Daniel: My name is Daniel. I consider myself to be a born-again egoist and I have dedicated the rest of my life to self-improvement. People see me as a socially inept loner because I tend to avoid superficial conversation but actually I love talking to people who like to think (the problem being I don't know very many).And to perfect the coda of silliness, McSweeny's gives us an Atlas Shrugged for the current age:
ThusToTyrants: You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you've seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you've realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren't speaking, and you don't have to listen.
Zak: I take my relationships seriously. I am simply not attracted to many of the women in this world. I do not "hook-up" with girls. I only kiss those who deserve, and so far I have only encountered one who did. I would love to find someone I can learn something from; someone who challenges me to think; someone I can feel like I've won, rather than lowered myself to.
Lewis: I love intelligent, sassy girls, particularly those working in consulting or investment banking (but other fields are great too). Really, nothing is hotter than an accomplished girl in a suit, as long as she is willing to settle down and have my children. I want a girl who will support my ambitions against the naysayers in society.
He stood and adjusted his suit jacket so that his body didn't betray his shameful weakness. He walked toward her and sat informally on the edge of her desk. "Why make a product when you can make dollars? Right this second, I'm earning millions in interest off money I don't even have."If you've ever read all the way through Atlas Shrugged, then read the rest, if you dare.
He gestured to his floor-to-ceiling windows, a symbol of his productive ability and goodness.
"There's a whole world out there of byzantine financial products just waiting to be invented, Dagny. Let the leeches run my factories into the ground! I hope they do! I've taken out more insurance on a single Rearden Steel bond than the entire company is even worth! When my old company finally tanks, I'll make a cool $877 million."
Their eyes locked with an intensity she was only beginning to understand. Yes, Hank ... claim me ... If we're to win the battle against the leeches, we must get it on ... right now ... Don't let them torture us for our happiness ... or our billions.
He tore his eyes away.
"I can't. Sex is base and vile!"
"No, it's an expression of our highest values and our admiration for each other's minds."
"Your mind gives me the biggest boner, Dagny Taggart."
He fell upon her like a savage, wielding his mouth like a machete, and in the pleasure she took from him her body became an extension of her quarterly earnings report–proof of her worthiness as a lover. His hard-on was sanction enough.
Almost screaming after five agonizingly pleasurable minutes, I make a grab, to put him, now angrily slapping against both our bellies, inside, but he holds both my arms down, and puts his tongue to my core, like a cat lapping up a dish of cream so as not to miss a single drop. I find myself gripping his ears and tugging at the locks curling over them, beside myself, and a strange animal noise escapes from me as the mounting, Wagnerian crescendo overtakes me. I really do hope at this point that all the Spodders are, as requested, attending the meeting about slug clearance or whatever it is.I actually find that one kinda tolerable and don't see what the fuss is all about. I'll ignore the Updike entry; it's just not worth the effort. My favorite is the extract from The Reserve by Russell Banks:
It had begun slowly, tenderly, face-to-face, with long, lingering looks at each other, like devoted siblings at the start of a long absence taking their last leave of each other, gathering in all the details they had neglected to notice up to now. They removed their clothes, their own and each other's, delicately, precisely, as if preparing to model for an artist, and once naked, seated side by side on the bed, they turned to face each other, and with their hands on each other's bare shoulders, they kissed – sweetly, as if in relief and gratitude for having come to the peaceful end of a painfully protracted argument. And then they embraced and with their hands caressed each other's breasts and backs and arms – her skin smooth and creamy and soft as fine silk, his alabaster white and tautly drawn over muscle and bone – and their separate bodies gradually lost their boundaries and merged into a third body, one that contained all their female and male differences and erased all their anatomical contrasts and inversions."Long, lingering looks," indeed. A good writer might be able to pull that off in first person, but third?
Hot and sweat-slicked, we writhed together like immaculate beasts. I crushed my mouth down about hers and our tongues engaged like the rest of us, desperate and hungry. I could feel the desire flay us, lay us open, and demand that there be more contact, more skin, until we were rolled up inside one another. When we came, the universe stopped to listen to us.(And before you ask, no, I haven't posted this one yet.)
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