TIME - 10 Questions » Submit questions for » Tom Wolfe

TIME - 10 Questions » Submit questions for » Tom Wolfe: -- TIME now lets us interact with Tom Wolfe. Ask him a question. Here's mine:

"Posted by TimFerris in Cleveland, Ohio:

I’ve been one of your fans since the ’60s, and one of Norman Mailer’s, as well, and for different reasons. Do you miss having him around? That “lead dog” quip is whacked, but still one of my favorites."

doin' the epochs: media displaces culture

Op-Ed Columnist - Lord of the Memes - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com --Here's a marvelous piece of good-natured, high-spirited bombast from David Brooks, dancing around the idea of "epochs of intellectual affectation," as he prances through how the pith of McLuhan's thought has now come home to roost for most of us. A snippet:

But on or about June 29, 2007, human character changed. That, of course, was the release date of the first iPhone.

On that date, media displaced culture. As commenters on The American Scene blog have pointed out, the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status.

Now the global thought-leader is defined less by what culture he enjoys than by the smartphone, social bookmarking site, social network and e-mail provider he uses to store and transmit it. (In this era, MySpace is the new leisure suit and an AOL e-mail address is a scarlet letter of techno-shame.)

Today, Kindle can change the world, but nobody expects much from a mere novel. The brain overshadows the mind. Design overshadows art.

another 24-hour place: Michael's Diner At Shaker Square

Michael's Diner At Shaker Square - Cleveland, OH 44120 -- This past Saturday, we took the blue line and then the green line (it was raining) out to see some friends at Shaker Square, in those condos taller than the Moreland Courts near the Coventry stop, and happened to notice another 24-hour establishment, Michael's Diner, right at the first stop coming out of downtown, at the north side of the square. There are three reviews at http://www.yelp.com/.

The story behind the taller condos was that the builder, a Jewish man, was denied occupancy in the Moreland Courts some time in the 1940s or 1950s, so he took pains to construct his own building right across the street and to make it tall enough that he could look down on his rejectors. This area around Shaker Square continues to offer some of the most elegant cosmpolitan living available in this country. Years ago, in the mid-70s, when I lived on North Moreland (2635?), I was able to park the car in the apartment's garage-under, grab my bags, hop the rapid, and be out to the airport with less muss and fuss than I've experienced any time since.

who else has one of these?

Burning River Roller Girls are back on the prowl for a second, rough-and-tumble season - Going Out - Cleveland.com -- I just thought that this quasi-punk, semi-jock, sports team/fashion statement might be one of our unique regional assets. Click through for an entertaining article and some fun photos as the Roller Girls go Bruising for a Good Time. You go, girls.

webware for tonight's event at WKYC

Ultimate liveblogging tool: CoverItLive Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone --Gloria and Brian Layman were mentioning using this service for the live-blogging going on this evening at our blogger collaboration with WKYC, and it may work out better for me than toodling along on LiveWriter and uploading from time to time.

I think we're going live around 7 PM tonight. Tune in, if you will. This is truly getting to be multimedia, and I have promised I will try to control the Tourette's.

the Brewed Fresh Doily finds a home

At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee - New York Times -- I understand that our friend George is sending the owner of this high-end coffee brewer a gross of Brewed Fresh Doilies to put under his high-end cups and saucers.

Lots of coffee buzzwords here: noble, delicate, sweeter, juicier, moussey, majestic, titillating, floral, sexy, kaleidoscopic, and jammy. To the extent the effete-yet-wired coffee-snob parlance borrows freely from other sensate experiences, it seems akin to the extravagances we studied among the early enthusiasts of wine and cheese, the gentle hedonists. Enjoy; I found the article sort of hilarious, with sort of a nutty bouquet. I love the bit about “If you just want equipment you’re not ready.” I'm sure we'll see the line surface on SNL some day soon. I would have written it for Mango.

and I never got to argue with him sober. . .

Norman Mailer, Outspoken Novelist, Dies at 84 - New York Times -- One of my best imaginary friends died over the weekend. Mailer and I hadn't actually spoken since the fall of 1968. I was just out of college and dangling between going to Canada, wearing a dress, commissioning obscene tattoos, and succumbing to the draft. Just to set the record straight, I got tired of the suspense and enlisted just before Woodstock, and I gave my concert tickets to a friend from Cornell.

Anyway, back to Mailer. My friend Dan Cody from Wrentham, Massachusetts, had been hanging around Provincetown for a while, being introduced around to the arts colony there initially when he was hooked up with Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, and the Merry Pranksters with the Magic Bus, so he knew Mailer well enough to get drunk with him, which everybody did back then. We were there to gawk at a new phenomenon of the late '60s, the Drag Queen's Ball (and Parade), and we spent the late morning and all afternoon getting fortified. This was not the sort of thing we felt we could view straight or sober. Somehow, as the day wore on, Mailer and I engaged and squared off across a small table. We proceeded to argue, speaking in tongues, it seems, like weird twins inventing their own language. Nobody else knew what we were talking about, but it was heated, from what I was told. I suppose it was about American literature, and the novel; I was still passionate about those things back then.

Over the years, I've followed his career; I first felt a kinship with him when I devoured The Naked and the Dead early in my college readings. I really liked his subsequent alpha-male idea about being in training to become "a sexual athlete." His later feuds-in-full with Tom Wolfe were hilarious, as in this piece from a Guardian article stemming from Wolfe's essay about The Three Stooges:

The Wolfe-Mailer feud is by far the oldest and cattiest of the three. As far back as 1989, 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."

Deep below the multiple layers of bitchiness, it is possible to pick out a substantive battle over the future of American novel.

Also over the years, it's been comforting to know he was around, still pugnacious, fighting the good fight, keeping things stirred up to the best of his ability, making his transitions just ahead of me, hanging out around Provincetown. Looking back on it all, he was one of his own better creations.

bringing the band together for a global tour

Chrysler Lures Another Top Executive - washingtonpost.com -- There's a fascinating story playing out here of tactical team-building to push what looks like a global initiative. Isn't Cerberus the multi-headed, multitasking dog who guarded the gates of hell, and do you remember, was he keeping them in, or keeping them out? Did you catch the heads up in Portfolio this past month?

bipolar nation, deep cleavage, and the Teletubbies

Hedge Funds Tech Industry - Portfolio.com -- Kevin studies America. Worthwhile read.