Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

impersonal surgery but by me!23In an alcove at the back of the cafeteria Buck Loner oftenhas lunch with some notable he would like the students toobserve at close hand. Today it was the famous agentLetitia Van Allen, and so I joined them, to Buck's illdisguisedfury. Miss Van Allen is a handsome vigorouswoman of perhaps forty, with steely gray eyes. We got onfamously, to Buck's chagrin. "Talent is not what Uncle Buckand I deal in, Miss Van Allen," I said, lightly resting my handon Buck's clenched fist. "We deal in myths. At any givenmoment the world requires one full-bodied blondeAphrodite (Jean Harlow), one dark siren of flawless beauty(Hedy Lamarr), one powerful inarticulate brute of a man(John Wayne), one smooth debonair charmer (MelvynDouglas), one world-weary corrupt lover past his prime(Humphrey Bogart), one eternal good-sex woman-wife(Myrna Loy), one wide-eyed chicken boy (Lon McCallister),one gentle girl singer (Susanna Foster), one winning stud(Clark Gable), one losing stud outside the law (JamesCagney), and so on. Olympus supports many gods andgoddesses and they are truly eternal, since whenever onefades or falls another promptly takes his place, for the racerequires that the pantheon be always filled. So what we arelooking for--and what you, Miss Van Allen, have found timeand again--are those mythic figures who, at the rightmoment, can be placed upon their proper pedestal. For