1
The women are stowed in the aft hold,
Click to enlarge.
and on the flight deck, Commander Walter Mitty smiles as he confidently grips a wheel shaped like the squared-off control yoke of something hypersonic. He is steering the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser through the stars.
2
The Turnpike Cruiser's model year was 1957. In 1956 Diane Arbus had left fashion work and set out on her journey toward becoming Diane Arbus. In 1958 Robert Frank was to publish The Americans. Its introduction was to be written by Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road.
3
Quiz: of these three narratives of the human undergoing change -- Arbus's, Frank's, and Mercury's -- which are loved by people who have been trained by literature and art to be miserly with their love? Which are scornfully reduced to mere taxonomies?
And in how many different tones can the phrase "Oh, typically American" be uttered?
