It’s the Howard Roarks who create new jobs, but it’s the Peter Keatings who are thriving in the current economic climate, with its public-private “partnerships” and lack of available credit.
Category: The Atlasphere
All things Atlasphere can be found here, columns, podcasts, interesting anecdotes, and more.
"Objectivist Investing" talk by financial analyst Greg Feirman at Free Minds 2010 conference
From financial analyst Greg Feirman, founder of Top Gun Financial Planning and author of The Odyssey of Star Stock Trader Tim Sykes:
I will be giving a participant-sponsored talk on Objectivist Investing at the 2010 FreeMinds Summer Seminar.
It’s going to be a good talk starting with Rand’s distinction between the primacy of existence vs. the primacy of consciousness. It will cover the two main schools of investing – fundamentals vs. technicals – and how one naturally aligns with the primacy of existence and the other the primacy of consciousness. It will conclude with a synthesis showing that the stock market reflects the facts of reality as filtered through the minds of all its participants.
I will also be talking about specific investors such as Warren Buffett and the Objectivist Jonathan Hoenig of Capitalist Pig Asset Management who writes the TradeCraft column for SmartMoney and appears on Fox New’s stock market show Saturday mornings. I will address the current stock market and how to interpret
it.
Because it is participant sponsored I am worried about people not knowing about it and low turnout. I will be on a panel on Objectivist Investing the afternoon of Saturday July 3. I am hoping to be able to move the talk to after that panel so I can mention it to people who might be interested.
Mini-review of Ayn Rand's "Ideal," playing in NYC
From Don Hauptman:
Iâ??m not writing a formal review of Ayn Randâ??s Ideal, in part because the limited run ends soon, but several people asked me for my comments. The cast and crew, not Objectivists but young people who apparently are recent graduates of local theater schools, treated the material respectfully and enthusiastically. But the play has its problems, as even Dr. Peikoff conceded in his published Introduction. Itâ??s static, repetitive, and lacking a strong dramatic arc. Though many of the performers were admirable, the gal in the key part of Kay Gonda was miscast; she looks like a comedienne, while I suspect that only Garbo would be right for this role. Notwithstanding the negatives, the production doesnâ??t deserves the smears it received from the major New York newspapers. The play does have a brilliantly ingenious and original premiseâ??Rand came up with those in abundanceâ??and it provides some fascinating insights into her early philosophical ideas, which would be dramatized more effectively in her mature fiction. Iâ??ve always said that Rand is a far better novelist than playwright. Still, as I noted archly in my review of her play Think Twice some years ago, even second-rate Rand is superior to a lot of first-rate everyone else.
Filming has begun on Atlas Shrugged movie
Filming has begun on the new Atlas Shrugged movie.
The long-brewing feature version of author Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” has begun shooting in Los Angeles as a $5 million indie produced by John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow.
Cameras began rolling over the weekend on a five-week shoot for “Atlas Shrugged Part One” with Paul Johansson directing from Brian Patrick O’Toole’s script. Aglialoro would have lost the feature rights if the film wasn’t in production by Saturday.
A spokesman for Aglialoro — the CEO of exercise equipment producer Cybex — said there will be at least one more “Atlas Shrugged” shot after the current film’s completed. Rand’s massive novel is divided into three parts, each consisting of 10 chapters.
“Atlas,” published in 1957, takes place in a dystopian version of the U.S. in which society has collapsed as the government gains increasing controlover industry. The decline occurs while the most productive citizens, led by John Galt, begin vanishing.
Johansson (“One Tree Hill”) portrays Galt. The lead role of railroad executive Dagny Taggart has gone to Taylor Schilling (“Mercy) and the part of Henry Reardon is being played by Grant Bowler (“Ugly Betty”).
See the full article in Variety for more.
Yaron Brook on the Glenn Beck program this coming Tuesday
From the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:
We have a special announcement! Dr. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, is scheduled to appear on the Glenn Beck program on Fox News Channel, Tuesday, June 15th for the entire hour to discuss â??when fiction becomes fact.â? It is a special program dedicated to â??Atlas Shruggedâ? and Vince Flynnâ??s book â??Term Limits.â? The show starts at 5 p.m., Eastern time (2 p.m., Pacific time).
If you are unable to see the live airing of this program, please consult your local listings for a possible rebroadcast.
Ayn Rand's "Intellectual Bankruptcy" manuscript coming up for auction in New York on June 18th
From reader Caroline Johnson:
An original Ayn Rand manuscript will be up for auction at Sotheby’s New York on Friday, June 18 at 10:00 AM. This is the first major original Rand manuscript to come to auction in many years, and Sothebys has noted that handwritten Rand manuscripts of this size are rare at auction.
This work is Rand’s manuscript for her first speech at Ford Hall Forum, “The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age,” delivered on March 26, 1961.
Another Atlas Shrugged movie update from John Aglialoro, via The Atlas Society
On the heels of the recent Atlas movie update from Deadline.com, the Atlas Society has posted an update with official word from John Aglialoro on his Atlas Shrugged movie plans.
Aglialoro expects the film to be released by the first quarter of 2011. He currently projects a three-movie sequence, following the structure of the novel. He has engaged Paul Johansson as director. Locations have been booked and casting is nearly complete.
â??Thereâ??s obviously a lot of risk in doing it this,â? says Aglialoro, head of Cybex, the exercise-equipment company, and a trustee of The Atlas Society. â??But taking risks for something you believe inâ??thatâ??s what Atlas is all about. The strength of the project is what itâ??s always been: the power of Ayn Randâ??s novel.â?
See the full post for more.
Atlas Shrugged fan Ron Johnson mounts self-funded campaign to unseat Feingold
A new column by George Will titled “Running vs. shrugging” begins:
Before what he calls “the jaw-dropping” events of the last 19 months — TARP, the stimulus, Government Motors, the mistreatment of Chrysler’s creditors, Obamacare, etc. — the idea of running for office never crossed Ron Johnson’s mind. He was, however, dry tinder — he calls Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” his “foundational book” — and now is ablaze, in an understated, upper-Midwestern way. This 55-year-old manufacturer of plastic products from Oshkosh is what the Tea Party looks like.
He is trim, gray-haired and suddenly gray-suited. For years, he has worn jeans and running shoes to his office, but now, under spousal duress, he is trying to look senatorial — “My wife upgraded me to brown shoes.” He has been endorsed by the state party and will almost certainly win the September primary for the Republican nomination to run against Russ Feingold, who is seeking a fourth term in a year in which incumbency is considered a character flaw.
George F. Will Logo
Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson led Feingold in polls and froze the race on the Republican side before deciding not to run. But in this season of simmering resentment of the political class, a neophyte such as Johnson might be a stronger candidate than a recycled executive. Johnson can fund himself. Asked how much of his wealth he will spend, if necessary, his answer is as simple as it is swift: “All of it.”
And concludes with this gem:
From 2000 through 2008, sales of “Atlas Shrugged,” which was published in 1957, averaged a remarkable 166,000 a year. Since Barack Obama took office, more than 600,000 copies have been sold. The novel’s famous opening words — “Who is John Galt?” — refer to a creative capitalist, Rand’s symbol of society’s self-sufficient people who, weary of carrying on their shoulders the burden of dependent people, shrug. Ron Johnson would rather run.
See the full column for more.
Atlas Shrugged movie scheduled to definitely start production – on June 11th, 2010!
A new article at Deadline.com begins:
For almost two decades, Hollywood has tried unsuccessfully to turn Ayn Randâ??s 1100 page classic Atlas Shrugged into a feature film with actresses ranging from Angelina Jolie to Charlize Theron to Faye Dunaway. John Aglialoro, the entrepreneur who 17 years ago paid $1 million to option the book rights, is tired of the futility and is taking matters into his own hands. Heâ??s announced that he is financing a June 11 production start in Los Angeles for the first of what he said will be four films made from the book.
Aglialoro, who had a hand in writing the script by Brian Oâ??Tool, is taking on this ambitious plan with an unproven director, and is weeks away from production without stars to play Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, John Galt and the other roles. He’s moving forward despite the conventional wisdom that without stars, it could ultimately be the audience that shrugged.
It will be a four-part three-part series [see update from Aglialoro]. See the full article for much more.
Forbes.com reviews We The Living DVD
Forbes.com — one of the top 1,000 sites in the world — has published a very favorable review by Cathy Young of the new We The Living movie DVD.