Tom Wolfe was also a design writer. His breakthrough piece of New Journalism was “There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,” about custom car culture, and he went on
Michael says that, when he began writing more about design, Wolfe was a model:
There was a kind of writing that was in trade magazines like Print and Communication Arts that was sort of like this quasi-fawning reportage. There was another kind of design writing that seemed to be very academic. And neither of them represented the way I actually felt about design.
I was thrashing around for models of people that could really write about design in a way that was lively and made it sound fun and even funny. Then I started reading Tom Wolfe.
Also mentioned this week:
- Anthony Lane on the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
- Tom Wolfe obituaries in the New York TimesandWashington Post
- Ian Parkerprofiles Edward St. Aubynin The New Yorker
- Tom Wolfe onMaya Lin’s Vietnam memorial(1982)
- Patrick MelroseShowtime series
- Terry Gross interviews Edward St. Aubyn
- Associated Press,Hasbro trademarks Play-Doh scent
