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Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
The New Yorker's Great Wall of Silence
Tom Wolfe Writes a Letter to The New Yorker In the Third Person
Tom Wolfe Explains Hip Hop
The Nude Photos That Nearly Destroyed New York
Financial Armageddon Possible Tomorrow, Says Tom Wolfe
Promiscuous Tina Brown To Bring Tom Wolfe's Deflowered Virgin To Screen
Tom Wolfe Blames Money Crisis On 'The Computer'
New York Founding Editor Clay Felker To Be Memorialized This Evening
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Smitros
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
But in his defense, he did get an award for I Am Charlotte Simmons. That award was for worst passage of sex writing, but what the hey.
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God
08/26/09

@Smitros: Tom Wolfe is such a tool that when he misplaces his Philips screwdriver, he uses his dick instead.
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Smitros
08/26/09

@God:
He did write The Painted Word, though, so his career has not been entirely for naught.
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Hands
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
I'd never read anything by him until A Man in Full and that because it was set in Atlanta where I lived at the time. It was a good story but badly told with the silliest goddam ending even an amateur wouldn't have written. I've found him eminently ignorable since.
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Cynical Media Bitch promoted this comment Edited by Hands at 08/26/09 12:49 PM Hands was starred Hands was unstarred

Cynical Media Bitch
08/26/09

@Hands: I have been an admirer of Wolfe's for years, but I agree that the wheels came off A Man In Full at the end. The bit that really got under my skin was his constant use of "Bump City" as slang for Oakland. I wonder who put that idea in his head?

One of these years, I will get around to reading Charlotte Simmons, but that's more about my need for completeness than anything else.
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Lebenskunstlerin
08/26/09

@Cynical Media Bitch: I would urge you not to do that to yourself. I stupidly read it when my (now ex-) boyfriend gave me a copy a few years ago. I hated it so much I threw it onto the subway tracks at Canal St. in a fit of drunken pique. It was truly painful.
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Cynical Media Bitch
08/26/09

@Lebenskunstlerin: If I can put up with The DaVinci Code I'm pretty sure I have what it takes to get through CS.
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Mo MoDo
08/26/09

@Cynical Media Bitch: I recommend Charlotte Simmons to my friends with high-school-aged daughters. It terrifies them.
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God
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
For once I would like to ask you all a question, my children:

why does a man who dresses like this get taken seriously?
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BadUncle promoted this comment God was starred God was unstarred

BadUncle
08/26/09

@God: You created him. You tell us. Maybe it has something to do with free will.
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Botswana Meat Commission FC
08/26/09

@God: I dare you to strike him dead.
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God
08/26/09

@BadUncle: Bah. Free will. Satan got me to put it in the contract late one night after I did one too many Jello shots and amyls with Archangel Michael. The morning after, when I saw what I had gone and done, I had a breakthrough and realized I had a problem.

Tom Wolfe is such a douche that when you burp him, it smells like Country Flowers.
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God
08/26/09

@Botswana Meat Commission FC: Oh I'll do one better, my child. I sentence BadUncle to spend a year as a hapless error-prone intern to Tom Wolfe's tailor tasked with inquiring whether Wolfe dresses left or right, and measuring Wolfe's rise and inseam over and over again.
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BadUncle
08/26/09

@God: oh, the humanity.
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Awesome X
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
Thomas Friedman's version would've begun, "I was standing in a long line at the airport."
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skahammer
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
Anyhow the writing's not bad as long as you can forget that this story was almost certainly inspired by Tom Wolfe standing in a long line at the airport.

Now that's a closing sentence.
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Edited by skahammer at 08/26/09 11:16 AM skahammer was starred skahammer was unstarred

TheHonJudgeSmails
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
If we've tolerated Gore Vidal for the last twenty years based upon what were, at best, middling literary accomplishments earlier in his career, Tom Wolfe should be allowed to murder six or seven people in cold blood without consequence.
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Tremonius
08/26/09

@TheHonJudgeSmails: I failed to find the "genius" of "In Cold Blood." Mailer churned out self-congratulatory pap after his first novel. Papa's "Across the River - " was just plain silly pretense. I think the only smart move by a major author whenever he felt himself slipping was made by Salinger.
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Awesome X
08/26/09

@Tremonius: Or by Hemingway.

What? Stop looking at me like that.
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Edited by Awesome X at 08/26/09 11:29 AM Awesome X was starred Awesome X was unstarred

flossy
08/26/09

@TheHonJudgeSmails:

Hear, hear.

He may be (okay, he is) a pompous twat, but In Cold Blood is truly excellent, to say nothing of Radical Chic, Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers, From Bauhaus to Our House, The Painted Word, Bonfire of the Vanities and the pretty dated but undeniably strong Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test...

Is it really any shock that his capacity for biting, insightful and au courant satire/cultural criticism has been diminished a bit by the fact that he's now old as fuck? Besides, I would be smugly resting on my laurels by now had I written even one of those fine works.
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TheHonJudgeSmails
08/26/09

@flossy: "In Cold Blood" was an unintended reference in my comment. I believe Capote wrote the novel to which you refer.
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snugbug
08/26/09

@Tremonius: Re: Mailer. I loved Harlot's Ghost, his CIA novel--I believe it came out in the '90s. The research that must've gone into that thing blows my mind to this day. Sure, it couldda been 700 pages shorter, but hey, it's Mailer.
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Edited by snugbug at 08/26/09 11:42 AM snugbug was starred snugbug was unstarred

snugbug
08/26/09

@TheHonJudgeSmails: Ah, Gore Vidal. Surely whatever literary accomplishments he achieved at any point were nullified by the rapids of douchery that he's been riding since the '60s. Caligula. Corresponding with Timothy McVeigh in prison. Sending an official letter to the Germ government protesting their ban on Scientology. Brawling and lawsuit-ing with William F. Buckley, Jr.; brawling with Truman Capote, brawling with.. uh, everyone.
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flossy
08/26/09

@TheHonJudgeSmails: GAH. Jesus Christ. I really have come down with a case of the stupid this morning. Still Tom Wolfe--good author. Not that I have any credibility left on the matter.
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Tremonius
08/26/09

@snugbug: Once, a long time ago, I read a post-Quick and Dead novel of Mailer's. He is supposed to be this gigantic child of violence, and he would not sit down with an interviewer for two seconds before bragging how he had shivved his wife, and yet there is a scene in the forgettable novel in which he employed a phony move from fifties wrestling. Possibly it impressed the Upper East Side, but it's laughably artificial almost anwhere else. From that point, Mailer has been a travel writer to me; one who brings back outlandish stories from exotic locales which cannot be verified independently by his audience.
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Tremonius
08/26/09

@Awesome X: I have secretly wondered over the years if James Dean would be a fifties icon today had he stopped for coffee on 5 prior to setting out on 46 to Paso Robles that year. I mean, what is the shelf life of a Brando clone if the original is still doing business on the same corner?
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Awesome X
08/26/09

@Tremonius: Oh, yeah. You don't have to live very long before you become a parody of yourself. And that's not exclusive to celebrities and literary giants. Just consider how glorious your parents, your washed-up colleague, your sad-sack college prof might have been before running out of good ideas, vigor and time. Certainly not to justify suicide, but I guess that's why I wasn't so devastated when DFW died last year; I figured he wouldn't have off'd himself if he felt like he had much more to say.
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Cynical Media Bitch
08/26/09

@Tremonius: Had Dean stopped on 5 for coffee, that Spyder would have been equipped for time travel.
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Cynical Media Bitch
08/26/09

@Awesome X: Very few of us get to go out in a blaze of glory, or as our careers are just taking off. At least Dean's death was an accident, and not a murder or suicide.

Speaking of murders, I suspect that John Lennon might have become as pathetic as Sir Paul is today, had Chapman gone to that appointment with his shrink.
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the_lerpa
08/26/09

@Tremonius, flossy: Wolfe's "In Cold Blood," Mailer's "The Quick and the Dead"... I see we have a real literary salon here!
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Tremonius
08/26/09

@Awesome X: You know, along about now, I think of Gene Kelly. In Marjorie Morningstar. I always meant to read the book because in the film Gene Kelly is the music teacher, I think, in a girls' camp on some island, maybe Long. But he goes with Marjorie all the way to Broadway, if I'm remembering rightly, and then he slips away, and Marjorie loves him and she traces him - back to the island where he's back teaching music to another generation of girls. And there's Martin Mulner or somebody tracking Marjorie, and tells her, water never rises above its own level. And she tells him, well, then, bright boy, I guess you never heard of global warming.

If I remember rightly.
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Tremonius
08/26/09

@Cynical Media Bitch: What was it then, the Goodnight-Loving Trail?
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Tremonius
08/26/09

@the_lerpa: Are you kidding? Where else in the world, as I say, can you engage in a discussion in detail of both Ulysses and the actual instruments by which Bernie should've been trapped long ago? I mean, besides the locker room of the Rockettes.

I knew it was Naked Came the Stranger just as soon as I sent out the comment.
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Edited by Tremonius at 08/26/09 6:06 PM Tremonius was starred Tremonius was unstarred

T.S._delegate
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
Well, you gotta give him a little credit for attempting hetero-banker talk. The first draft of that sentence was:
"Oh dear, I reaaaaaally need to nail me some hoes. Anyone fancy a come-along? I hear the beaches in the Caribbean are gorrrrrrrgeous."
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southernbitch
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
at this point, it's fairly obvious that he must be suffering from some sort of dementia. there is no way he seriously thinks what he writes or says about anything is actually witty and relevant unless we factor in the fact that he is delusional. case in point: i am charlotte simmons, aka the worst book ever written. second case in point: "boffing".
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Tremonius
08/26/09

@southernbitch: The delusion of crowds. I once heard an apt response from Philip Lamantia the Beat poet to the question: "Do you think Ferlinghetti considers himself a poet?" "Of course he does; his royalties announce the fact to him!"

Man Mountain considered himself a champeen fighter, which is why they called the flick "The Harder They Fall."
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snugbug
08/26/09

@southernbitch: I dunno.. The Vanity Fair piece is bitingly sarcastic vis–à–vis "the rich" and their worldly concerns, vacationing habits, etc. I liked it. Ditto Charlotte Simmons.
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sweetpickles
08/26/09

@southernbitch: The worst book ever written? I guess you never read Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49".
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southernbitch
08/26/09

@snugbug: i found simmons pedantic, sexist, racist, and about as "shocking" about the modern college experience as a saved by the episode.
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Tremonius
08/26/09

@southernbitch: " ... a saved by the episode ... "

What is that? Is that what we called a "continue piece," or old-time serial in which the heroine was tied to the tracks with a definite save-by date?
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Botswana Meat Commission FC
08/26/09

@southernbitch: My wife temporarily lost her mind and bought "I am Charlotte Simmons" on audiobook.

They should just play it on a continuous loop at Gitmo to get confessions out of terrorists.
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Botswana Meat Commission FC
08/26/09

@sweetpickles: Lot 49 is maybe a bit dated, but it's still a billion times less awful than "Charlotte Simmons." And Pynchon is still on hsi game. "Against the Day" was fantastic.
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sweetpickles
08/26/09

@Botswana Meat Commission FC: Pynchon puts me to sleep. I didn't think "Simmons" was that good, but it's a quick read and there's some entertaining scenes. The ironic thing about Wolfe is that he kind of sucks at making up stories to better realize his observations. If you give him something to follow, though, he'll tell it better than most--with a cool angle, to boot. His journalism and essays are far better examples of his work than his fiction.
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southernbitch
08/26/09

@Tremonius: ugh, sorry, i meant saved by the bell episode. i have serious script probs on my office computer that causes everything to run too slowly and i often end up making tons of typing mistakes because of it. my bad.
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southernbitch
08/26/09

@sweetpickles: a quick read? it's 800 pages! reading it was like the slowest hate-fuck in the world. i will agree that he's a pretty good journalist, but ultimately he still lets his obsessive ego about being so groundbreaking and edgy get in the way of producing anything actually groundbreaking and edgy.
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sweetpickles
08/26/09

@southernbitch: Haha. I don't know, I get through his stuff pretty quick. It's not like trying to read Joyce...He's pretty accessible.
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irishflyesq
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
In other what-else-is-new news, irishflyesq is playing computer solitaire and trying to avoid actual work.
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Edited by irishflyesq at 08/26/09 11:06 AM irishflyesq was starred irishflyesq was unstarred

paxcincinnatus
08/26/09

In reply to Tom Wolfe Writes Story About Rich People
"He decided to write about the wealthy this time!

Surprise! Working title: "My Saturday Was Better Than Yours."
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valet_of_the_dolls promoted this comment Edited by paxcincinnatus at 08/26/09 10:54 AM paxcincinnatus was starred paxcincinnatus was unstarred

depardoo
05/14/09

In reply to The New Yorker's Great Wall of Silence
I gave up my subscription when I won the cartoon captioning contest and they attributed the caption to some guy in Texas. Never replied to my three or four e-mails. Bitches.
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HiredGoons
05/14/09

In reply to The New Yorker's Great Wall of Silence
I prefer Harper's, but have subscriptions to both. It's still pretty good, esp. Art coverage.
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MyraCaballa
05/14/09

In reply to The New Yorker's Great Wall of Silence
I stopped reading the NYer when it stopped being Wallace Shawn's NYer. I think of it now as just another vehicle for soft core porn in Conde Nast's portfolio. I prefer the hard stuff.
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The-Littlest-Hobo
05/14/09

@MyraCaballa: Wallace Shawn's New Yorker? That would be awesome!
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Sproing
05/14/09

@The-Littlest-Hobo: If inconceivable.
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Peter Feld
05/14/09

In reply to The New Yorker's Great Wall of Silence
Can someone tell me - who was the New Yorker writer who several years ago wrote a book about being a failure at age 50 after his contract wasn't renewed? He used to write pieces centering on lifestyles of the rich. There is a scene in Remnick's office (Remnick not named) where he gets the bad news.
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Rasselas
05/14/09

@Peter Feld: James "How come Jules Feiffer gets to summer on Martha's Vineyard and I don't?" Atlas?
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ginger rant
05/14/09

In reply to The New Yorker's Great Wall of Silence
I agree that The New Yorker is the best magazine we've got, but I have to ask this once again: is Remnick worth the $1 million salary Wikipedia says he was getting a few years ago (and is presumably still getting)? Is this commensurate with the editors of other "thought leader" magazines, or just commensurate with other Conde-Nast editors in chief (what's left of 'em, anyway)?
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