"Right Stuff" author, Ron Paul voter, Tom Wolfe dead at 88

[Anti Federalist]

Tom Wolfe, Pyrotechnic ‘New Journalist’ and Novelist, Dies at 88

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/o...ies-at-88.html

By Deirdre Carmody and William Grimes
May 15, 2018

Tom Wolfe, an innovative journalist and novelist whose technicolor, wildly punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car customizers, astronauts and Manhattan’s moneyed status-seekers in works like “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,” “The Right Stuff” and “Bonfire of the Vanities,” died on Monday in a Manhattan hospital. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by his agent, Lynn Nesbit, who said Mr. Wolfe had been hospitalized with an infection. He had lived in New York since joining The New York Herald Tribune as a reporter in 1962.

In his use of novelistic techniques in his nonfiction, Mr. Wolfe, beginning in the 1960s, helped create the enormously influential hybrid known as the New Journalism.

But as an unabashed contrarian, he was almost as well known for his attire as his satire. He was instantly recognizable as he strolled down Madison Avenue — a tall, slender, blue-eyed, still boyish-looking man in his spotless three-piece vanilla bespoke suit, pinstriped silk shirt with a starched white high collar, bright handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket, watch on a fob, faux spats and white shoes. Once asked to describe his get-up, Mr. Wolfe replied brightly, “Neo-pretentious.”

It was a typically wry response from a writer who found delight in lacerating the pretentiousness of others. He had a pitiless eye and a penchant for spotting trends and then giving them names, some of which — like “Radical Chic” and “the Me Decade” — became American idioms.

His talent as a writer and caricaturist was evident from the start in his verbal pyrotechnics and perfect mimicry of speech patterns, his meticulous reporting, and his creative use of pop language and explosive punctuation.

[r3volution 3.0]

Sad, a fine author.

[Anti Federalist]

Sad, a fine author.

It is, he was, a damn good writer and he was also one of "us".

Tom Wolfe on 2012 Election: "I Wrote in Ron Paul"

http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/10/to...-i-wrote-in-ro

Brian Doherty|Jan. 10, 2013 5:50 pm

Tom Wolfe, great journalist and novelist of American manners, chronicling at his best America's heroic pioneers of inner space (Electric Kool Aid Acid Test) and outer space (The Right Stuff) tells Reason Contributing Editor Michael Moynihan over at the Daily Beast who he voted for in 2012:

"The only times I have not voted with the American people--I don't know what that says about me--recently when I did a write in vote for first time in my life, I wrote in Ron Paul...who wasn't even running but i hoped that would start a kind of landslide..."

I wish it had, Mr. Wolfe.

[shakey1]

I remember reading this one a long time ago...

[jmdrake]

It is, he was, a damn good writer and he was also one of "us".

Tom Wolfe on 2012 Election: "I Wrote in Ron Paul"

http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/10/to...-i-wrote-in-ro

Brian Doherty|Jan. 10, 2013 5:50 pm

Tom Wolfe, great journalist and novelist of American manners, chronicling at his best America's heroic pioneers of inner space (Electric Kool Aid Acid Test) and outer space (The Right Stuff) tells Reason Contributing Editor Michael Moynihan over at the Daily Beast who he voted for in 2012:

"The only times I have not voted with the American people--I don't know what that says about me--recently when I did a write in vote for first time in my life, I wrote in Ron Paul...who wasn't even running but i hoped that would start a kind of landslide..."

I wish it had, Mr. Wolfe.

I didn't know that. I loved the movie. Our physics teacher at the Christian HS I went to showed it to us. He fast forwarded through the "fan dancer" scene though.

[Anti Federalist]

I remember reading this one a long time ago...

Man, I'm having flashbacks just looking at that cover.

I always had this view of Wolfe as a better, less madcap, more in control version of Hunter Thompson.

[Anti Federalist]

I didn't know that. I loved the movie. Our physics teacher at the Christian HS I went to showed it to us. He fast forwarded through the "fan dancer" scene though.

Read the book sometime, it is worth it...an outstanding read and overview of the great leap forward in aviation.

[Anti Globalist]

RIP Tom Wolfe