How to Love Yourself and the Human Race in Seventeen Days (Or Less)
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HOW TO LOVE YOURSELF AND THE HUMAN RACE IN SEVENTEEN DAYS (OR LESS) A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Western Carolina University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English. By TIFFANY LEAHAN THOMPSON Director: Pamela Duncan Assistant Professor of English English Department Committee Members: Dr. Beth Huber, English Deidre Elliott, English July 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee members for their patience and continued encouragement, Pamela Duncan, Beth Huber and Deidre Elliott. My most sincere thanks go to Andrew Dodson, for always believing in me and for the Wii. To Tabatha Bishop, Carrie Phillips and Benjamin Haines for giving me a safe haven and room to work. To Yvonne Morton, for giving me the time to work. To The Romanian, Joel, Colin, Cayce and Meredith for the inspiration. To Emily Darnell, Suzanne Raether, Stormie Morgan, Neil Byrd and those who have already been mentioned for their editorial input. Any errors are completely my own. I would like to thank the following locales for endless cups of coffee and crispy bacon, without which this thesis would never have been completed: Huddle House, Waffle House, Mill & Main and The Coffee Shop. Of course, I must acknowledge my mother, Martha Johnson, without whom I would very much not be here. Everything I am, everything I do is but a small testament to how astounding you truly are. Thank you for, literally, everything. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ......................................................................................................................v Abstract .............................................................................................................................. vi Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Craft and Process .....................................................................................................1 Influences, Literary and Otherwise .......................................................................19 Prologue .............................................................................................................................27 Chapter 1: Leaving Home ..................................................................................................30 Chapter 2: Louisiana ..........................................................................................................54 Chapter 3: Austin ...............................................................................................................67 Chapter 4: Victoria .............................................................................................................75 Chapter 5: The Rest of Texas.............................................................................................89 Chapter 6: Elk City ..........................................................................................................107 Chapter 7: Where I Found My Kicks ...............................................................................118 Chapter 8: When You Think About It, the Term Petrified Forest is Misleading ............138 Chapter 9: Grand Canyon Pt 1: The South Rim ..............................................................145 Chapter 10: Grand Canyon Pt 2: The North Rim ............................................................157 Chapter 11: Meteor Crater ...............................................................................................169 Chapter 12: The Hoover God-Dam..................................................................................178 Chapter 13: One Night in Vegas ......................................................................................182 Chapter 14: A Brief Interlude ..........................................................................................192 Chapter 15: So At Last, Southern California ...................................................................204 Chapter 16: Finding My Funny .......................................................................................222 Chapter 17: Love Like a Desert .......................................................................................232 Chapter 18: My Own Private Idaho .................................................................................257 Chapter 19: F Holiday Inn, Sleep Inn ..............................................................................263 Chapter 20: There Ain’t No Blue Skies over Badlands ...................................................269 Chapter 21: Home Again, Home Again ...........................................................................287 Works Cited .....................................................................................................................291 Works Consulted ..............................................................................................................293 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Get Your Kitsch on Route 66! ..........................................................................135 Figure 2: Trains! ..............................................................................................................137 Figure 3: My Petrified Forest ...........................................................................................140 Figure 4: Photoshop .........................................................................................................163 Figure 5: God’s IMAX.....................................................................................................166 Figure 6: Experience the Impact ......................................................................................174 Figure 7: Cosmos! ............................................................................................................284 ABSTRACT HOW TO LOVE YOURSELF AND THE HUMAN RACE IN SEVENTEEN DAYS (OR LESS) Tiffany Leahan Thompson, M.A. Western Carolina University (July 2012) Director: Pamela Duncan Presented here for your consideration is a multimedia, genre-bending creative experiment in the form of a comedic travel memoir. Utilizing conventions from several creative genres including memoir, fiction, screenwriting and stand-up comedy, this work will take you on a journey through the psyche of a self-identified stoner as she takes an impromptu road trip across America. Included are several original pieces of visual art designed to represent and emphasize particular moments from the journey and to give the reader an even more intimate glimpse into the creative mind. Functioning also as a hilarious tell-all, this work will call into question values held by our society, especially America’s conservative views on sex, drugs and rock and roll and how these things can aid a person’s development, when applied properly, rather than working as vehicles of destruction. This is intended above all to entertain, because joy is an ideal unto itself, the ultimate human ideal and if my paltry words can help but one person experience it, I would consider this work a success. 1 INTRODUCTION Almost two years ago, during the summer of 2010, I took a solitary road trip across country for no other reason than I could. I also did it so that I would have something to write about. I have long considered myself a writer, but for many years I considered myself only a poet. I had a hard time sustaining longer narrative work. I fell into a psychological trap by assuming a general lack of experience on my part hindered my creative development. What I truly lacked was training. I gained both over the course of the same year. During the spring of 2010, I took my first graduate creative writing course, Fiction Writing with Ron Rash. During the summer, I took my road trip. And during the fall, I became a Professional Writing major with a creative focus and poured myself into studying the craft of writing, both fiction and nonfiction. In one year, I went from admiring authors who did things like travelling spontaneously and writing about their adventures to becoming one. The writers I have most admired were the experimental ones: e.e. cummings, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson. Taking a cue from them, this memoir is also experimental in many ways. I play with narrative, with form, with genre, even with reality. Craft and Process To say that I play with reality may seem to imply that parts of the memoir are less than true. Indeed, when I sat down to write it, I thought I would write a fictionalized account of my travels, à la On the Road by Jack Kerouac. What came pouring out, 2 however, was the truth, the whole truth and almost nothing but the truth. When I say almost, I mean that the narrative strays into the realm of fantasy on more than one occasion. This is a side effect of the subject of the memoir, my solitary road trip. During the drive, day dreams and nostalgic ruminations naturally occurred. The vast majority of the narrative is focused on memories of my past dredged up by the sights and smells of the road, such as in the following passage: “At night, the air in some parts of Texas smells like a mechanic’s garage. I must be driving past the famous Texas oil fields. There are lots of industrial compounds, twinkling in the distance like tiny cities… they remind me of the stretch of highway between Bainbridge and Colquitt… The air smelled the same there, too. Like motor oil and pesticides, with an irony undercurrent that was no doubt the