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AMERICONORMAN

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AMERICONORMAN last won the day on March 25 2014

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About AMERICONORMAN

  • Birthday 05/17/1979

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  • Interests
    Literature, Philosophy, Poetry, Art.
  • Location
    Toronto, Canada
  • Gender
    Male

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    No Answer
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  • Interested in meeting
    James Franco for an intellectual encounter.
  • State (US/Canadian)
    Ontario
  • Country
    Canada
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    Copyrighted
  • Real Name
    Jose Gainza
  • School or University
    The School of Life
  • Occupation
    Aspiring Philosopher-Novelist

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  1. This poem has been re-christened (new name) because I have featured it in a screenplay I have just written. It's new title is A Morning Legende. And you can listen to me recite it here: http://josegainza.podomatic.com/player/web/2011-08-12T13_24_12-07_00
  2. I found this movie really enjoyable. It should have been longer however because that could have made an evaluation on Zuckerberg's character more explicit. By the end of the movie the issue of his moral standing and his worth as a business hero is not clear. But it is implied by what is shown and what businesss decisions he did make and what opportunities he seized on. By the end the evaluation leans more towards one side but it is not too clear. And also, the issue seems to be over how rude he is, his social skills, and that seems to be detached from a total moral evaluation. "You're rich and brilliant; it's okay if you're an asshole". And that seems to be one of the points of the film: the irony that a guy who revolutionized the way people socialize forever has very poor social skills. I personally did not have too much problem with his social skills, I thought he was correct many times, though a few times he was indeed unnecessarily rude and insensitive. The key to enjoying the movie, however, is to focus on its drama. The movie is about the conflict between Mark and Eduardo. Watch how the relationship develops, pay attention to the turning points, leading to a compelling and authentic explosion from Eduardo toward the end. I thought Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield were phenomenal. I believe they will get Oscar nods for their performances. They are now two of my favorite actors. This relationship is what dramatically should touch your heart. That this dramatic relationship was mingled with a business endeavor is what I think would attract a typical fan of Ayn Rand.
  3. Hey! Great to see that there are other Objectivists in Toronto!

  4. I bought season one a few months ago and liked it very much. However I'm taking my time with the rest of it. Will treat myself to a mega marathon some time in the summer or fall. I've seen some random episodes on tv since, and the rest looks very promising.
  5. Hokken, I recommend strongly that you read The Fountainhead first. You'll be intrigued by Roark who seems to renounce so much and seems to suffer so, or others like more materialistic pleause seekers, or Dominique who seems to renounce so much and actually suffers, but sees her heaven in art a la Schopenhauer.
  6. Before Your Labor Day By Jose Gainza As the rays of dawn race to brush your face, While your eyes are shut softly on my pillow, The scent of rind will awaken your embrace, Shine a smile on me that has no touch of sorrow. This orange skin caresses cheeks this new born morn, Ere I peel the fruit in our fragrant, windowed room. Of tears of joy and gasps of mirth you warn, As I feed you slices sweet; your feast assume. The trickling dew upon your chin I kiss away, And soon the circle of my lips will circle yours, And the duvet cloud embracing you I'll throw away, And lift you in my arms through bathroom doors, Lay you in my tub to bathe away our night, And resist your call to join you with all might.
  7. For the last 2 years this poem has been properly called IN LOVE WITH HER UNDERGROUND officially by me and in other venues. It used to be called: "Mrs. Dominique Roark!" It was certainly inspired by Roark and Dominique. However, it is also a statement of something personal at the time and probably right now too. And that is what it really is. Any similarities between Roark and Dominique are merely coincidental parallels inspired by Ayn Rand's great and timeless abstractions. The underground is a metaphor for the subconscious, or sense of life, and the conflicts that are possible therefore. (Any references to architecture or building are metaphorical as a symbol of creative intellectual activity, so that the landscape or skyline before the speaker is the achievements of any rational, independent, and creative mind.) Thanks for reading my stuff all these years all of you who have. Jose Gainza.
  8. "This is existence! ....... This greatest payment, this union of our worthy selves!"
  9. A SUDDEN SENTIMENT This is existence! This is what my strongest feeling says: That to be with you is life— That what this mirth and fear embodied in aching, are saying, Is that you and I together now are the meaning of life! Together we are the triumph of what is possible to human ability— The testament to how magnanimous the earth is to men’s dreams— The end to which all our choices and actions have thus embarked— The confirmation of our beneficent power of choice, seizer of this Utopia— This choice the constant condition of eternal happiness: This greatest payment, this union of our worthy selves!
  10. THE IDEA OF MIGHT BE AND OUGHT TO BE RELATED TO THE METAPHYSICAL ISSUE OF VOLITION It applies to the actions and character of men. A keen observer may sit in a city square and watch peolple for months, interviewing people, classifying them by common characteristics, surveying them, and lists his types. But this limited locale, though hundreds of men have been observed, does not speak well enough for all mankind. Our observer if he wanted to make these observed types representative of all mankind, would be in error. The onion is deeper than that. One thing distinctive in the characterization of romantic writers is that their characters are unusual, strange, outcasts, even ugly and monstrious, and they are usually representative of a certain moral creed which they seek to uphold. Without categorizing characters according to moral values, something deterministic has to account for their actions and the course of their life. You can easily see this in the phenomenon of the two murderous scoundrels in Zola's Therese Raquin. Thus a Cyrano can walk into a theatre, kick everyone out, fight a duel while reciting poetry, and fight a hundred men at once; a Howard Roark can stand up to his Dean, get kicked out of a prestigious school, go work for a renowned failure, go work in a granite quarry, and fall in love with a woman who wants to destroy him; a billionaire Thomas Crown can steal a Monet and fall in love with the lead investigator set to put him away. These characters are fantastic, but they are possible, they 'might be'. It soon follows that if there is so much possibility in the realm of behaviour for men, how should men choose to act. Romantic works tend to answer this question. If a writer adheres to the romantic principle, he embraces the issue of free will which makes so much choices possible in the first place.
  11. Ayn Rand held the 'romantic principle' as she called it very early in life, she grasped it first hand. Gradually as she read french novels she began to recognize the principe in the romantic movement in fiction. In addition, when she read Aristotle's poetics she saw it stated, "what could be and should be." I can't tell you what is romantic in painting, or music, or sculpture. But fiction I am more familiar with. In fiction the clearest statement would be Victor Hugo's work and particularly his preface to his play Cromwell. Romanticism was something new in rebellion of Classicism. Some say that Goethe's The Sorrow of Young Werther (which I haven't read) is the first romantic work. But recently an Objectivist identified that Schiller's The Robbers is really the first romantic work in fiction. There are two distinctive characteristics: The man is in control of his destiny and that he has free will over his values. I am not too familiar with specimens of Classicism, but I am familiar with Romanticism contrasted to Naturalism (which was a reaction to Romanticism). Naturalism clearly does not project the metaphysical view about man's destiny and free will. But Classicists were known to follow rigid rules allegedly borrowed from Aristotle that was detrimental to the originality of the work. Is man pulled forward by his own values, or pushed forward by some deterministic power (outside or inside himself)? If you took a look at the works then known as Romantic from Hugo, Dumas, Schiller, and Rostand, you would see this principle at work. A fiction work could advocate altruism as a moral ideal and condemn Capitalism and still be romantic and romantic-realist. It is the metaphysical view that is the key. Ayn Rand is a Romantic because of this metaphysical principle found in her work. I would say she is a Realist because she is studying men according to the correct epistemology and therefore drawing men by essentials as she sees them in today's world, on this earth. Naturalists wanted to write about their time, to define it, and paint it as a scientific record. There is something important about writing for their time. Ayn Rand says that only Victor Hugo achieved it in the closest way to her with Les Miserables. Ayn Rand and Victor Hugo in this context are doing what the Naturalists or Realists are doing but their method is more accessible to all men. As for the poets, I haven't studied them enough. Do they project free will? I do know that many of the Romantics are doing something different and new with their poetry. To what extent do their poetry allow for a metaphysical view? Perhaps it is in their style mainly. Ayn Rand's stories clearly project values, the characters do exert their free will. I wrote something sometime ago trying to define Romantic Realism: Thread on Romantic Realism
  12. Here's the same building from a different perspective: different perspective
  13. The poem in these two documents started out as a lark so that I could amuse a friend. But it actually turned out quite pretty. I guess I can't help myself. I call the picture with the skyline, "West One from DNA". The poem is a typical ode.
  14. The way I've seen it since several years after my beginning with Objectivism is that if you do not understand the Objectivist view of sex fully, then you are in danger of being a whim worshipper in sex. That doesn't necessarily mean promiscuous, but it certainly means sleeping with the wrong person. If in adolesence you wanted sex very much with beautiful people as the standard, then it will take many years to automatize withholding sex for the right person. If you are achieving in life, and you are proud in the realm of your creative achievements then you will automatically want sex with someone. For me, a thirty year old virgin, or a forty year old virgin, is possibly a god. But then again, only if he/she has not been depriving him or herself of valid opportunities.
  15. See 6:25 onwards a couple minutes past for the Monet I talk about.
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