Van Sant's "Acid Test"

According to Variety, Gus Van Sant will direct the film of Tom Wolfe's iconic novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Wolfe's novel documents the LSD fueled 1964 cross-country road trip of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest author/counterculture icon Ken Kesey and his friends, the Merry Pranksters. Although I have never read the novel cover to cover, I came across it numerous times throughout my undergraduate studies at NYU. It has attained iconic status as a key text in the realm of literary journalism dubbed "new journalism." It will be interesting to see how Van Sant's ethereal, semi-improvisational tonality, which has marked his masterful recent work, from the loose trilogy of Gerry, Elephant and Last Days, to his recent Cannes prize-winning Paranoid Park, reacts with Wolfe's work. This has instantly become a project to watch.

Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters @ Wikipedia
New Journalism @ Wikipedia