April 07, 2007

Atlas Update

Six hundred pages in and the rest of the story is about to unfold. I related better to Hank Rearden as a character this time, but i tried to fit myself into the idealized role of one of the industrialists that slipped away earlier, so that when i move off to the gulch, i still have a physical character to project. The mechanism of stopping the symbolic motor of the world is almost done - Eddie Willers continues to pass along information through the back door that allows the front door to be mysteriously squirrelled away - howdt of sight, howdt of mind.

The parellels to today are unreal, but given the volume of reality science fiction written in the 20th century, some of them had to be correct in projecting forward a societal vision. The question is whether people can deal with the hardship of living without, because the current knotthink that is being passed along will doom anyone believing too much in the current status quo. So as the professor flips burgers rather than enlightening students - i look forward to the mystery railroad worker's summer vacation. Rand's literary use of the one-sided conversation is awesome - it leaves the reader that much less insight in the storyline so that we can project our selves into the character and run with it - while learning greatly from the words she puts in our mouths. Hank Rearden got his first gold brick from Ragnar Danneskoljd in the pages turned last night, so the big vacuum plunge to addictive is approaching. If only i could place the rest of life on hold while i sat down and finished the book.

Today will be spent at the museum showing off pets - Daniel will have his snakes and i will have baby bunnies. We will attempt to keep them very separated - perhaps even to the extent of separate delivery trips. The baby rabbits at five weeks are really too big for the boas and too small for the python. I don't think that the museum is ready for predator-prey relationships to be live demonstrated, but inna way, that's exactly the show that i would expect to see with this arrangement. So it is practice for staging events that will gather youth interest in local natural resources, and it's always good to have a story from an event grow larger than the actual event itself. Here's Houdini with the doctor.


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