One is the self-possession and confidence to weather the disapproval of VSPs and the mau-mauing of Republican opponents.
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" An earlier version of this obituary referred incorrectly to Mr. Wolfe's book "Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.
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Wolfe's other notable works include the collections Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.
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More to the point, what we are witnessing in the media-Democrat commentariat is a manufactured controversy, reminiscent of their mau-mauing the president's Ukraine indiscretion into an impeachable offense.
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On one level, it's an intermural academic catfight — one that I confess I never expected to see cast in the behind-the-music format of Wolfe's classics Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.
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His best work remains the journalism he did in the 1960s and 1970s, such The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, The Pump House Gang, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, and The Right Stuff.
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Whether writing about stock car races or the upper reaches of Manhattan society ("Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers") or hitching a cross-country ride with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters for "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (20123), he made a fetish of close and often comically slashing detail.
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And he exploited this insight in a succession of brilliant pen-portraits of the 1960s such as "Radical Chic", which portrayed Leonard Bernstein and his smart friends treating the Black Panthers to champagne and canapés, and "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers", which showed how professional agitators exaggerated their problems in order to extract resources from state bureaucrats.
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Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers is a 1970 book by Tom Wolfe. The book, Wolfe's fourth, is composed of two essays: "These Radical Chic Evenings", first published in June 1970 in New York magazine, about a gathering Leonard Bernstein held for the Black Panther Party, and "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers", about the response of many minorities to San Francisco's poverty programs. Both essays looked at the conflict between black rage and white guilt.
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Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine was Wolfe's third collection of essays and short stories, following The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine- Flake Streamline Baby in 1965 and The Pump House Gang in 1968. Wolfe's 1970 book Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers contained two lengthy essays and is not generally considered a collection. Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine was published in 1976 by Wolfe's regular publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
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By the 1970s Wolfe was, according to Douglas Davis of Newsweek magazine "more of a celebrity than the celebrities he describes." In . The success of Wolfe's previous books, in particular The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test in 1968 and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers in 1970, had given Wolfe carte blanche from his publisher to pursue any topic he desired. In the midst of working on stories about the space program for Rolling Stone—stories that would eventually grow into the 1979 book The Right Stuff—Wolfe became interested in writing a book about modern art.
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The phrase "radical chic" has entered into the political and cultural lexicon to describe the adoption of radical or quasi-radical causes by members of the wealthy high-society and celebrity class. Both essays were later reprinted in Wolfe's collection The Purple Decades, indicating that he considered them among his best work. Mau- Mauing the Flak Catchers is cited in David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster in the essay on "Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky". Wallace recommends reading it to understand Dostoevsky's disillusionment as a young rich socialist when he met the dregs of Russian society in prison.
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The phrase "radical chic" originated in a 1970 New York article by Tom Wolfe, titled "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's", which was later reprinted in his books Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and The Purple Decades. In the essay, Wolfe used the term to satirize composer Leonard Bernstein and his friends for their absurdity in hosting a fundraising party for the Black Panthers—an organization whose members, activities, and goals were clearly incongruous with those of Bernstein's elite circle. Wolfe's concept of radical chic was intended to lampoon individuals (particularly social elites like the jet set) who endorsed leftist radicalism merely to affect worldliness, assuage white guilt, or garner prestige, rather than to affirm genuine political convictions.
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The second part of Wolfe's book is set at the Office of Economic Opportunity in San Francisco, which was in charge of administering many of the anti-poverty programs of the time. Wolfe presents the office as corrupt, continually gamed by hustlers diverting cash into their own pockets. The essay centers on the irony of these failed programs fortifying not the diets but the resentment and contempt of the Black, Chicano, Filipino, Chinese, Indian, and Samoan communities of San Francisco. Wolfe describes hapless city bureaucrats, the Flak Catchers, whose function has been reduced to taking abuse, or "mau- mauing" (in reference to the intimidation tactics employed in Kenya's anti- colonial Mau Mau Uprising), from militant young Blacks and Samoans, who are depicted as reveling in the newfound vulnerability of "the Man".
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