| |  Paglia was unaware of Rand until people began asking her about their similarities at book signings. Paglia is an irreligious Catholic demonstrative Italian Reagan-Democrat with a very perceptive wit and no tolerance for B.S. She is very similar to Christopher Hitchens in style. She says that she does not fully agree with but does indeed "get" Rand. She is an atheist with a religious sensibility. Paglia is on the ball about 95% of the time, and always worth the read. Her Sexual Personae is, I repeat, the best work on art criticism I have yet read, except for RR, and the two books are very different and complimentary in approach. Paglia is much more widely grounded in modern culture, anthropology, pop-culture and many other things than Rand, and she doesn't discount things out of hand. She is very well respected academically, except by those whose bubbles she pricks, such as post-modernists, prudes, and self-identified victim classes. One of her essay collections has a cartoon in the back which was drawn by a friend and is set in a bar we used to go to Friday nights to discuss her, and other things such as Basic Instinct, and Martin Lawrence, who was just on the scene at the time. The writer and cartoonist C. Bard Cole first lent me Sexual Personae, and I was hooked.
If one reads some of her short off-the cuff remarks, she may seem bizarre, but that would have applied to Rand as well in just about anyone's eyes. I must say that I did not find Paglia's recent Break, Burn, Blow on poetry to be her best work.
She has been disowned by the Left for pooh-poohing the institutional sexism/racism/homphobia crowd. I love her.
Ted Keer, 30 November, 2006, NYC
P.S. The screen-shot is from a three hour interview on CSPAN2. I suggest anyone with a DVR enter her name as a keyword search item.
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 11/30, 4:36pm)
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While you may not get what you deserve, you may just deserve what you get.
Chris Baker has kindly corrected me, it's Terrell Owens I meant in #3, not Tyrell. I blame a combination of diet pills and sleep aids. And to think I actually looked up Aileen Wuornos! :)
