Atlas' Second Coming, and the Shrugs

THE GLOBAL MELTDOWN MIGHT have made the mighty Atlas tickle, or so it must have seemed if one takes the metaphor literally. But Atlas, in spite of shrugs, is going strong on its part.

Interestingly, Audacity of Hope by President Obama was overtaken by Atlas Shrugged on the sales charts for a while just before the presidency change. This is the second coming of Ayn Rand that started in 2007. Over past ten+ years I must have gifted her books, selectively and carefully, to at least three people of my immediate reckoning (all of whom fell out of touch. Not so carefully, after all!). Honestly though, I never got this book right. There was always something ultra-right about the acceptance and success of her (cold-war incubated) concepts of having a platonic state of a democracy (where one would be expected to demonstrate as much dexterity with the left hand as the right).

Ayn Rand's rendition of the perfect world -- much more vividly worded in her previous notoriety: The Fountainhead -- could only be realised by having a robot driven logic drinking mathematical machine state, with humans as its 'individual' sentinels possessing extreme selfishness. There is no room for spirit or an experience of it (except perhaps in nakedness, which is to be perceived without sensitivity -- ask Mr. Wynand, who, according to a female friend, is the real hero for her). Event though they claimed to keep the torch burning when the oil ran out.

The Economist argues today that the current financial crisis, and various bail-out announcements, have a direct correlation with unit sales figures and sales rank of Atlas Shrugged (See chart. source: ecomonist.com). The author attributes the pattern to mass social media -- such as Facebook, and certain user groups aiming at personifying the storytelling as if "Atlas Shrugged is happening in real life". Plus, it is believed that Alan Greenspan is a fan of Rand's work, and thus his every recent move was like a stimuli to the book's gift-wrapping counters at Amazon.com.

However, it is to take it too far to compare Rearden's (one of the book's characters who invents a unique metal) visit to the ministers with that of the Banking CEO's meeting with the US congress these past weeks.

I am at a loss of expectations from the movie based of Rand's works which is in the making for a 2011 release. I can only shrug for the moment. As a fan of Rand's, however, it actually makes sense, for it largely belongs to the fairyland.

Let's wait and see who is John Galt?

Update: Have you read "The Driver" (try here) by Garet Garrett? Arguably, Rand lifted a few key concepts and phrases from this rather obscured 1922 work. His first work in 1911 was titled "Where the Money Grows and Anatomy of the Bubble".

• See also:
• Go here for WSJ.com jumping in the bandwagon with "'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years".
• Go here for Amazon.com bestselling list among Classics where four out of top 10, including the first three, are Rand's books as of this week (Feb 28, 2009).

A "Revo-lulu-tion" in Print Publishing

ANYONE WITH A SOMEWHAT SERIOUS SLANT towards one's blogging lines would want to publish something in a physical paper format (read: book) at some point in time. At least that is what my general observation has been. On one hand, while the technology of bringing words online in the forms of Blogger, LiveJournal, MySpace and alike have made content creation a one-click job and in doing so might have taken the 'authors' away from the traditional book-publishing process, on the other hand it is really interesting to see how the same technology loops back and makes publishing a book in paper format an equally user-friendly and accessible experience. Add to that the ability to enable Creative Commons options, variable pricing options, and manufacturing (physical printing on paper and binding) and shipping on-demand, provides the new dimension of flexibility in the hands on authors. This is the modern technology looping back to aid the traditional medium of publication rather than clipping it.

The concept first came with Bob Young (co-founder of Red Hat Linux) and Stephen Fraser when they founded lulu.com - winner of 2007 Web 2.0 awards, and arguably, the largest print-on-demand service for books in the world at this point.

[Above: Bob Young, Co-founder of Red Hat. Aug 2007]

The cook-book about publishing your book through lulu is readily available on the site, and is rather straightforward. One can also provide custom-made front and back covers for the to-be-printed book. The content could be a simple word document which would be converted and formatted by lulu automatically as per requirements. (The structure of the uploaded document/book should be in one of the prescribed format.) One can easily buy an ISBN number as well for the work to be published.

"Write your book at [the age of] 40, but dream about it for at least five years..."

I got this thoughtful advice recently from someone I like to trust and respect: "Write your book at [the age of] 40, but dream about it for at least five years..." So, even if it is not time yet for you to start publishing (and making money out of what you write!) I suppose it is still always worth-while to open your 'storefront' on lulu that 'sells' your book(s). You may stop by my store on lulu. It is still empty though, but you may would want to keep a watch on it! ;-)

For an interesting interview of Stephen Fraser by Creative Commons, go here.

A Blog, A Book and A Paper

What is the reason for someone to create and maintain a Weblog?

Blog is a tool to put ideas, reactions and observations into public. A personal diary in public.

In the process, one creates content, expresses likes and dislikes (and gives opportunities to Web2.0 apps to sell you a relevant product!), have the contentment of speaking it out (and, in some cases, being 'heard' also), and it creates a possibility for an interaction for you where someone might respond to your views.

As to the frequency of blogging, I do not suppose there could be any rules as such. I think if you get one good idea per week to talk about in your blog, and you keep that practice for an year, effectively you would end up having about 50 good ideas. I would say, that makes a really productive year: 50 good ideas! Not bad...



This also goes on speaking about the new Social dynamics that the technology has infused among us.

On the downside, the chief one, as I see it, is that there is a real threat to a prospective book that one may write... All the ideas that one found worth talking about, are already in one's blog in the public... What would one write a book about?

[Well, being conscious about this, I am keeping the topic and ideas about my book private :-) At the same time, I do wish to marshal certain skills for a more effective book by writing a blog.]

Having said that, if a blog manages to bring reputed and like-minded folks together and becomes interactive where people could review and audit ideas, concepts, observations of the peers', it could surely lead towards a paper. And a paper that is peer-reviewed always carries higher credibility and authority compared to a book which practically anybody could write and publish.

So, essentially what I am saying is, if you are reading this, and if you do maintain a blog as well, go ahead, drop in a comment and I would have a look at your 'stuff' also...