Cigarette #2: From the right-wing nostalgia file

In front of Bass Library

As I was smoking in front of the library I ran into my friend [redacted], who does not believe in agriculture. He always reminds me of this story from Jerome Tuccille's It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand:

Around this time I met the Galambosian.
"I am a Galambosian," he said. [...]
"What the hell is a Galambosian?"

There was this individual, it seems, named Joseph Andrew Galambos who evolved a theory of "primary property rights". Apparently, as soon as someone came up with a new idea - whether an invention or an original philosophical concept - the prototype belonged irrevocably to him and was to be regarded forevermore as his primary property. Somewhere along the line Galambos picked up the notion that Thomas Paine had invented the word "liberty," whereupon he established the Thomas Paine Royalty Fund, and every time he gave a lecture and used the word "liberty" he dropped a nickel into his fund box as a royalty payment to Tom. How he determined that a nickel was the proper measure of homage to Mr. Paine, I have no idea. Legend even had it that Galambos was still diligently searching for Thomas Paine's descendants so he could turn over moneys due their famous ancestor.

"There are five legitimate functions of government," said the Galambosian.
"No kidding. What are they?"
"I am not at liberty to say. The theory was originated by Andy Galambos and it is his primary property."
The Galambosian also informed me that Andy had been introduced to Ayn Rand several years before, and that after five minutes of conversation they had pronounced each other insane.
"Of course, it is Miss Rand who is really insane," said the Galambosian.
"Why is that?"
"I'm afraid I cannot tell you. The reasoning behind that theory
belongs to Andy."

The most peculiar thing about the whole Galambosian concept was the impossibility of finding out anything about it. Galambos' disciples were not at liberty to disseminate his philosophy without paying a royalty to their leader — who could not even waive payment, since primary property was an absolute good and could not be given away. You were stuck with it whether you wanted it or not, throughout eternity. Consequently, all the converts were those proselytized by Galambos himself — a time-consuming and self-restricting process, it being physically impossible to convert more than a handful of people at a time.

"If the rest of us were free to discuss his ideas," said the Galambosian, "there is no question in my mind that Galambosianism would spread throughout the world like wildfire."

That's the real reason I like Mad Men so much — back there and back then, Atlas Shrugged was privileged information that bosses slipped to especially promising subordinates, not a nuisance that must be kept out of the hands of high-schoolers. Were we ever so innocent?

Once, visiting home in Mississippi, I saw that our waitress at the barbecue restaurant was reading The Fountainhead on her break. I have never been more dismayed.