University of Virginia Library

Who???

"Who IS this Wolfe?" This Wolfe
who tended to stop traffic by his
relatively freaky appearance (far
out clothes, longish hair, Panama
hat) in Richmond-wise straighter
days in the Capital of the
Confederacy.

This Wolfe, who one can picture
perfectly bestowing the
Southernest of charms on an old
lady, who is, by the way, loving it:
and this not twenty minutes after
deplaning from a flight from
California, where, several hours
previously, the (same?) Wolfe had
been conversing with, Good God!,
Hell's Angels, Black Panthers,
Martians!! Who is this Wolfe?

* * * * * *

Man-Making the Flak Catchers is
about the welfare system in San
Francisco. It is, perhaps, more
depressing than Radical Chic, which
owes to the realization that the
"game" depicted represents a larger
evil and is more destructive for
those involved.

Massah lays money on the first
black leader to appear with a bag of
weapons he took off his boys last
night. Basic flaws of the welfare
system, conceptual and practical,
become absurd for their
obviousness, any escape short of
cosmic laughter comes by way of
condemning Wolfe's motives.

The "racist dog" dares to
compare balding Afro-wearers to
"that super-Tom on the Uncle Ben
Rice box, or Bozo the Clown." Not
since Mailer described his last
WASP has such an ethnic slur been
countenanced! From the sanctums
comes the old cry, indignantly:
"This Wolfe goes too far!"

The suggestion that Wolfe is
blaming the blacks for welfare
corruption, or that he says they, in
fact, are responsible for the
national schizophrenia we call
uptightness is absurd. More than
misinterpretation, it involves a
mode of attack which is mainly
political, not literary. If accepted,
this bias would threaten art which
refuses to propagandize and
dedicate itself to The Cause.