Ayn Rand and the World She Made. By Anne C. Heller. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. 567 pp. $35
The publication of Anne C. Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made and Jennifer Burns's Goddess of the Market indicates that a belated but timely reconsideration of Rand's place in American cases for Rand's importance to the past 80 years of American intellectual and cultural life all the more convincing. That Rand's life story is in many ways more melodramatic, unbelievable, and conflicted than one of her own plots certainly helps to keep the reader's attention. As Burns puts it, "The clash between her romantic and rational sides makes [her life] not a tale of triumph, but a tragedy of sorts."
Born Alisa Rosenbaum in Russia in 1905, Rand emigrated to the United States in 1926 and thoroughly reinvented herself in real life far more successfully than Jay Gatsby ever managed to do in fiction. Moving to Hollywood ……read more
The film is strongest when contextualizing Acker as a female artist. She is captured in interviews angrily and powerfully responding to the lack of tough female artists. (Acker believed that no previous writer had sufficiently articulated her rage against modern misogynistic, capitalistic society or presented her sexual and intellectual sensibilities.) Director Casper wisely juxtaposes Acker's interviews with those of her friends, students, lovers, supporters and critics, who parse her influences (Burroughs, Duras, Genet) and her destructive, brave and brazen behavior. "She was like a rock star whose meteoric rise was destined to fall," says her agent Ira Silverberg. "Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker" is not for everyone, but it is an important contribution to American feminist history. 
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a street photographer from the 1950s - 1970s. Vivian's work was discovered at an auction here in Chicago where she lived for 50 years but was originally a native to France. Her discovered work includes between 30-40,000 mostly medium format negatives. Born February 1, 1926 and deceased on Tuesday, April 21, 2009. 
