Date of Award
2015
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
M.F.A. in Creative Writing
Department
English
First Advisor
Tom Franklin
Second Advisor
Megan Abbott
Third Advisor
Ivo Kamps
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
My mom thought watching professional wrestling would turn me gay, so I saw the WWF mostly at my dad’s house, on his twelve-inch black and white television with aluminum foil for an antenna. Every other week I got two hours of gyrating pretty boys, unexamined racism, heavy breathing, and the occasional obese man whose blubbery folds could endure endless punishment until he ended his match by sitting on his opponent. There was a Jewish accountant wrestler who would berate the crowd for cheating on their taxes. There was “Kamala the Ugandan Giant.” There was a clown. The greytoned pixels on my dad’s tiny television gave all this a timeless, literary quality, in the same way that Cary Grant can cross his eyes and do a spit-take and still end a scene without any champagne on his lapels.
Recommended Citation
Baranauskas, Liam, "Notes On Distance Dialing" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 586.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/586