Dapper Dan has Died

The Dapper Dan of New Journalism has died.

Tom Wolfe passed away this week at the age of 88. He died, the New York Times says, from an “Infection in Manhattan.” That coy term could almost be the title of one of Wolfe’s books.

The sartorial resplendent Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr was the author of such books as The Right Stuff (his most commercially popular), The Bonfire of the Vanities, and my favourite: The Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test.

Along with contemporary writers such as Truman Capote, Gay Talese and Joe Eszterhas, he created the Age of New Journalism.

New Journalism, AKA Gonzo, is the art and craft of reporting “facts” subjectively, by interpretation; injecting the writer, and vicariously the reader, into the story. Wolfe co-created it; it took Capote with In Cold Blood and Hunter S. Thompson with just about everything Thompson wrote to perfect it.

Wolfe’s writing was acerbic but rarely unkind. Unlike Capote, and Thompson for that matter, Wolfe never seemed to have the necessity to be unkind as he chronicled East and West Coast Society in America. He coined phrases for those societies such as “Radical Chic” and the “Me Decade.” America’s astronauts are still collectively known as “The Right Stuff.”

In fact, collectivising and stereotyping were about as tough as Wolfe got when writing about people, and that is no bad stuff.

However, Wolfe's ambitions and commercial success earned him enemies—big enemies. Norman Mailer despised him (nothing new there). So did Kohn Updike and John Irving. On the other hand, right-wing commentator William F. Buckley Jr called Wolfe “probably the most skilled writer in America.”

My view of Tom Wolfe is ambivalent. His writing style is often an inspiration to me, and when circumstances and publishers allow I try to replicate his New Journalism. Fryday often ventures there. However, particularly in his writing for Rolling Stone magazine, Wolfe’s flamboyant style often overtakes and diminishes the substance of his writing; then, his writing becomes like the white and cream suits he was known for—largely opaque.

So, Dapper Dan has died. I don’t feel saddened by that to the same extent I did when Thompson died…or Capote. And the reason I think is that the style he created, New Journalism, lives on—as it had to. If anything, it has been given greater credibility by America’s present president. New Journalism is today’s “Fake News”.

And for that Tom Wolfe has left us a great gift and legacy.
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Sex, with cows

When Fryday has nothing to write about and doesn’t want to revisit Wogistan, it usually reverts to the Hamilton Library’s Book of lists or The University of Waikato.

This week Fryday went to university

The University of Waikato is fertile ground for Fryday. It is the go-to place for ill-considered and retrograde activism and totally useless research. You may recall a Fryday post about the award-winning Waikato University study into “the geographicalism of sexism”. The university has disclosed a more recent and equally compelling thesis on Hamiltonians’ addiction to cars. The best that can be said for that is that cars may be the only addictive thing about Hamilton.

For an update Fryday visited the university website today and using the search box found:

56,817 posts on sexism
333,480 posts on racism

 370,853 posts on sexuality (they like it down there)

 313,143 posts on cows

And remarkably (don’t ask):

  3,482 posts on cows and sexuality.

The University of Waikato is certainly the place to be if you want to produce relevant, compelling research that provides optimal use of the public purse.

Of course The University of Waikato is not alone among universities in its weirdness, or indeed in its love of cows. In researching the latter, Fryday was drawn to the Sub-Continent where cows are just as loved, revered and worshiped as they are in Hamilton.

It was no surprise therefore to find the University of Kota.

Kota takes the cake for weirdness.

Just visiting the home page of its website is to delve into www or, as I describe it, the wonderful world of weird. Be patient with the opening welcoming video—it starts slow, but I can promise you it gets even slower. It celebrates something called the Fifth Convocation. A dictionary definition of convocation is a large gathering of people; up to now I thought it was prisoners going on holiday.

Going deeper into www:Kota one finds a page devoted to anti-ragging rules. What is ragging? Again a dictionary definition: it “now” means an act that violates a student’s dignity. It used to be a woman having her period. I am not sure when the page was posted on the Kota website, but—I suggest—the timing is important, because the intent is to “curb the menace” of ragging and that could, periodically, be very weird indeed.

However, in defence of the University of Kota and all other universities  a search of their sites reveals no posts for cows and sexuality.

Waikato, it appears you have that on your own.

Fryday...on Fire

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know—before this week’s revelations—that there are rumours about Clarke Gaylord-Ardern?

Second question: Do you know what those rumours are?

I am going to hazard a guess that the answer to both those questions is no.

Nor do I. Nor do I care.

Except for this: In drawing attention to these rumours and assigning them to “dirty politics” Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters have been both opportunistic and, worse, incredibly naïve. There is no way in the world that these rumours—whatever they allege—are initiated by political opponents.

How do I know this?

First, I have been around politics for a long time and I know that’s not the way it is done. Sure, things are “known” but they are not spread around. There is such a thing as “glasshouses” which is very effective in prevarication of rumours about a political opponent.

Second, a politician’s family and partner are off limits, not particularly because of laudatory motives, but more openly because there is no political capital in attacking them. In fact, quite the reverse—they can elicit sympathy.

So, is the National Party, as implied by Ardern (Jacinda) and Peters, behind these rumours? No. And are Ardern and Peters in public perception made to look foolish for implying they are? Again, the answer is no. The reason being that generally we are inclined to think the worst of people. Ardern and Peters, as seasoned politicians, know this: they are prepared to fan the fire.

Unfortunately for them, in drawing attention to these rumours they have forgotten the public’s propensity toward another old adage regarding fire: where there is smoke… .

I feel sorry for Gayford. I think he is the innocent victim here, and I sympathise about the rumours. But I also think he should question the judgement of his partner in making political capital out of them.