Category: Culture

A recent article in the Maryland Business Gazette explores the importance of the inspiration that business executives can get from reading:

Laurent Amzallag, founder of Snappy Snacks of Rockville, said he finds motivation in reading autobiographies of people who went through hard times before finding success, such as Iacocca and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder-cum-actor-cum-California governor.
After emigrating from Montreal in the 1990s, Amzallag founded DAL International, which provides fitness videos and programs for corporate employees. He later established the Snappy Snacks division, which provides healthful alternatives for vending machines. Reading biographies such as Schwarzenegger’s — which, he acknowledges, is more inspirational for its story than for its writing — helped motivate him when he wasn’t sure he would be successful, he said.
That inspiration can also come from fiction. Sachs, the PR professional, remembers the huge impact Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” had on her when she read it in high school. The book extols the value of individual initiative.

See the full article for more information.

Today is the anniversary.
Don’t miss the Atlasphere’s two tributes to September 11th, by Jennifer Iannolo (“Comfort Food“) and Chris Matthew Sciabarra (“9/11 Tribute: My Friend Ray“).

An article today’s India Express profiles architect Saaket Sethi, who is quite a fan of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead:

Mumbai, September 1: WHEN 11-year-old Saaket Sethi was asked to draw a sketch for his grandfather, he ended up doodling an entire airport! “The family was quite mystified. But then, I always had a passion for drawing grand structures,” says this new architect on the block. […]
And like all good architects has he memorised Ayn Rand�s The Fountainhead? “Every architect worth his salt has read the book. It’s amazing how the author sexualises architecture. And Roark’s passion is something that every architect should feel for his creation,” he declares with Roark-like fire in his eyes.

See the full article for further information.
Ayn Rand is remarkably popular in India. For more examples of her influence in India, see our postings on India’s first woman astronaut, the Fountainhead primary school, the Language of Liberty Summer Camp, and India’s richest woman.

Last week I noted that fans of Joss Whedon’s Firefly had discovered, and were enjoying, Monica White’s review for the Atlasphere.
A new thread has begun on a discussion board devoted specifically to Firefly. This group seems more sympathetic to Monica’s analogy between Joss Whedon (and his hero, Mal Reynolds) and Ayn Rand’s heroes.
Here are a few choice quotes from various participants:

“I looooooove Ayn Rands work, maybe that is why I love Firefly. I never really noticed parallels between her books and the whole creation of FF, but now that I think about it, there really are so many.”
“Me too. I hadn’t noticed it either, until someone else pointed it out. Monica, the author, described it well. Her article should sell some more DVDs and movie tickets, too. :)”
“I’m so SICK of seeing television shows that have promise get RUINED because they end up being run by committee and the one guy with the real vision gets pushed out. Shows like Firefly (and I’ll say B5 too because JMS ran his ship tightly too) maintain consistent levels of excellence *because* there’s a real bossperson with whom the buck truly stops.”
“I couldn’t agree more. There are many, many examples of shows that have been destroyed that way. I suspect the purpose of committees is to cover for and carry those who lack the talent of a Joss or JMS. It doesn’t work.”
“There’s a line in Atlas Shrugged, said mainly by John Galt… ‘I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.’ Sounds a bit Mal-ish, don’t it? Only it predates Firefly by about 45 years. That’s kind of Rand’s overriding philosophy, and I think it complements nicely. That’s why I love Firefly… loved Atlas Shrugged first, and Mal is Rand’s kind of hero, IMHO.”
“The setting may be a bit dated today, but AS is still a terrific book. I agree, Mal is a Randian kind of hero.”
“Yes, *very* Mal-like! I think Mal would have a copy of “Atlas Shrugged” at his bedside.”
“You know, it just goes to show what an intelligent, well-written show Firefly was/is. You don’t see people making favorable literary references to things like ‘Joe Millionaire’ or ‘Fear Factor’. Now…how to get Fox et al to give the public credit for having some brains!”

See the full discussion if it interests you.

The Joss Whedon fans have discovered Monica White’s wonderful review of Firefly, at the Atlasphere.
Judging from the comments, some of Whedon’s fans have missed the boat regarding the value of Ayn Rand’s novels.
But not all of them, apparently: Our new member signups spiked noticeably this morning (by about fifteen more signups than normal, so far), which suggests at least some of Joss Whedon’s fans are also fans of Ayn Rand’s novels.

From the Miami Herald (registration required):
For Sarita Mishkin de Darer, being a pioneer comes naturally. In the 50s in Venezuela it was unheard of for a woman to work, let alone go into such an “unfeminine” field as architecture.
She braved criticism and discrimination. A professor told her she could not be an architect with long fingernails and others chastised her for wearing pants to a work site.
The Venezuelan-born architect also shocked her family by not going into the family textile business. “I guess I was the black sheep, they thought I was crazy,” she says, laughing. She was sent to the Highland Manor boarding school in New Jersey. There a book by Ayn Rand changed her life.
“I read The Fountainhead when I was about 12, then that summer I went to Europe with my mother. The Louvre and all the art I saw affected me profoundly,” she recalls.
Today Sarita Darer, her husband, Oscar, and son, Eduardo, are the Darer Group, a design, finance and construction team now working on several condominium projects in Miami.
Sarita’s parents accepted her refusal to go into their textile business. ‘But only because I lied and told them I would study pharmacy which was `acceptable’ for a girl,” she says. Again, she broke the rules by graduating from high school at 15, then went on to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
“A year later I sent my grades and confessed I was majoring in architecture, but they didn’t understand because in Venezuela most plans were done by engineers,” she recalls. She graduated at age 20, worked one summer in New York, then returned to Venezuela to work at the Centro Simon Bolivar government agency.