Thank you John.

Rich, I just did a quick internet survey of dates when
people say that Rand wrote "The Night of January 16th"
and found that it is said to have been written in '33
and put on Broadway in '35. more if I find it. -- j

hey, Rob! it's the sampling frequency! with the CD,
it's a discrete 44.1 or so kHz;;; with the vinyl, it's
very likely nearly infinite -- at least during the calm
passages. you can hear the graininess of a CD if
you do an a-b comparison!!! -- j

vinyl, or reel-to-reel, with glowing tubes doing the
duty!!! -- j

they were both virtuosos with their instruments --
Rand with her mind and Hendrix with his axe!!! -- j

According to the extensive Editor's Preface in Leonard Peikoff's The Early Ayn Rang (1984), which includes the script for the play, "Ideal was written in 1934, at a time when Ayn Rand had cause to be unhappy with the world... The story was written originally as a novelette and then, probably within a year or two, was extensively revised and turned into a stage play..."
...
"Emotionally, Ideal is unique among Ayn Rand's works. It is the polar opposite of 'Good Copy'. 'Good Copy' was based on the premise of the impotence and insignificance of evil. But ideal focuses almost exclusively on evil or mediocrity (in a way that even We the Living did not); it is pervaded by Kay Gonda's feeling of alienation from mankind, the feeling, tinged by bitterness, that the true idealist is in a minuscule minority amid an earthful of value-betrayers with whom no communication is possible. In accordance with this perspective, the hero, Johnny Dawes, is not a characteristic Ayn Rand figure, but a misfit utterly estranged from the world, a man whose virtue is that he does not know how to live today (and often wanted to die). If Leo feels this in Soviet Russia, the explanation is political, not metaphysical. But Johnny feels it in the United States."

"In her other works, Ayn Rand herself gave the answer to such a 'malevolent universe' viewpoint, as she called it. Dominque Francon in The Fountainhead, for instance, strikingly resembles Kay and Johny in her idealistic alienation from the world, yet she eventually discovers how to reconcile evil with the 'benevolent universe' approach... Dominique does learn it; but Kay and Johnny do not, or at least not fully. The effect is untypical Ayn Rand: a story written APPROVINGLY from Dominique's initial viewpoint."
...
"Despite its somber essence, however, Ideal is not entirely a malevolent story.... The ending, moreover, however unhappy, is certainly not intended as tragedy or defeat. Johny's final action is ACTION -- that is the whole point -- action to protect the ideal, as against empty words or dreams..."

Much more commentary accompanies the play in The Early Ayn Rand.

They have been around since the late 70's:
http://www.mofi.com/

Check them out...you will probably find some of your treasured titles offered!

P.S. I have a Mobility Fidelity Lab copy of the Stone's Sticky Fingers, that would make you cry like a baby...!

You are preaching to the choir!

I have quite a few of my favorite albums in both, and some of my favorite vinyl's duplicated in that super expensive Mobile Fidelity Lab releases (Japanese virgin vinyl, and digitally remastered).

Bottom line was that it was too seductive to buy the Sony CD player that held 300 albums, and you can put it on 'shuffle' and go to Nirvana...!

I still play my vinyls when I get in the mood, and always think to myself just how 'sweeter' the sounds are.

+1 to that!

One of my computer programs will add (supposedly) the 'pops' and 'ticks' of a vinyl track onto a stark digital song track. I have never tried it.

The same program will remove the inherent tape hiss when you copy an analog tape to digital...that I have used quite a bit!

My first thought was this: My best friend in jr high and high school's dad was a DJ for a local radio station (he was the famous guy in town) anyway, on the weekends he dj'd parties and weddings etc. He had these two huge turn tables that needed to be loaded and lugged into a van to and from his weekend gigs. All the kids had to help (as they should) load up all the equipment, AND his cases and cases of heavy, and ultra organized, LP's. So..back to my first thought, which was... who wants to go back to THAT? lol

I agree. I was a huge fan of the Dune books by Frank Herbert. The prequels, sequels, and in-betweenquels by the son not much (actually for the in-betweenquels nothing but disgust and horror). There is a copy in a book of a very early novella version of Dune. It is clear why it was not published and the later book it was crafted into was. I generally dislike when the "heirs of the estate" try to get as much out of the estate as possible by publishing works that the author didn't seem to want to publish or earlier unpolished versions. I hated it for Herbert. I hated it for Tolkien. And now Rand.

...whatever.

Ideal :-)

I don't believe so. lol

I don't know...Jimi Hendrix's lost (and found by his estate) studio tapes were not ready for 'prime time'. They needed to remain 'lost'....

But...I will be the first to buy a copy!

If I am right this pre dates everything else she wrote. Should be interesting. Great post Shrug.

There is also one about a little town where a boy kills someone too.

I would like to see it. I have almost all of her newsletters and read almost all of her work. She is the best. I do not understand why some Libertarians reject her philosophy. I think I would be able to spot a fake.

I knew one of her novels never made it into print. I'd forgotten its title.