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lom v By Lehman Stiles Assistant Entsrlalnmsnt Editor "The students come in surging like hor mones. You've heard of rosy cheeks? The: HAVE them! Here they come, rosy cheeked, laughing, with Shasta and 7-U] pumping through their veins, talkinj chipsy, flashing weaterproof smiles, bur sting out of their down-filled Squaw Valle; jackets and their blue jeans ? O immorta denim mons veneris! ? looking, all of them boys and girls, Jocks & Buds & Freaks, as i they spent the day hang-gliding and thei made a Miller commercial at dusk and ar now going to taper off with a little Cultur before returning to the coed dorm . . Tom Wolfe must have been smiling in wardly Tuesday night at the Business Ad ministration Auditorium as he saw th creatures of his writing pass before hi ueinusea eyes, ine aown jacxeis wer missing ? it was warm outside ? but all th other details were there. Students gathere disciple-like at Wolfe's feet, crowding th aisles and the front of the stage, to b amazed by their own image in the kand> kolored, wonderfully accurate mirror c Tom Wolfe. "You're only going to hear gospel truth, Wolfe assured as he began his speech afte an amusing but disjointed introduction b Columbia Mayor Kirkman Finlay. An inaeea, ine iaiK ai limes seemed to Decom an old-time revival meeting. When he talke of the Third Great Awakening, one wor dered if Tom Wolfe is not a part of it himsell If anyone is capable of awakening America it is this merciless exposer of the preter sions, this word jockey ensconced in shining armor of fiery, exclamatior infested style. The great temptation is to try to write thi review in the style of Tom Wolfe: just thro in an occasional "Golly!" or a long string c onomatopoeic words like "chikka chikk chik chik kaCHUNK!" (that's a typewriter or a breathless stinging wildly accurat Klof o i V-v t f rt Aitnltr uitiuuiu_y auuiii: in v luiuu^i.y iiinuv,cin liiui of incisive humorous familiar universe HIHHHniHnHflnHHBHiHHi Volfe pas ie _..^*PB|WiWWRi*'- ?~? e Jgj e '.:;:^'F: mM e ^^rnm e Tom Wolfi y modifiers. And perhaps that would be ap d propriate; perhaps Tom Wolfe is as mucl e an indication of the culture he critiques ai d disco or Las Vegas or anything else, i- After all, Wolfe's lecture was on a typica f. subject for a modern writer: a defense o l, one of his ideas that had been misin l- terpreted. Wolfe tagged the 1970s the "M< a Decade" in his latest book Mauve Glove l- and Madmen, Clutter and Vine, and hi complained that the phrase has been takei s as a synonym for narcissism. n His evidence was a recent book b; Christopher Lasch called The Culture c a Narcissism. Wolfe disagreed with the vie\ ) that narcissism has created the culture c e the '70s ; he called Lasch s book a "moder n diatribe," which is "taking one's prejudice tl and biases through the back door of th By S Qam?c Many years ago, I cai Skelton Show every Tuesd; In the eight years since often wondered just what i Wednesday, I had the oppc The versatile comedi tnni-inn f IVMi lll^ lllv UUUUll J OIIU OV years and apparently en Skelton thoroughly sincer his antics and routines wi non-stop dynamo of hilaric Skelton is not just a r announced as "one of Ame is the important word to c not just stand at the mike; and laugh around the mikt was enjoying the perform* He opened the show with liners inai sei me pace lor made some opening jokes packed house to no end. here," he remarked. "It finished." Pleased with tl ded, "I hear the Congarc week now." Skelton made a big nairn by doing the standi routine. This is a type of hi rnr*?v? I e\( 11 Will lilt tUlllCU^ UI IUIJ ^ " ~ H brought back memories H comedy of the Bob Hope-B am Hick* ? GAMECOCK 'e/je snJ ( 9 and admirers - university and bringing them out the front in i the white lab coat of scientific method." s Wolfe's writing seems to have its own crazy rhythm, and as he described the kind i 1 of author who criticizes narcissism ? a man < f with "a thin wife starved to near- < i- perfection" ? he swayed back and forth at e the podium in a subtle, cyclical dance to the s music of his own words. The unabashed e sincerity ot nis voice polished on the image i n ? here was a man not only familiar but totally enthralled with his ideas. It wasn't y the typical literary conceit, it was . . . well, i if it was someone who has seen the Light. , v Wolfe described the Me Decade as em>f bodying a "new kind of alchemy ? the n alchemical idea has become changing your ? personality." The most common way to do ie this has become through ecstatic religion, a ikelton: UHE iwn king kot Garrick :ock Staff Writer j- . T i remember watching The Red ay night. the demise of that show, I have ever became of the comedian. On rtunity to find out. f an-pantomime-clown has been ilected campuses in the past few i ?... ?f u D?<l juyiug every iiimuie ui n. ucu 5^2 e about his work. He goes about th vehemence and ardor; he is a >us com edy. outine stand-up comic. He was I - J . Tica's favorite clowns." "Clown" |:; lescribe the entertainer. He does S , and roll off jokes. He would caper H ; vtf fE b; he gave the impression that he nice as mucn as me auuiunce. i a barrage of short jokes and onethe remainder of the evening. He about Columbia that pleased the "It's a really nice town you got will be even better when it's iii|i|SpliSW le response he got to this, he ad- H ie is running up to three days a e for himself during World War II I v ^ ip-before-the-troops-pro-America f imr?r that hac virtiinllv V5ini?h(>H I *4 lay. Watching the performance of the inane but exhilerating I ' ing Crosby style. S?9 Skelton, page 11 I - / 'V-". zid test phenomenon bom out of the acid years of :he 1960s. The strength in this ecstasy is the moral certainty it harbors. "To be con fronted," Wolfe said, "by someone who says that he knows what is evil ? it's an overpowering experience." In fact, one of Jimmy Carter's biggest mistakes, Wolfe feels, was his backing away from the religious surety that swept him into office. He suggested how Carter should have responded to Playboy in his interview. 'Your magazine is not journalism ? it is a household aid." Although he suggests that there are ways to lessen religious fervor ? "One way the West can deal with Ayatollah Khomeini is to put him on a talk show" ? Wolfe quoted the ie Toqueville dictum that American democracy can exist only if held together by the cement of religious belief. The evening was almost a born-again experience. From the jumble of Iran and Jonestown and disco and the entire scope of this confused, tom-asunder decade, Wolfe molds an explanation that, thankfully, makes sense. He does not so much criticize as delineate; his insight is so keen that one can hardly disagree with his conclusions. This style of comment-through-description is the highly touted New Journalism, and Wolfe is the master. In Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Wolfe describes a student questioning a panel of experts who declare the world a terminal case: " 'Well,' said the boy, 'I'm a senior, and for four years we've been told by people like yourself and the other gentlemen that everything's in terrible shape, and it's all going to hell, and I'm willing to take your word for it, because you're all experts in your fields. But around here, at this school, ?un *u? u: 4 ?ui iui uic (Mai ivui jrcciia, uic ui^?i pi uuicill, as far as I can see, has been finding a parking place near the campus.'" One wonders: Tuesday night, at the Tom Wolfe lecture, who was the watcher ? and who were the watched? 11RIiS||^^ v^'*':^ UF, J|