August 27, 2009

"I thought it was the most exhaustingly didactic bodice-ripper I had ever read."



It's Aunt Feminina Boots, talking about the Ayn Rand book club.

And here she is on the feminist book club. ("I want to read about hermaphrodites and Lizzy Borden. Every other woman in the group wants to read Barbara Kingsolver, Barbara Kingsolver, Barbara Kingsolver.")

(Via Metafilter.)

40 comments:

BJM said...

Sarah Palin's p'wning teh intertubes again?

Rich B said...

For some reason I was put in mind of Barbara Eden when she played the manicurist on the Andy Griffith Show.

pronst - sort of a toast.
fecul - well..

Synova said...

That was sort of interesting.

wv: proot

Balfegor said...

Well, there is an awful lot of rape-fantasy in Ayn Rand. It stood out to me when I read through Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, and what I remember are mostly the long didactic passages and the uneasy sense that the author was just a little too keen on rape.

Wince said...

That video just rocked my perception of how the sexes view each other.

I found Boots' and her southern insouciance very alluring. All the while, for lack of a better description, she was sporting a comb-over hairdo.

Wow, conversely, does that mean women can find some men with comb-overs sexy?

I always thought that was a complete non-starter.

Amexpat said...

She's got talent. If I were an agent I'd sign her.

Wince said...

For some reason I was put in mind of Barbara Eden when she played the manicurist on the Andy Griffith Show.

Very funny scene, especially Barney Fife.

I wonder if that's how Boots' libertarian book club reacted. Makin' grown men feel under age.

veni vidi vici said...

I always thought the name "Barbara Kingsolver" was very interesting. "Kingsolver"? Wisdom from on high!


wv: "ingdoddl" -- Englishmen on holiday.

former law student said...

I smiled.

Unknown said...

The production values for Mad Men are really on the decline!

Big Mike said...

@former, second time I've agreed with you today. Let's not make a practice of this, okay?

WV: kessmaho. Nothing comes to mind that isn't scatological.

tim maguire said...

The two videos each have at least one interesting comment. Not a bad watch. I have to admit to a very unoriginal response when she leaned in close to talk about the porno.

wv: tendhole

Just so's ya know.

paul a'barge said...

did 'er.

wv: oveneume ... apparently I'm some sort of target.

Bissage said...

Great stuff!

And I’m not just saying that because Aunt Feminina Boots reminds me of a mischievously sexy version of Andie MacDowell in “sex, lies, and videotape.”

Call me?

Robert Cook said...

It's not a combover...she's wearing a cheap wig. I even wonder whether she's actually a dudette...or a dude, to quote last night's repeat episode of BONES.

Chip Ahoy said...

Com'on, join our group.

Are you trying to altruistically improve my life?

No, we're acting from our own rational self-interest.

Well you can just piss off then.

See fellas? I told you I could get her to leave the library.


I knew a guy who read Atlas Shrugged seven times. I thought, "Jeeze, a little slow on the uptake?" She's right, though, it is didactic, and the love scenes are written by someone who had trouble imagining them.

kalmia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

Ayn Rand converts a Christian.

Look inside and search for "Joey," start at p.17.

rhhardin said...

Alan Greenspan puts in a cameo appearance, in that.

Once written, twice... said...

Ayn Rand devotees are almost as goofy as Lyndon LaRouche followers.

traditionalguy said...

Ayn had a point. The cult of her followers is rather narrow minded though.

Mrs. Bayliss Throckmeyer said...

Uh-oh, Maxine has another Twitter-fight on her hands.

http://twitter.com/maxinesplace

Charles said...

Thanks for the heads up on Aunt Feminina Boots's Char-Broiled Book Club - great stuff! This one act play about the Rand cult written by Murray Rothbard is hilarious.

http://front-porchanarchist.blogspot.com/2009/03/mozart-was-red.html

Anonymous said...

Ayn gave her first talk in Hollywood at a Books and Authors group... "Miss Rand," a woman said, "the sex scenes between Roark and Dominique are so wonderful! Do they come from your own experience? What is their source?" Ayn brought down the house when she replied in two words: "Wishful thinking." -- Barbara Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand

rhhardin said...

Those are fake glasses, which spoils the verisimilitude.

"I wonder why she's wearing fake glasses."

You don't know what else she might be lying about.

bagoh20 said...

I'm sure many of us losers out here have wondered why we never "made it". You know like Althouse in blogs, Rand in Philosophy, this girl on youtube, Titus in Titusing. They all have manged to excel in those areas and many of us think to ourselves: "Hey I could do that." We never did and never will. Are we lazy, stupid, uninspired, undisciplined?

Well, yes; yes we are.

knox said...

I've only read The Fountainhead... "Clunky" is the word I'd use. But hey, Ayn Rand had her philosophy and she very cleverly figured out a way to make it accessible. Rape scenes notwithstanding. A lot of people have read her books and are familiar with her ideas as a result.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

My God.. its a young Molly Ivans.

Listen .. jump to 0.55

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Some peoples have a knack for talking.. up and down, loud and soft while in the same sentence.. is just pleasing to my ears.

When Rush is in top form he does a male version of that.

wv - pademia = an academy for talking.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lem the artificially intelligent said...

..and I'm sticking her on my blogroll right now.

Thats a shame Theo.

Farrah is barely in the ground and you are moving on allready ;)

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Too late Theo.

Anonymous said...

Those are NOT fake glasses. They have obvious refractive power. They may be cheap, but they're not fake in the sense of being window glass. They ARE pretty good props, however.

I thought she might be wearing a wig or partial hairpiece, but looking at her other videos, seems it's her own hair. Lot to be said for studied frowseyness.

Of course she's creating an image and playing a character. And it's a damn funny one, so I'm sticking her on my blogroll right now.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I just had to revise my comment, Lem. This lady goes places I've been hoping to see gone to for quite a while. I'd like to see her ride in better style, but bad cuts and low-rent post-processing may be part of the charm. I just haven't figured that out yet.

Laika said...

"We looked in your purse, and we think you can handle Objectivism".

This was delightful. I must go watch the rest of her videos immediately.

Anonymous said...

Listening to Feminina Boots, I've been having this fantasy of what it would be like if Glen Reynolds had married her, instead of Dr. Helen.

Hector Owen said...

Funny! But she should either stop mumbling, or use subtitles.

Deb said...

I love the quirkiness of it. A smoothie explodes so I'm going to the library. Of course.

rhhardin said...

The glasses leave the profile of the edge of her cheek unchanged.

Either her cheek would jut in (nearsighed correction) or out (farsighted correction). It does neither.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, rh, I disagree. The correction is positive, and her cheek is, in fact, distorted.

Of course, I'm looking at this on a 24" Apple LED Cinema Display set on 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution at 32 bits, driven by an NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT card with 512 MB of VRAM, but the original video is admittedly pretty poor.

But, then again, to what degree her glasses are props is utterly and completely beside the point.

You might consider she is playing a comic character, based to one degree or another on her life and interests. I compare her to Sandra Tsing-Loh on my blog, simply because they both are female monologists talking about their lives, a genre I appreciate. Tsing-Loh may be closer to her actual life in what she does, but Feminina Boots is a lot more intelligent, quirky, and, to me, at least, funny.

What she's doing is called "humor," technical details aside.