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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