The biggest problem with this collection is probably also its strongest asset – it is just too much Tom Wolfe of the Sixties. It is far too jazzy/happening/groovy (no, he never stoops to that word). It is far too Gonzo (yes, I know that’s a different author.) And ultimately, it is often far too unintelligible as Wolfe confirms his ultimate hipness. Age has not been kind to these essays. There are far too many pop references, and far too much use of popster speak, to make them all relevant. And, these problems mean that, even if you are just attacking them to immerse yourself in that time for old times sake, it may not work. I often read these Sixties essays to get a feel for the Zeitgeist. Well, this time there are too many geists that have been overcome by zeit. (Look it up, it will make sense.) The opening essay “The Pump House Gang” (about surfers and their society) means almost nothing anymore. Other essays contain far too much about the English, the New York advertising establishment, and upper-class snobbery (all burning topics in the Sixties, but not quite the same any more.) In fact, some of these discussions seem almost naïve. (Easy to be brilliant in the future, isn’t it?)

Yet, don’t throw it on the waste bin. There are still some essays that can speak to today, or tell us something about that past. The piece on Marshall McLuhan (“The medium is the message”. Please tell me you have heard of that. I’m feeling really old today) titled “What If He Is Right?” raises a fascinating question because, as you read this, you know he WAS right. And, he is still right. And you should begin asking yourself, “What does this mean for me in a new century?” and “What would Marshall do?” The essay “The Life & Hard Times of a Teenage Society Girl” reminds us that things never change. The social situations of teenagers, although there are different scares and different concerns and different…everything, really hasn’t changed. Then there is also “The Put-Together Girl” which lets us know what it was like when the muskets were first being fired in the sexual revolution as exhibited by one of the first strippers to get “Significant” augmentation, and the fascinating “King of the Status Dropouts” which visits Hugh Hefner and gives us a view of how thin the line of psychosis is – that thin line that separated Hefner from Howard Hughes.

However, even these often suffer from the style of writing. (Why is it that reading Hunter Thompson, someone who really went out there when he wrote, doesn’t feel as antiquated or unintelligible?) The pieces indicated above make it worth wading through, but it can get a little deep sometimes. ( )