Myra Arrives In Hollywood . . .

The novel being dead, there is no point in writing made-up stories. Look at the French who will not and the Americans who cannot. Look at me who ought not, if only because I exist entirely outside the usual human experience . . . outside and yet wholly relevant for I am the New Woman whose astonishing history is a poignant amalgam of vulgar dreams and knife-sharp realities (shall I ever be free of the dull lingering pain that is my peculiar glory, the price so joyously paid for being Myra Breckinridge, whom no man may possess except on her . . . my terms!). Yet not even I can create a literary masterpiece in much the same way that I created myself, and for much the same reason: because it is not there. And I shall accomplish this by presenting you, the reader (as well as Dr. Randolph Spenser Montag, my analyst, friend and dentist, who has proposed that I write in this notebook as therapy), with an exact, literal sense of what it is like, from moment to moment, to be me, what it is like to possess superbly shaped breasts reminiscent of those sported by Jean Harlow in Hell's Angels and seen at their best four minutes after the start of the second reel. What it is like to possess perfect thighs with hips resembling that archetypal mandolin from which the male principle draws forth music with prick of flesh so akin - in this metaphor - to pick of celluloid, blessed celluloid upon which have been imprinted in our century all the dreams and shadows that have haunted the human race since man's harsh and turbulent origins (quote Lévi- Strauss). Myra Breckinridge is a dish, and never forget it, you motherfuckers, as the children say nowadays.

- Chapter 2 of Myra Breckinridge

After a sex-change operation in Copenhagen, New York film critic Myron Breckinridge becomes Myra Breckinridge - and moves to Hollywood, the land of her dreams. After getting a room at the Château Marmont, Myra goes to visit her randy Uncle Buck Loner (played by the venerable John Huston).

Myra: "My purpose in coming to Hollywood is the destruction of the American male in all its particulars, starting with my late husband's uncle - the notorious Buck Loner - who squats in unashamed luxury at the head of a dramatic school in fashionable Westwood".

Myra's plan is to fool Buck into believing that she's the widow of his nephew Myron, so that she can claim half of his estate as her inheritance. However, Uncle Buck is immediately suspicious: He always thought Myron was gay, and has no wish to share the estate with Myra. However, Myra tells the violin story of Aunt Gertrude, Myron's mother, who in her dying breath, told her to go to Uncle Buck to see about her inheritance. She sheds some crocodile tears and lets Uncle Buck console her to gain his sympathy.

Despite the family ties, Buck isn't biting, and like his namesake, doesn't want any partners. When Myra threatens legal action, Uncle Buck temporarily staves her off by hiring her to teach posture and empathy at his school.

On to Teaching Posture Class - Mary Ann and Rusty Godowsky

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