had proudly presented Nora with copies of all four... But she gained no recognition from Nora. With the exception of part of 'We the Living', she later said that the little she read was offensive and contrived... Nora borrowed or bought a volume by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose more subversive works were unavailable in Russia... Rand hated Solzhenitsyn for his outspoken anti-Western views and his religiosity, and when she discovered that Nora preferred his writing to her own, she demanded that Nora return her books. Nora complied. All told, the little sister pronounced her older sister's writing to be "fake" and "lacking in talent," and she paid no more attention to it...
She did not see them off. She did contact her lawyer, Eugene Winick, to assure herself that Nora would not automatically inherit any of her money when she died...
Even after Nora's return to Russia, Rand avoided speaking of her sister... Although childhood had been the time "when I liked everything about [my sister]," Nora recalled in 1997, "I was [merely] her shadow and yes-man... She always wanted adoring fans." Nora died in St. Petersburn in 1999, at the age of eighty-eight, without ever speaking again to Rand.
. . .
If Rand hadn't fundamentally changed, Nora had... Now she appeared to be an average, aging Russian woman, satisfied to be cared for by the state. She and Fedor were childless, and they lived in a one-room apartment that was regarded as luxurious in a period when many Russian families had to double or triple up... Although they were not communists, they thought of themselves as loyal Soviet citizens, attended shul, and were proud of their relatively comfortable position. When Rand or one of her circle argued against Soviet totalitarianism and in favor of individual liberties, Nora responded, "What good is political freedom to me? I'm not an activist." She quarreled with her sister over the benefits of capitalism and the evils of altruism, about which she later said, "It was the altruism of our entire family that enable Alyssa [=Ayn] to get out to the United States in the first place."
Worse, perhaps, Nora didn't approve of America. She disliked American conveniences, which left her with nothing to do all day; she preferred her old routine of waiting in food lines and gossiping with her friends...
Worst of all, Nora did not admire Rand's novels. On the Drobyrshevs' first evening in New York, Rand had proudly presented Nora with copies of all four... But she gained no recognition from Nora. With the exception of part of 'We the Living', she later said that the little she read was offensive and contrived... Nora borrowed or bought a volume by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose more subversive works were unavailable in Russia... Rand hated Solzhenitsyn for his outspoken anti-Western views and his religiosity, and when she discovered that Nora preferred his writing to her own, she demanded that Nora return her books. Nora complied. All told, the little sister pronounced her older sister's writing to be "fake" and "lacking in talent," and she paid no more attention to it...
She did not see them off. She did contact her lawyer, Eugene Winick, to assure herself that Nora would not automatically inherit any of her money when she died...
Even after Nora's return to Russia, Rand avoided speaking of her sister... Although childhood had been the time "when I liked everything about [my sister]," Nora recalled in 1997, "I was [merely] her shadow and yes-man... She always wanted adoring fans." Nora died in St. Petersburn in 1999, at the age of eighty-eight, without ever speaking again to Rand.
. . .
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
More on Ayn Rand.
From Anne C. Heller's "Ayn Rand and the World She Made", p. 264:
Long after learning the facts of the affair, one follower explained it, in part, by saying, "Ayn wasn't very clean. I couldn't picture Nathan in her bed.
. . .
Long after learning the facts of the affair, one follower explained it, in part, by saying, "Ayn wasn't very clean. I couldn't picture Nathan in her bed.
. . .
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Forgot.
I forgot -
At krunk karaoke, Lady Red stopped at one point to recognize the 25-year old birthday girl.
"Hey, birthday girl," she was like, "I remember when I was twenty-five..." - and she paused and mugged all of a sudden - "...LAST YEAR!", since Lady Red seems to be in her early or maybe even mid-30s (and if it's mid-30s, she looks good for her age).
Then, she turned to the birthday girl and was like, "Come on, Takeesha, come on up here!", and then she started playing some music and having Takeesha dance, and while Lady Red was chanting "Go Takeesha/ it's your birthday", some younger (black) guys came up and started pulling out dollar bills and throwing them at Takeesha like she was a stripper or something.
Later, it turned out, too, that there was another birthday girl in the house, so Lady Red had the girl do the same birthday dance thing, and against she chanted while some younger (black) guys threw dollar bills at the girl and onto the floor around her.
At krunk karaoke, Lady Red stopped at one point to recognize the 25-year old birthday girl.
"Hey, birthday girl," she was like, "I remember when I was twenty-five..." - and she paused and mugged all of a sudden - "...LAST YEAR!", since Lady Red seems to be in her early or maybe even mid-30s (and if it's mid-30s, she looks good for her age).
Then, she turned to the birthday girl and was like, "Come on, Takeesha, come on up here!", and then she started playing some music and having Takeesha dance, and while Lady Red was chanting "Go Takeesha/ it's your birthday", some younger (black) guys came up and started pulling out dollar bills and throwing them at Takeesha like she was a stripper or something.
Later, it turned out, too, that there was another birthday girl in the house, so Lady Red had the girl do the same birthday dance thing, and against she chanted while some younger (black) guys threw dollar bills at the girl and onto the floor around her.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Otis Redding.
Back growing up when I used to listen to nothing but oldies, I didn't like Otis Redding, because all I knew of his majors songs was "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay", because that was all the oldies station played.
Now that I'm older, though, I realize that "Try a Little Tenderness" is more representative of his work, and is a *great* song... It's made me a total fan of him, now.
Now that I'm older, though, I realize that "Try a Little Tenderness" is more representative of his work, and is a *great* song... It's made me a total fan of him, now.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Oops, skipped this excerpt...
from (the Puerto Rican) Irene Vilar's "Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict" (p. 15):
I busied myself fetching land crabs and memorizing songs I would sing to my father at bedtime. I sorted the laundry for him when he washed our clothes and held the bottle of starch while he ironed my school uniforms. I sat in the hallway and sobbed when he cleaned the diarrhea-soiled path from my bedroom to the bathroom, all while telling me I was his baby girl and humming his favorite song about an old horse that can outrun his young. I had chronic diarrhea until I got my period at eleven. I remember because I sprang to the toilet after messing the bathroom floor at boarding school to find my underwear soiled red. I don't recall any more accidents after that.
This came right after the previously-quoted paragraph about how her obsessive desire for constant action.
I busied myself fetching land crabs and memorizing songs I would sing to my father at bedtime. I sorted the laundry for him when he washed our clothes and held the bottle of starch while he ironed my school uniforms. I sat in the hallway and sobbed when he cleaned the diarrhea-soiled path from my bedroom to the bathroom, all while telling me I was his baby girl and humming his favorite song about an old horse that can outrun his young. I had chronic diarrhea until I got my period at eleven. I remember because I sprang to the toilet after messing the bathroom floor at boarding school to find my underwear soiled red. I don't recall any more accidents after that.
This came right after the previously-quoted paragraph about how her obsessive desire for constant action.
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