Since the day Johanna was born, we've worked to indoctrinate her into the truth of Objectivism. Every night we read to her from the illustrated, unabridged edition of Atlas Shrugged—glossing over all the hardcore sex parts, mind you, but dwelling pretty thoroughly on the stuff about being proud of what you've earned and not letting James Taggart-types bring you down. For a long time we were convinced that our efforts to free her mind were for naught, but recently, as we've started socializing her a little bit, we've been delighted to find that she is completely antipathetic to the concept of sharing. As parents, we couldn't have asked for a better daughter.
That's why, when Johanna then began berating your son, accusing him of trying to coerce from her a moral sanction of his theft of the fruit of her labor, in as many words, I kind of egged her on. Even when Aiden started crying.
I was not sure if it was morally correct to copy and excerpt this hilarious parody from Eric Hague (complete article at McSweeney's) but after reading "A Greek Mythological Person Did NOT Raise His Shoulders in a Questioning Way After All", I say fuck him, this is MY blog and I'll take the fruit of another's labor any time I feckin' want - it's my right (as I see it) as a born-again Subjectivist.
E@L
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6 comments:
I intend to throw your last few lines at a few teabaggers I know.
Skip: my lines or Hagues? I do not wish to see those facetious lines come back to haunt me! Can I delete them from Facebook?
Have you read 'The Slap' by Christos Tsiolkas yet? If not please get with the program.
Dick: my son read it and told me not to bother. At least that's what I think he said. There is a scene apparently where the protagonist gets off the train at North Richmond and walks past my son's flat...
Apart from on holidays I just don't give myself the opportunity to sit and read like I used to. I am too busy at Kinokuniya buying more books.
450 pages into Fydor's Demons and I still have no idea who is who and what the fuck is going on. There are all these tableaux in drawing rooms and people talk incomprehensibly about nothing, someone raises an eyebrow and the place falls apart. WTF?
DH: plus, in Australia at least, it's one of those books that everyone else has read, so there's need to read it because it's as if you've read vicariously. c.f chapter one of "If on a winter's night a traveler".
I will accept your various excuses. I haven't read it yet myself but I intend to less because of its Australian content than for what I'm told may reflect on the broader human condition.
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