Ayn Rand fans: Help decide her fate

Tiassa

Tiassa

Let us not launch the boat ...
Valued Senior Member
Over at Slog, Christopher Frizzelle writes of this drawing:

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For a long time I’ve been sitting under Dorothy and Robert and Brian, and the copyeditors have been sitting under Ayn, but today I’m moving to the office where the copyeditors used to sit and the copyeditors are moving to an office with a view of the park. Here’s my problem: I sorta don’t want Ayn Rand hanging above me.

(Frizzelle)
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And so he asks what should be done with Kathryn Rathke's 30x36" drawing of Ayn Rand, and suggests the following options:

(A) We auction her off in next year’s Strangercrombie and give the proceeds to a worthy charitable cause, which would make Rand (who despised altruism) roll over in her grave.

(B) We hang it over Paul Constant’s desk, after all he’s the one who wrote in The Stranger: “If you’re over 25 and you still think her books are great, you’re (a) white and (b) an asshole.”

(C) Cut holes where her eyes are and put it over a urinal. (Paul’s idea—which really kinda makes you want to tack her up on his wall, doesn’t it?)

(D) We hold an essay contest in Slog comments under the subject: “Why This Portrait Is Rightfully Mine and No One Else’s.” No word limit.

(ibid)
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Comments so far include,

• She's a witch...burn her. (Michael Strangeways, #4)

• Cut a hole where her mouth is and make her into a glory hole. (Todd, #6)

• Burn it ... It has no worth ... It creates no value. (Will in Seattle, #7)

• Auction for charity...Ayn would hate that. (Gidget, #10)

• If D, we need a word MINIMUM of no less than John Galt's speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged. (Dawgson, #11)

• Toss it into a very large crowd without any instructions or design and then obviously the person most fit to end up with it will end up with it. (Kinaidos, #16)

• No word limit? I say a 70,000 word minimum, and every noun must be modified by a minimum of three adjectives. (Postureduck, #24)

• Auction it off and use the funds to raise awareness about the relationship between Objectivism and Homosexuality .... (Oklahomo, #26)

• Ask Rathke to do a portrait of Bertolt Brecht in a similar style, then auction both off and see which one fetches a higher price. (COMTE, #42)

• I'd vote A first choice, any of the others second .... Added irony: Make anyone bidding on it buy a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" and donate the proceeds from that as well. (Wolf, #47)

• Actually, hang it somewhere totally random, like the women's restroom at Cal Anderson Park, or in the parking garage at the north Broadway QFC. (NaFun, #56)

• Give it to these assholes: http://aynrand.meetup.com/164/ (Nora, #60)

• I say wrap it up, send it USPS to Greenspan, with a note: please shove this in your arse .... Or have Savage present it to Hugo Chavez so he can say, "I'm still sooo cool and ironic". (Crapitalism the Unknown Ideal, #62)
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Anyway, it's easy enough to comment at Slog. Go for it. Hell, tell them what bastards they all are, if you want.
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Notes:

Frizzelle, Christopher et al. "What Should We Do with this Portrait of Ayn Rand?" Slog. March 19, 2008. http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/what_should_we_do_with_this_portrait_of
 
I think she pretty well covered (predicted) most of those responses, at least in a generic sense, in Atlas Shrugged.

By the way, who is Christopher Frizzelle?
 
Just this guy, you know

Mr. Frizzelle is an writer for The Stranger who tends to cover the arts.

And every once in a while, he takes a shot at humor. It's mandatory at The Stranger.
 
Auction her off.

(A) We auction her off in next year’s Strangercrombie and give the proceeds to a worthy charitable cause, which would make Rand (who despised altruism) roll over in her grave.
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I'm sorry I missed the update earlier today. Interested parties have several more minutes to get their essays in .... Um, okay. So that's no good.

Anyway, click here to see the absurd rules. The essays are in the comments at the end of the blog entry. It's a sad, sad result.
 
They can deface it, burn it, turn it into a urinal, whatever. Ayn would support their right to do any of those things, it's their property. Of course, it's an idiotic, juvenile act of destruction. But what the hell, she had the gall to defend capitalism.
 
madanthonywayne said:
They can deface it, burn it, turn it into a urinal, whatever. Ayn would support their right to do any of those things, it's their property. Of course, it's an idiotic, juvenile act of destruction. But what the hell, she had the gall to defend capitalism.
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With awful, grandiose tomes that could have been edited to include only the relevent content: "I once skimmed through some Nietzsche, I have horrible self-esteem issues, I like money and I want hunky dudes to rape me."

The rest is repetition upon those themes.

I suggest cutting eye-holes in it, making it a mask and wearing it to Halloween parties.
 
Paint it in many bright colors, like a cheap whore, and then place the picture next to a huge photo of Ashton Kutcher.
 
If it's been abandoned in Christian's office, it's his. He should auction it off on e-bay, and keep all the money.
 
Congratulations, Bill

The result has been announced: the winner is "Bill", who submitted the very first essay in response to the contest. An excerpt (the relevant portion):

Teaching American literature at Northwestern, about twice a year I run into some otherwise smart and sensible student who has an Ayn Rand infection, that insidious intellectual disorder that substitutes egotism for empathy and selfishness for human sympathy. Her philosophy attracts them because they are the John Galts of their own little universes, as demonstrated by their admission to NU. They are unable to see past the end of their own noses to the grim reality that if writers were countries and bullshit were crude oil, Ayn Rand would be Saudi Arabia.

When this portrait arrives at Northwestern, I will place it over a dart board in my office, behind my meeting table. Any time a student brings up Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead in class or a paper or casual conversation, I will invite them to my office, where they will see this portrait skewered with several darts, one throwing knife, and a novelty scimitar letter-opener.

With this symbolic rejection of Rand behind me I will rip their intellectual pretensions into tiny little shreds. I will teach them that any philosophy which cannot differentiate between Hitler or Stalin and Mother Theresa or Jane Addams is not just a system of thought in need of tweaking and elaboration, it’s objectively in need of ridicule, rejection and righteous anger.

(Bill)
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In awarding Bill the portrait, the judges at Slog had this to say:

We the judges of this contest believe Ayn Rand serves a critical purpose. She’s the ideal author for a teenager to read and be captivated by because she enshrines the primary value of teenagerdom—the idea that the self is the unquestionable center of the universe—as a kind of moral imperative. By the time you begin to outgrow that sense of self-enshrinement and recognize yourself as connected to a larger world, the stiff, fascistic humorlessness masquerading as heroism of Rand’s writing should become one of those things (maybe the first one) you realize you thought was brilliant, but only because you were young, and selfish, and WRONG. She’s a skin you shed. And essay number one is the best evidence of someone prepared to use this portrait to help future generations shed that skin. So, Bill, the portrait is hereby yours and no one else’s.

(Sean Nelson, cited in Frizzelle)
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Congratulations, Bill.
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Notes:

Bill. "Why This Portrait Is Rightfully Mine and No One Else's". Slog. March 20, 2008. http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/essay_contest_it_is#c974931

Frizzelle, Christopher et al. "So Long, Lady". Slog. March 21, 2008. http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/03/essay_contest_it_is#c974931
 
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draqon said:
ummm did this Ayn Rand woman do something bad? Did she not write those books?
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As officer Bar Brady said, "At first I was happy to be learning how to read. It seemed exciting and magical, but then I read this: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this piece of crap, I am never reading again!"



And her birth name was Alisa Rosenbaum.
 
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