The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
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 takingOn the Road'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'sMany Years from Nowcites Kesey as a key influence on his trippyMagical Mystery Tourfilm. Kesey temporarily renounced his literary magic for the cause of "tootling the multitudes"--making a spectacle of himself--and PranksterRobert Stonehad to flee Kesey's wild party to get his life's work done. But in those years, Kesey's lifewashis work, and Wolfe infinitely multiplied the multitudes who got tootled by writing this major literary-journalistic monument to a resonant pop-culture moment.Kesey's theatrical metamorphosis from the distinguished author ofOne Flew over the Cuckoo's Nestto the abominable shaman of the "Acid Test" soirees that launchedThe Grateful Deadrequired Wolfe's Day-Glo prose account to endure (though Kesey's own musings inDemon Boxare no slouch either). Even now, Wolfe's book gives what Wolfe clearly got from Kesey: a contact high.--Tim Appelo--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.