He is a writer, wrote some awesome stuff, and some not as awesome stuff.

Known for "The Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test" in which he follows Ken Kesey around for a few years, all true and factual.

Wrote "Bauhaus to Our House" or maybe its the other way around, and is an architecture critic in New York now, I think.

The book with Tangerine in the title was an utter disapointment for me.

Did that help, or was it too literal?

Oh, and I don't know why he's effing with your head.

is great, a hilarious sendup of midcentury modernism as it arrived in the US from Europe post WWII.

The Painted Word is where he does the same thing with contemporary art, also highly recommended.

... and I've just read The Right Stuff a few weeks ago, an awesome history of the space program's early days.

Can't speak to his fiction novels, for some reason I've never been interested in picking them up.

What book are you reading that's fucking with you?

I didn't know he wrote "The Write Stuff." We watched the movie version in HS physics.

And if you are interested in American history, specifically right before 'Hippies' came into vogue, "Acid Test" is totally amazing. It even has the grateful dead before they were the grateful dead, something about jugs I think? Any way, its almost a continuation of "On teh Road" by Keruoac, with a few of the same people, except Wolfe doesn't use fake names.

reading tom wolfe is always a fun ride. i even liked 'the kandy-kolored tangerine-flake streamline baby'.

his novel 'bonfire of the vanities' was a brilliant critique of conflicting american subcultures of the 80s. i read it in rolling stone magazine where it was serialized before the book was published.

'a man in full' is on my shelf, haven't yet read it, but my brother, who lived in atlanta at the time, said that it was scarily accurate and, therefore, hilarious.

steven,
your mention of 'bonfire of the vanities' reminds me - whatever happened to tama janowitz?

On Wolfe's sartorial idiosyncrasies Mailer remarked: "In my mind, there is something silly about a man who wears a white suit all the time, especially in New York."

Wolfe brushed off the sartorial attack, simply pointing out that "the lead dog is the one they always try to bite in the ass". To which Mailer quickly responded: "It doesn't mean you're the top dog just because your ass is bleeding."

the literary brad pitt of his day. someone needs to tell these armchair architecture critics to stick it. you know who i'm talking about, prince charles.

btw, bonfire of the vanities is one of my favorite books.

talk to woody harrelson about it. GO FURTHER and the SOL tour