Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Wednesday Nite Whim-Worshipping



This seemed somehow apropos.

23 comments:

proudfootz said...

These guys are the bomb! Makes me wanna play a little tennis!

I was just reading about how the West Coast audiences had a difficult time with the velvets because the East Coast drug of choice was speed and it clashed with the local marijuana sensibilities.

Daniel Barnes said...

Well, speed was a big drug in the '50s '60s, what with all the PR around psychedelia and dope people tend to forget. Remember Andy Warhol said he made his film "Sleep" because he thought that very soon sleep would be obsolete.

Rock and roll itself is reputedly the product of all the leftover amphetamine handed out to troops during WW2; it's basically sped-up country music.

The Ghost of Ayn Rand said...

I am not the victim of hippies!

This is life as I see it, the most exultant form of certainty one can ever experience: it is the integration of mind and values.

Ifat Glassman said...

Ugly music

Anonymous said...

Oh c'mon Glassman, the mighty VU had their moments...though I accept that the Sister Ray LP probably destroyed rock n roll.

proudfootz said...

Daniel -

A lot of people are under the impression that the 60's was about dope and LSD. Makes the social changes occurring during that time an easy mark for some.

I got the anecdote about the Velvet Underground from 'This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America' by Ryan Grim. Other drug fads (alcohol, opium, heroin, ecstasy) are discussed.

http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Country-Drugs-History/dp/0470167394

Interesting that early Libertarians are said to have been among the first to experiment with LSD (if I heard the author in the video recently posted here correctly).

Daniel Barnes said...

Ifat Glassman:
>Ugly music

Glass house alert: www.ifatart.com

proudfootz said...

"Glass house alert: www.ifatart.com"

Yikes!

A waste of good velvet for those paintings.

Anonymous said...

Yep, why, when I opened that page did I know that this artist was an objectivist? Was it the prevelance of naked woman, the garish colours or the heroic poses of the people in the art work.

It's a case of, pretty girl, pretty *beeping* awful art. Ayn Rand would be turning in her grave. She cannot seriously expect people to part with hard end cash for that tosh? It's not even fit to be on the back of a leather jacket or as art work for a poodle haired heavy rawk bands album. Blergh! Try and drag your mind out of the high school art class dearie. No more nude women huh? I've never seen anything fake in all my life. In a word, terrible.

Anonymous said...

Can we please start a post laughing, I mean commenting on a peice of IFA's 'art' or would that be like shooting fish in a barrel?

proudfootz said...

The pencil drawing of Dagny Taggart is worth the price of admission.

Kelly said...

C'mon, Take it easy on her guys. Not my cup of tea, but whatever. No need to be that mean.

Anonymous said...

Whoa, surely she lives by the maxim judge and prepare to be judged. You have to take the rough with the smooth in this life. Objectivists don’t hesitate to criticise the rest of us, so if you can’t take it don’t give it.
Though I am a fan of the wild roses pencil drawing. I just wonder why the woman in it forget to put her clothes on before admiring the roses. Why was she in such a hurry?

Michael Prescott said...

I second Kelly's comment. The ARCHN blog should be better than this.

Anonymous said...

Michael, you have to be cruel to be kind. The greatest gift any of us can have is to see ourselves as other see us.

We are just being honest here. As an objectivist the woman probably is forbidden from laughing at herself so we have to do that for her.

Her arts means everything to her and that's great, but it means nothing to the rest of the world.

Kelly said...

She didn't come here to promote her art work, all she said was that it was ugly music, all in all not that crazy of a comment. I'm not a big VU fan myself, so I can sympathize. It's precisely the fact that her art work is , presumably, so important to her that people should hold back a bit on the criticism, that's just part of being a decent person. Just because objectivists are typically rude and obnoxious doesn't mean that you have to emulate their behavior when interacting with them.

Michael Prescott said...

"you have to be cruel to be kind."

You're not being kind.

Daniel Barnes said...

Well, I think if you're going to adopt a philosophy that makes such a big deal out of "Judge, and prepare to be judged" you're going to have to deal with the consequences of that.

Dragonfly said...

Anyhow, the music is ugly.

Daniel Barnes said...

Dragonfly:
>Anyhow, the music is ugly.

Yes, but in a kind of beautiful way, I think.

Anonymous said...

You are absolutely right Michael I won’t do it again. Her work will never hang in the Tate gallery or the Louvre but that is to reason to criticise it.

I’m just bitter because *sniff* an objectivist stole my wife.

Michael Prescott said...

"You are absolutely right Michael I won’t do it again. Her work will never hang in the Tate gallery or the Louvre but that is no reason to criticise it."

Thanks very much for this thoughtful and compassionate response.

I'm sorry to hear about your wife. That kind of thing would make anyone bitter. I understand where you're coming from now.

FWIW, I've found Fred Luskin's book "Forgive for Good" very helpful in overcoming the residual bitterness left by a bad relationship. He has a Web site here:

http://www.learningtoforgive.com/

Anonymous said...

Thanks Michael, you are a good man with better things to do.

I think we all need to forgive and let go of the past.