false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165613671m/7442.jpg 7442 28 They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But, fortunately, Tom Wolfe was there, notebook in hand, politely declining LSD while Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters fomented revolution, turning America on to a dangerously playful way of thinking as their Day-Glo conveyance, Further, made the most influential bus ride since Rosa Parks's. By taking <I>On the Road</I>'s hero Neal Cassady as his driver on the cross-country revival tour and drawing on his own training as a magician, Kesey made Further into a bully pulpit, and linked the beat epoch with hippiedom. Paul McCartney's <I>Many Years from Now</I> cites Kesey as a key influence on his trippy <I>Magical Mystery Tour</I> film. Kesey temporarily renounced his literary magic for the cause of "tootling the multitudes"--making a spectacle of himself--and Prankster Robert Stone had to flee Kesey's wild party to get his life's work done. But in those years, Kesey's life <I>was</I> his work, and Wolfe infinitely multiplied the multitudes who got tootled by writing this major literary-journalistic monument to a resonant pop-culture moment. <p> Kesey's theatrical metamorphosis from the distinguished author of <I>One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest</I> to the abominable shaman of the "Acid Test" soirees that launched The Grateful Dead required Wolfe's Day-Glo prose account to endure (though Kesey's own musings in <I>Demon Box</I> are no slouch either). Even now, Wolfe's book gives what Wolfe clearly got from Kesey: a contact high. <I>--Tim Appelo</I> 208153 book 1967 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test total:7146|5:56|4:85|3:61|2:21|1:4| 7146 27297 10065 574 2 5 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 06 12:18:32 -0800 2007 Sun Nov 18 14:33:16 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 4 false false Sat Oct 20 23:23:25 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 03 19:05:32 -0700 2009 4 3 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 1975 Mon Nov 05 12:02:03 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 05 12:22:01 -0800 2007 staring at the sun. My older brother and sister would drag me along to look at the "...more...]]> 3 2 false false Wed Nov 11 18:17:08 -0800 2009 Wed Sep 09 20:46:29 -0700 2009 Wed Nov 11 18:17:08 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 3 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed May 28 12:23:34 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 22:19:36 -0700 2008 3 1 false false Tue Sep 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 09:35:40 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 16:16:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 true false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 27 11:38:58 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 27 11:38:58 -0800 2007 posted to dcbooks:



"While the book doesn’t hold answers, it is a great read for anyone who has ever been part of a subculture. It puts the story out there in a way that is honest and fair, showing not just the i...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 23 23:22:01 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 02 22:02:58 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Mon Aug 06 16:41:03 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 06 16:55:55 -0700 2007 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is best if you blow through the first fifty pages and take your leisure with the rest. There's equal information in the introduction as in the meat of the story, but less of the fun, and a little more cruelty to the real people behind Wolfe's "new journalism"...more...]]> 2 2 false false Sun Jun 24 16:02:50 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 06 06:17:32 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Aug 11 17:56:18 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 11 17:56:18 -0700 2007
"A person has all sorts of lags built into him, Kesey is saying. Once, the most basic, is the sensory lag, the lag between the time your senses receive something and you are able to react. One-thirtieth of a second is the time it takes, if yo...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 20 07:50:45 -0800 2007 Thu Nov 22 09:56:48 -0800 2007
He came to speak to my class in one of those rare "Oh wow, Columbia Journalism might be worth it" moments. Inexplicably, he started in on a lengthy out-of-context run about how the New York Sun was a disgrace of a newspape...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Thu Dec 25 18:14:23 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 25 18:18:24 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 1985 Sat Jul 11 11:12:29 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 11:39:13 -0700 2009 1
Now, forty some years after publication, Electric is a bit of an h...more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 03 21:16:26 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 03 21:18:39 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Dec 01 16:32:47 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 01 16:43:19 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jun 13 20:11:07 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 13 20:11:07 -0700 2009
Over 20 years later, I knew most of the players in Tom Wolfe's non-fiction account of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.

It still took me quite a long time to read.

...more...]]> 4 1 true false Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Fri Oct 26 10:42:47 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 28 21:00:05 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jun 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 24 16:45:58 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 18:57:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Feb 12 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 07:45:01 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 05:11:53 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=7442