From the year 1986 I've wanted to contribute to the important role of serious movie music by purchasing soundtracks and even contacting the composers. For my horror the movie music & soundtrack distribution is still in baby shoes in Finland - so I've had to find my ways of getting the soundtracks I've wanted. During these years I've noticed that there is indeed a lot of kind people in the world who like movie music.

My topic is, however, the soundtrack business itself. As a lover of seriously composed orchestral music FOR movies I've grown to hate the so-called "soundtracks" which are just filled with pop songs of different artists. I don't want to undermine the importance of good songs written FOR the movies, the songs that get INTO the "skin" of movies, but still I'd like to stop the never-ending cavalcade of these "soundtracks" that bring down the work of the serious composers.

Atleast here in Helsinki the situation is that the biggest record store that sells soundtracks is filled with these "so-called" pop-song-filled soundtracks, and to top it all, the crew doesn't know anything about serious movie music nor soundtracks.

quote:

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Originally posted by Marian Schedenig:
I think moviemusic isn't just UNDERestimated, it simply is largely UNestimated, i.e. most people don't even know what it is.

[b]NP: Alien - Complete Original Score (Jerry Goldsmith)[/B]

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hey... wait a minute... is this website about movie music?

Although called ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACKS, most of them are either newly mixed/edited or totally rerecorded. Being an actual movie music lover I get many times frustrated because the original soundtracks aren't ORIGINAL.

That's why I like Alan Silvestri, whose soundtracks are usually very original.

As for film music, it's there to do certain functions in a film and is engineered to be invisible to a degree. As I've said before, it's a different kind of music when contrasted with Rock, Jazz, or even concert music written for the orchestra, it has its own structures and patterns, and not every one gets into it or even wants to. I have a friend who sees about 4 times the movies I do, is very familiar with music as part of the films he watches, but would never listen to it on its own or for its own sake, rock and popular song are his things, movie music is for the movie experience and according to him, a lot of scores are annoying. He thinks Goldsmith ruined the 60s Planet of the Apes with his modern sound and he could barely get through Lawrence of Arabia because Jarre's theme got repeated ad nauseum.

To me, film music is under appreciated, but there are enough of us to have some clout and market to get things issued and re-recorded and if the rest of the world isn't interested, it's sad, but that's life. Not worth mobilizing over.

Good luck to you in Finland. You have a computer. Screen Archives, Intrada, Supercollector, Footlight, CDNow, and Tower will all ship overseas--order film music on-line and it'll get to you that way.

NP: Modesty Blaise (John Dankworth), a great score that only the mind of the happiest, liveliest, and most brilliant people can begin to even relate to, one which I started to listen to only after being visited by a smooth black humming monolith that showed me the light...

You need to be careful about some of the points you make...

First, you say taste varies according to a persons education,philosophic outlook,their 'sense of life' while in the same breath say I cannot find any values in rap,hiphop,punk,metal rock as they are a attack on my values and all things beautiful and wonderful in life .

What you are doing here is acknowledging musical variation with one hand while slapping it down with the other.
Scores may not be some people's tastes as rap et al may not be others.

I for one will not give up and let it go. I will fight for my values my life for the rational mind for any thing that is beautiful and life enhancing

No one is asking you to give up. But don't expect other people to give up either as that would be an attack on their values and all things beautiful and wonderful in life.

Regards,
Rochelle

things like Rage Against the Machine are fine, but offer a solution or do something about your (relatively, yet financialyl well-to-do) surrounding.

Consider how much more feeling and hurt are contained within the strains of old southern blues and folk music, rather than the woman-hating, gay-bashing, white-hating, cop-killing lyrics of a lot of rap music that's out there.

I read Ayn Rand at the urging of some friends, all 4 novels now, a great deal of her essays, and I've seen the film versions of The Fountainhead and We The Living (this last film being great). Also, I've seen the Helen Mirren film and the documentary on Rand. Oliver Stone wanted to direct a remake of The Fountainhead and Turner plans to do an Atlas Shrugged mini-series picking up the project after other previous attempts.

I have very mixed feelings about her and her work. A lot of what follows will be critical of her.

As a writer and a thinker, she's pretty powerful. You can open one of her novels at random and find yourself in the middle of some dramatic situation--those books are real page-turners.

I lean libertarian in many of my political views but she and I part ways on many issues as well.

For Rand, if it isn't part of the physical world, it doesn't exist or can't be proved and doesn't count. This completely ignores and tries to invalidate the uncanny, the numinous and uncounscious (as Jung would say), the spiritual, and any mystic or religious experience. Having had those experiences, I can't agree with Rand's basic atheism.

Also, despite her glowing worship of sex, as video footage of Rand suggests, she was physically very rigid and so her body was in constant battle against losing control or feeling any overwhelming emotion. She was therefore unbalanced, neurotic, compulsive (both in smoking and fu-cking), cut off from herself, and prone to intellectualizing everything. For all her talk about reality, she wouldn't be able to feel or connect to most real experience under those conditions at all.

I understand Rand's appeal--if you feel special but underappreciated and misunderstood, Rand's polemics support your individuality, lump your detractors into a stupid mass that only wants to bring you down or suck from you for being smart, and makes you feel cool for being an outsider.

And, if there is one thing people will go for it's doing something to be cool. After Goethe wrote Young Werther a number of people killed themselves because they actually thought being disaffected in Werther's manner and commiting suicide like Werther does in the book actually made them cool--what uncool idiots!

When asked if he were a libertarian, Robert Anton Wilson replied he would be but he didn't hate poor people.

In Rand's point-of-view, people who can't make it in a free market system are parasites, people who hold society, individuals, and human progress back. I agree that people should be free to do as they please and that they are sovereign and should have right to private property so it isn't easy for me to endorse a welfare-state. I'm not a Marxist economist, I think money is made and thus unlimited so one person having money doesn't mean it is taken from someone else. Rand poses that there be no redistribution of wealth from people who own it to anyone, poor or not. Government certainly wastes most of the money it obtains to support the poor, aged, and disabled and is not the best charity organization we have. Rand says that those who want to give to charity will not be stopped from doing so, so social problems will be solved by those who care about them. Perhaps she's right.

Still, I can't seem to go along with the idea that those who can't pull themselves along have to starve or freeze like animals in a drought. Humans have survived through mutual aid and extended kinship relations as much as individual initiatives. The idea that the poor are less human troubles me. Capitalism actually forces people to be altruists--simply, if you don't contribute to society by creating good work of some value to others, you don't get paid and you don't eat. But even if capitalism is the true support of people and does raise their standard of living, there are simply people who cannot cope with its demands--the sick, the unsocializable, etc. If things got to the point where charity wasn't enough, I could see the point in forced redistribution. I might not like everybody but this doesn't mean the people who don't produce are trash. The Nazis used to show an exhibit in German towns showing how if the insane were supported and allowed to reproduce, the mad would eventually outnumber the sane. Preposterous. But it was this reasoning that was used to justify sterilization and liquidation. This just cannot be a proper solution to the problem of those who can't survive in a libertarian world.

Rand's ideology is a like a religion, it answers all your questions about reality and ethics, so you don't have to think through the morass of life's ambiguities. It allows you to see compromise as an evil rather than as the glue of civilization. Thus, it's ok to act without regard to others, to feel superior and be arrogant. As you see, my Nazi crack wasn't far off. Rand poses ubermensch creators and heroes as a human standard. These people are so brainy, witty, happy, smiling, good-looking, sexual, and important for the progress of mankind that they have to have the right to do as they please and should be worshipped. Others are just lesser people of no concern.

This hero-worship is really propaganda--believe these ideas and you too can be one of the cool ones. This is no different from Russian socialist realism (think the 1929 film Arsenal where being a communist means that machine gun bullets will bounce off your chest) or the Nazis and their pleas of German superiority over non-Aryan races.

Although Rand talks about individualism, there are aspects of her stance that suggest Objectivism is a cult with Rand instead of Stalin or Hitler as the great brain to entrust yourself to. The reward is that if you're an Objectivist, you're above everyone else, especially the people who tried to make you feel lesser at some point in your life. You see, they're not right, now they're just jerks who were holding you back.

Humans are primates and society is structured in heirarchy. The tendency in human societies isn't towards individual freedom but monarchy. Freedom, individualism, democracy are actually fragile conceptions constantly being undermined. Humans have a pecking order, there are alpha people and beta people, an inequality of talent and beauty. I have a boss who has a boss who has a boss, etc. There is a chain of command leading to the top. Ours is a classed society of managers and people "who need to be managed." All this goes against the grain of true democratic principles where decisions are made inclusively. Perhaps Democracy is a utopianism at odds with Man's true primate nature, but so be it. I'm not a monarchist but a democrat.

One of the factors which keeps this monarchic class system in place is the hero worship we grant our leaders and kings. When Stallone or Swartzenegger show up full of ability and kicking butt, the rest of us are encouraged to sit back and let the special, talented people rule over us and take care of things. Do our action, do our thinking, do our politics, after all you're better than us lowly lost people, we need you to manage us and keep us in line, without your leadership and guidance and decision making ability, we'd all go off and fray and falter. We need you fuhrer.

As you can see, hero worship leads to a loss of personal power. And becoming a leader or hero is only good if you respect the group you're leading and do not become a tyrant which is hard to do when you have this kind of power.

Nazism and Objectivism are both modernist romantic movements. One of the most important films ever made is Peter Cohen's documentary The Architecture of Doom which explains the basics of Nazi ideology, it's origin in Wagner, it's anal values of cleanliness and order, it's romantic view of the cultured Nazi and the man he would become through ethnic cleaning and eugenics, all suported by representational art at odds with 20th Century modern art.

Modernism, as opposed to Post-modernism, is the optimist belief that man can perfect himself. I like to think this is the case, that man can perfect some aspects of his existence, over the pessimism of Post-modernism which rejects this idea, deconstructs all genres and their assumptions, and looks at capitalism, mass culture, global warming, human rights abuses, and genetically modified foods as proofs that the world is coming to an end.

But, the potential threat of Modernism and of Romanticism (which talks about what should be rather than what is) is that, since the world can be perfected, people should act to put these utopian dreams into reality. In a lot of cases this can mean positive progress, but perfectionism has meant the Draconian eliminating of what is considered imperfect. Think of all the people dieting and working out daily to keep themselves healthy and sexy and what a tyranny and repression it is they impose on themselves. And this is just one of the American forms of perfectionism. For the Nazi, it wasn't just fat that had to go. For them the imperfect meant poor people, the mentally ill, the handicapped, jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc.

You might say that Rand is in opposition to all this, but check your premises, you can't go around saying that people are mentally weak if they like to listen to rap or guitar feedback without some notion of the concentration camps being too far behind.

Mentioning rock and rap reminds me of a story my cousin told me about his attending an Objectivist meeting. At the meeting, the organizers played works of Rachmaninov (a Rand favorite) and huddled around the boom box like they were in rapture. My cousin was taken aback--it's just one kind of music, what made it so special? He concluded that if Rand endorsed it, these people would follow, and if she was against it, they would be too. So much for independent thinking. He saw them as people who lacked strong selves and were using Rand and her role models to fill in the gap of their missing identities, thinking they were just becoming more of themselves in the process. Unfortunately, this was a delusion.

My suggestion is that you put some distance between you and the impact that this woman's seductive rhetoric can have on your brain. People have unequal talents, but nobody is special, and to think so puts them above you or you above others, and limits your own freedom. Having either a superiority or inferiority complex puts other people in charge, but not caring about other people at all cuts you off from the energy that comes from social interaction, the energy that means married people, providing just one example, live longer and happier lives than single people do. Living means pain and it means death too. Remaining aloof and aloft won't protect you from this. Come down to earth, quit looking at your fellow man as an obstacle, become a little humble, join in, see the flaws of capitalism and democracy at the same time as recognizing that they are the best of all the alternatives, don't complain if the government wants some of your money to keep some other people alive, and don't look at people who respond to other things in art that you don't like as being mental midgits (I know this will sound like hypocrisy on my part given how much I chew people out over their tastes, but it's true, liking metal doesn't mean you're brain-dead), these things aren't negative.

Collectivism sacrifices people to the whole and that's wrong, but the unchecked Right has its dangers as well. And despite what Rand says about herself being simply pro-freedom and anti-fascist, the ideas of her books have fascist implications and work from fascist premises.

There is no easy solution to living. A libertarian world will have advantages and disadvantages over the advantages and disadvantages of the world we have now with its mixed economy. The world we have now isn't perfect, it does need reform, but we'll never get it all right and worked out. Your own life doesn't depend on a libertarian politics to still be enjoyed.

This reminds me of the joke--With Communism, Man exploits Man, with Capitalism, it's the other way around. See, I don't think there are solutions, I guess I'm a bit of a Post-modernist after all....

It's fine to be against socialism and communism, we need to protect private property and the freedoms of speech and action. [This coming from someone who believes in the black market of bootlegs and fights the owner of this private site against his netiquette policies.] But you don't want the solution to become its own crime. Put the Rand down, quit quoting her, go live, and find your self and find out things for yourself from your own experience and allow people to do the same regardless of the "worthless" places this can lead them. After all, the people who listen to Zappa or Nine Inch Nails think this stuff is great, the good rockin' jams on which their happiness depends. Which leads me to a last point. Rand believes it's important to make value judgments--this ice cream is good for me, this borscht is bad. There's noting wrong in this. I make that judgement every day--Herrmann scores are good, Horner ones are bad. Ignoring for the moment what the Taoists and Zen Buddhists say about how this selectiveness fractures your peace of mind, I think you run into serious trouble when you start to judge people as you would ice cream and borscht or one film score against another.

SC--I don't believe I'm intellectually dishonest. I don't actually hate Rand or Objectivism. Seeing things and being critical is not necessarily hate. If I read a book or go to the movies and dislike what I encounter and think the author or director is lame and say so, I'm not necessarily on a hate-filled smeer campaign. You're trying to invalidate my criticism by calling it hate-filled. What, is every critic in the country supposed to close shop because they don't like things? I do hate James Horner though.

I don't hate heroism either, per se. Go to the Just Movies section of the message board and you will find a glowing review by me for the film Himalaya where I not only praise the film for its strong heroic characters but list a number of other films in the same tough tradition.

I could say as many goods things about Ayn Rand as bad, but I'm against elitist snobbery and I'm critical of the idea that because talents are distributed unequally among people or because primates exist in a heirachical structure this justifies a classed society. I see links between Rand and some of the structures I dislike and am commenting on that.

The cinema in general is about celebrating the amazing things human beings can do (one of which is to create cinema in the first place, but it goes on from there). People who love and watch athletes also celebrate the strength and beauty of humanity and the cult of beauty goes back 4000 years to the Greeks if not earlier.

The problem with the human tendency to put the alpha primates on a pedestal, to feel awe and love at the strength, intelligence, ability, leadership capability, and beauty of other people is that it can be used to manipulate us. When we look up we are often encouraged to view ourselves as less in the process. And, when people we love are associated with products or ideas, we can easily assume there is a magical connection between the two.

Rand herself talks about this, how the inferior man is always thinking of himself in relation to others, but the superior man is doing the same. Only the man who doesn't think of other people at all is free, but there really is no such person (and if there were they'd be Robot Monster). Subsequently, those who do relate to others as above or below them are going to live in a structure of unfair power relations. Only an awareness of this tendency can keep us partially free.

But as I was saying, beautiful girls are used to sell cars and a variety of other products, famous sports figures are used to sell them too. But it goes far far beyond simple sales. In the Brecht pro-communist film Kuhle Wampe (1932), a sports meet is used to connect physical health with communist ideology. Reifenstahl's Olympia (1938) uses the same athleticism but equates it with Nazism. Celebrities are associated with various political figures and give endorsements for a variety of political causes. All throughout history, famous figures or people of strong personality have helped lead entire countries down unforgiveable courses.

In Rand's case, she makes the equasion between the stunning people she creates and her ideas. Her heroes are bar none the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most action-oriented people in world literature. Rand uses their talents to advertise her Pro-Capitalism. But think for a moment if Rand were a Socialist, how easy would it be for her to use the same extraordinary people as advertising for Socialist ideas. Now, according to Rand, Socialists cannot see life in a positive way, only her capitalists can, but that's ridiculous.

Reading Rand one gets the impression that only Capitalists can be cool and you'll be miserable if you follow any other course. She writes that the people who disagree with her are morally corrupt losers (she gives them strange names) who are not above killing and torture. All choices for her are simple and clear cut. But she stacks the deck so it's hard to side against her.

Quoting Aristotle and his logic, Rand says things either are or are not. That's fine when dealing with apples and why they aren't oranges, but it is woefully lacking when it's turned to the complex and messy world of psychology and moral decision making.

People in the world can't be divided into the evil landlord in black who insists the poor widow pay her rent and the knight in shining armor who comes to rescue her.

If the Ayn Rand character were just the typical average guy who fares better under capitalist freedom, I wouldn't be as critical of her as I am. But for Rand, there is a special class of supermen who can do things extraordinarily better than other people and for her these are the only people who count.

The funny thing is that she doesn't need to rely on propaganda techniques to sell her point of view--most of her ideas stand solidly on their own for the large part. It's like she's taken an already pretty girl and dolled her up in satin, lipstick, black hose, and perfume. Subsequently, I'm suspicious about what she's after with the oversell.

And, what she's after isn't just to create a more limited government or to protect individual rights by making a claim for the importance of individuals, she's trying to create a new conception of Man. And since that too is what the Nazis and the Communists were up to in the last century, I lump all three of these isms together.

I'm aware that Capitalism and Fascism are two very different political systems. When I call Rand a fascist, it's only in so far as she shares the exclusionary elitism of the Nazis. Not because Capitalism and Fascism are equivalent systems. As I said before, romanticism is about life as it could be if we worked at certain idealistic goals--ugly fat turned to 6-pack abs, liars into honest people, stupidity into brain power, clowns into heroes. Not bad goals in and of themselves. But this pursuit poses an enemy to be against: fat, mouth germs, people who don't agree with you, seem to have no integrity, or simply stand in the way.

That's why I see similarities between Nazis and Objectivists despite the differences between Fascism and Capitalism. For the Nazis, the new civilization means that there aren't "lowly" races around. For the Objectivists, the new civilization means that there are no altruists, poor, or ignorant people around. Or, if they are around, that they don't get in the way of what the special creators and capitalist leaders want to do regardless of whether this hurts others or not. Under the guise of talking about freedom for everyone, Objectivism still poses its own cultural tyranny.

Not that the US couldn't use a new respect for individual rights. Our government especially gets involved with too many things it can't properly accomplish and is wasteful in the process.

Worse! Politics is self-serving. We could probably solve most of the social problems we have in this country, but if poverty, for one, were actually solved, liberals couldn't point at the poor to stir up the emotions of those voters who care about them and they would lose their place and power. The Right actually stirs up foreign troubles to insure that defense money keeps pouring in to the people who bankroll them into office. Government perpetuates problems so it can justify its existence and then says that only through government can anything be solved--talk about lying parasites. Government is practically useless and harmful--I totally agree with Rand and the libertarians on this point.

I also see Rand's point about altruism. Why is sacrifice the only game in town? Why must viable members of society have a duty and responsibility to slow down and help total strangers? I, for one, don't hate the poor and I find it hard to let them suffer while the country as a whole has ample resources to sustain them. I don't think we should ruin our environment in the name of progress. I don't mind losing a species or two if it means we humans can better survive, but when we level a tropical forest that gives us oxygen and plant medicines just to have more wood, I think construction needs to level off. And those are decisions which unfortunately involve government, not exclude it.

I don't mind if you want to become a Rand hero and live your life according to Objectivist principles: you can go around calling me brainless for listening to angst rock if you'd like. But there are limits you should consider.

One of the most chillingly scary moments in all fiction comes when Dagny in Atlas Shrugged asks a guard who blocks her way to either step aside or shoot her. Rand describes the guard as someone who is mentally conflicted by the current philosophical vogues and is unable to either step aside or guard the door with his gun. So, Dagny shoots him, because the man she wants is being held inside. Then Rand writes about how Dagny feels no guilt in this killing because a man without the power or ability to think or decide is just the equivalent of an animal.

Now, true, if people had kidnapped someone and the cops showed up and the crooks wouldn't surrender, the cops would have the right to force the issue with guns if need be. At this point in the novel, society has broken down to the point where there aren't any police around or if there were they'd be corrupt so Dagny has to take matters into her own hands.

The situation is written by Rand to be logical and hard to disagree with, but it's still a murder and one quickly rationalized as justified as well. I hope SC, that you are able to see the tendency towards fascism in this episode. For Rand, it's ok for the heroes to do as they want because someone they consider no longer human stands in their way. How is her attitude different from that behind the Holocaust or a Soviet purge?

I think that looking at the world through Rand-colored glasses can lead to self-aggrandisement and to looking at people as inferiors.

For instance, we exist in relation to things. People are dependent on the division of labor (unless you grow your own food, sew your own clothes, build your own house, etc.); we have language (we are physically hard-wired with a mouth, brain, and vocal cords to talk with other people, with sex organs to physically join with other people--we are not built to be seperate) and human needs that can only be met by other people; we cannot even develop or retain our health without human interaction. Orphan babies who have food, clothing, and shelter still die or turn socio-pathic if they aren't loved or have warm human contact. Despite all the jokes about how awful marriage can be, married people live happier, longer lives. A philosophy that sees other people as mere objects to deal with for goods and services weakens the health that comes from bonding with other people. The man who denies or defies his relationship to others doesn't exist or wouldn't exist long.

In your post you said that because I was willing to accept information from mystic sources that it was worthless to argue with me.

One of the key elements in Rand's logic is that the physical world exists independantly of ourselves and that our senses have developed to view it accurately. In her view, belief in God or other transcendental experience is simply silly because it's supernatural and can't be proven to exist in the physical world. To bring feeling, belief, or psychic and mystic revealation into a logical argument invalidates the argument because those things don't refer to the tangible. And true, in most cases, she's correct. I wouldn't want Miss Cleo in a courtroom deciding who was guilty or not. All mysticism without rationality is unbalanced.

Still, while our senses are probably accurate in terms of a physical world that exists outside our perception, to say this is absolutely the case ignores an aspect of our physiology. Light passing through our eye lens is turned upside down by the lens before it falls on our retina. The rods and cones of the retina transmit this upside down image into electrical patterns sent by a nerve into a place in our brains where it is decoded, turned right side up, and this is vision. When we look "out" at the world, we are in part looking into a creation made by our own heads.

No big deal so far until you alter the chemistry of the brain. Extra oxygen, caffeine, sugar, alcohol, THC, LSD, etc. all alter the brain and therefore our experience of reality. It doesn't mean that there isn't an independent reality out there but it does prove dramatically that we add an observer-created aspect to our understanding of what is real.

The "mystic" can always be explained scientifically just as every magic trick is just show, not real magic, and has an explaination. The mystic only appears so because we haven't figured out how it works yet and because we are still relying on the logic of Ancient Greece to confirm things.

But, just as Newtonian physics gave way to Einstein and our belief in a flat world gave way to a round one, logic and maybe language itself has run into paradoxes and conundrums which reveal its limitations as a tool with which to operate in reality as it is. We need to update our map of reality but we haven't completely figured out how to do that yet--but we're trying.

More of what I'm talking about is borne out by Quantum physics and mechanics which poses non-local fields of information and the breakdown of contradictory exclusion as in the classic experiment which showed light could act as either wave or particle depending on the machinery used to test it.

We've known about the processing differences between the right and left hemispheres of the brain for some years now. One individuates and breaks down reality into seperate parts, the other works holistically, connecting the dots and seeing patterns in reality. When brain chemistry is changed by drugs or meditation so that a right brain dominance occurs, objective reality doesn't change but our subjective perception of it does in sometimes remarkable ways.

The new field of neuro-theology has pinpointed two regions of the brain. One orients us in time and space just like the inner ear works like a steady-cam and controls our sense of balance, the other orients us as individual to the objects around us.

What science has shown is that if these regions are damaged or if they don't get proper blood flow, they don't operate. Subsequently, you can lose your sense of time, space, and seperateness from things. Everything connects and becomes part of you, time flow becomes eternity. Thinking can seem not your own but other--you can hear "voices" in your head. This last can be negative, but this mental state is mostly positive, and some claim to experience a connection to God while in it.

Now whether God exists and you can percieve him because the brain change gets your ego out of the way or whether you simply think there is a God when there isn't one because your brain chemistry is different isn't the point. What is interesting, is the people who accomplish this shutting down of these brain regions all claim to experience great joy and understanding in the process.

This explains the centuries of human interest in yoga, zen, drug use, Chinese medicine with its accupunture points, and Indian chakras with a series of glands. All are ancient guides to the raising of consciousness which brings the happiness which comes with the breakdown of the self and the ego.

The guides are ancient, but our experiements with it are modern. Science can explain what happens during the "mystic" experience to make it less mysterious, that doesn't invalidate the value of it.

One needs to develop a strong ego in order to live and Rand's philosopy supports the individualism this requires, but because it builds the ego without plans to transcend it, because it rejects the mystic and religious, it strikes me as limited and unbalanced, all left brain and none of the right.

Rand says that you're born blank slate, that emotion comes as a response to what you program into your consciousness first. You can't use your emotions as a guide, you have to think through things. But dreams, for instance, suggest that there are mental operations that run counter to one's conscious programming.

Anyone who has fallen in love or relies on their gut feelings and intuition knows that what is strictly conscious is limited. Love is blind as the saying goes: she might look like a horse but when you get together, sparks fly. That's counter-rational. Or maybe it simply means is that there are many unconscious factors at work as to why you like or dislike someone. You could be falling in love because of someone's pheremones for all you know. Science can explain it, but the experience still goes beyond rational knowledge.

Many people look to Buddhism or Hinduism or other Pagan beliefs as a religion because they find Judiaism or Christianity too restrictive, but I think people can find many positives in the traditional organized religions. Sitting zazen, chanting, or working on your chakras is not the only way to an enlightened state. Christian mystics like Meister Eckart were able to find bliss well within the teachings of Christ.

In addition to intuition is divination. I know the Bible is against it as a form of sorcery, but I've been amazed by how accurate my use of the I-Ching or Tarot cards has been in answering questions or explaining a situation to me. My rational mind says its just chance or coincidence, but the results are uncanny--what I block from my conscious mind is revealed in the process.

In therapy, as the blocked unconscious becomes conscious, neurosis clears, people report seeing colors as brighter, noises more clearly, etc.

Rand rejects all this mysticism as supernatural poppycock. But, there is much to be gained from following a mystic's path, for trusting intuition, going with what feels good, even using divination. We are finding that reality and the path to higher consciousness doesn't follow the western model of logic that Rand invests so highly in.

So, as I said earlier, I think it would do you some good to venture out from under Rand's influence and learn as much as you can about everything and decide your own take on things after having run the gamut of a wide variety of experience and fact-finding. Trying to accept or reject everything by comparison with a Randian model will lead you to filter out a great deal that could nourish you in the long run. Rand says she believes in and respects free and open minds, but I see the danger that following her can lead you to have a closed mind. Or worse, a rigid, arrogant, and hate-filled mind.

college and grad school ruined me for reading simply for pleasure.

Can’t really jump in on the Rand debate. Not knowledgeable
enough about collectivism except to know that Rand hates
Robin Hood. I agree with Lou that Anthem is a very fast,
easy read. I used to teach it to students, and they loved the
whole trick of braining washing races by never teaching them
singular pronouns. Kind of a cliffnotes introduction to her
initial philosophy. A few years ago, after watching The
Fountainhead on AMC, I read that novel and enjoyed it; however,
she tends to pound the reader over the head with philosophy instead
of just showing her ideas via characters and plot. I’ve started
Atlas Shrugged a zillion times..along with War and Peace. Love
the whole image of the title. My interest always wonders off, or else
I’m waiting for some ambitious filmmaker to make it into a very
LONG movie say via mini series. Call her controversial, she is at
least interesting. Many colleges still sport clubs devoted to her
ideas.

As popular as the movies are, film music still doesn't seem to make much of an impression with a lot of people. Classical music fans seem to look down on it as inferior. The average guy is either into Rock or Jazz. Back in the 70s, Gerhardt's Korngold album turned a number of people onto classical and film music that "had no idea it sounded like that." My guess is a lot more people might get into film music if they were introduced to it but it will never reach the appeal of say Rock because Rock has an energy and excitement for those who love it that film music just can't match regardless of whether the people here can stand to listen to it or not.

That's why a lot of films turn to pop and rock to fill out their soundtracks--sales, publicity, but also a wider general appeal. Film music is still orchestral in many cases--maybe because orchestras remain invisible to most audiences since orchestral music doesn't matter as much to them. I'd say that film music remains mostly orchestral because rock is limited in its emotional range and orchestral scoring can cover more of the emotional ground films require. But the rock sound has become more and more a part of film scoring proper.

The bottom line--film music is still under appreciated both by producers and audiences.

I made a compilation of action themes and soft melodies for my
friends who know zilch about filmscores. However, as we played
them, they kept saying, “I’ve heard that and that and that,” over
and over. (Mag Seven, Dragonheart, Titanic etc.) Today on TV
I saw three ads that were underscored with The Ludlows theme.
All sports events use film music. I’m convinced that the general
public is affected by filmscores, and at an unconscious level, is
aware of major scores; however, this impact is at a SUBLIMINAL
level.

"I know the Bible is against it as a form of sorcery, but I've been amazed by how accurate my use of the I-Ching or Tarot cards has been in answering questions or explaining a situation to me. My rational mind says its just chance or coincidence, but the results are uncanny--"

Not that I'm any match for the devil, but I figure I have perspective enough to hold onto my soul. I look at divination practices as a way to see if there is any unconscious aspect to a situation that I obviously wouldn't normally be aware of. Then I use it simply as a pointer or guideline, not as gospel truth.

As I said there are two sides to the brain and you can't accept information from either side as being complete. Anything coming in from the "mystic" right hemisphere still has to be borne out by validation from the left and by reality itself. I don't just look up my horoscope and follow blindly what it says I should do, the mystic is just one thing to take into consideration when making a decision.

I've often asked God for guidance when using divination, asked him to forgive my vice, and had faith that I wouldn't steer myself too off course. Then again, I tend to just play with it rather than ask it any big serious questions. Major life crises usually require a lot more action and advice than a Chinese hexagram can cover. Though what I do love about the I-Ching is that when the storm starts to brew the advice is usually "take off your shoes, sit, relax, don't worry, it'll blow over."

Which is another thing. I've never meditated and heard a voice tell me "Go kill some cats, drink their blood, and rape and kill some 12 year old girl." There are 64 hexagrams to the I-Ching and none of them tell you to go out and commit sins. True using the stuff at all is a sin, but my use is infrequent and always with a prayer attached.

And speaking of prayers--feel free to pray for me if I'm wrong! Actually, I could probably use it in any case.

Hey SC, I'm glad I gave you some laughs.

It's true that I do have an axe to grind against elitists. I can usually blow the snobs off without damaging my own self-esteem but who needs their superior BS.

I admit it's better to have a cultural tyranny than an actual one.

At least you said the one thing that Rand has over the fascists--she'll let me refuse to exercize and let me keep my tarot cards, sure, she'll laugh at my using them, but she won't incarcerate me for it. So at least Rand's view of society allows me the freedom to disagree with her 'best you can be' stance, which the fascists take so seriously.

There's more to say on all this of course, but it'll have to wait a bit.