9 18 12
I’m using this hometown show to try out a bunch of new things THAT MIGHT NOT WORK. Come be part of that!
October 18th, LA.
http://cap.ucla.edu/calendar/event_detail.asp?id=228
12 20 11
Making-of-the-book video #5: Joe
“The visit was suffused with death. Real death: the graves of all those cats and dogs, the widows he shopped for, and his own death, which he referred to more than once — but matter-of-factly, like it was a deadline that he was trying to get a lot of things done before. I sensed he’d been making his way through his to-do list for eighty-one years, and he was always behind, and this made everything urgent and bright, even now, especially now. How strange to cross paths with someone for the first time right before they were gone.”
— From “It Chooses You”, wherein I share with you the part of my life where I was interviewing people selling things through the Pennysaver classifieds as a sort of open-ended visionquest that I secretly hoped would help me finish my screenplay (The Future) and teach me how to be a better liver of a finite life.
12 18 11
Making-of-the-book video #4: Dina
“I felt like Miley Cyrus was speaking directly to me through Lenette, and she was being very clear — she wanted me to keep the faith. I read Dina’s Popeye T-shirt, i yam what i yam, and I felt that I too was what I was. I was a writer, and my characters, Sophie and Jason, were right here with me. In fact, they were me, both of them. We thanked Dina and I said goodbye, knowing that it wasn’t really goodbye. I wanted to wink at her or give her some kind of indication that she would soon be starring in a major motion picture, but I restrained myself.”
— From “It Chooses You”, wherein I share with you the part of my life where I was interviewing people selling things through the Pennysaver classifieds as a sort of open-ended visionquest that I secretly hoped would help me finish my screenplay (The Future) and teach me how to be a better liver of a finite life.
12 16 11
Making-of-the-book video #3: Ron
“Ron was exactly the kind of man you spend your whole life being careful not to end up in the apartment of. And since I was raised to go out of my way to make such men feel understood, I took extra-special care with his interview. But as he talked on and on (the original transcript was more than fifty pages), I realized that I don’t actually want to understand this kind of man — I just want them to feel understood, because I fear what will happen if I am thought of as yet another person who doesn’t believe them. I want to be the one they spare on the day of reckoning.”
— From “It Chooses You”, wherein I share with you the part of my life where I was interviewing people selling things through the Pennysaver classifieds as a sort of open-ended visionquest that I secretly hoped would help me finish my screenplay (The Future) and teach me how to be a better liver of a finite life.
12 8 11
Making-of-the-book video #2: Andrew
“Andrew turned out to be a seventeen-year-old with three ponds in his backyard. Teenage boys never really made sense to me, and I’ve pretty much avoided them since high school. But Andrew was the one kind of teenage boy I was familiar with: the sweet, curious loner. My brother had also built ponds in high school. Andrew’s ponds were thick with water hyacinths and the special fish that eat mosquito eggs. Actual lily pads floated in the sun and the frogs seemed happy, as suburban frogs go. I watched the sunlight sparkling on the water and practiced mind-body integration for a few seconds by quietly hyperventilating.”
— From “It Chooses You”, wherein I share with you the part of my life where I was interviewing people selling things through the Pennysaver classifieds as a sort of open-ended visionquest that I secretly hoped would help me finish my screenplay (The Future) and teach me how to be a better liver of a finite life.
11 23 11
The Future available on DVD, Digital Download and On Demand
on Nov. 29th! What’s good about this is that it has 1) my first ever director’s commentary and 2) a little short about the making of the movie including footage from the performance that the movie evolved out of. I think you will like that. I also feel the need to tell all 40,382 of you that I’m wearing an extraordinary amount of make-up in my interview in the making of. In fact this might be what Entertainment Weekly is referring to when they say “Extraordinary!” on the cover.
11 14 11
In celebration of “It Chooses You”, Miranda July and her team scoured the New York classifieds, buying up once-meaningful objects and interviewing the sellers. These items, ranging from a modest bottle cap collection to a massive work of art, will be resold for the original asking price (plus tax) at Miranda July’s resale shop within Partners & Spade. Specially-designed packaging will offer insights into the lives behind the hundreds of unique objects, and the local sellers will be in attendance — as will Miranda July herself, signing copies of “It Chooses You”. Joe Putterlik’s obscene and tender homemade cards (described in the book) will also be on display.
http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm
/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/36
585a59-a7c1-4afa-8b77-b484a84985
aa/ItChoosesYou.cfm
10 28 11
Montreal! First time ever for me. No more tickets for this but I know they are holding some that you can get by showing up early on the night of.
What about this? Who is coming to this in Los Angeles?
November 29, ALOUD at the Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, CA
in conversation with Joshuah Bearman
7 p.m., Mark Taper Auditorium-Central Library, 630 W. Fifth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071
http://www.lfla.org/event-detail/673/Miranda-July
Or what about the reading in Brooklyn? You going to that?
November 15, BookCourt
7 p.m., 163 Court St, Brooklyn, NY
http://www.bookcourt.org/category/events/
And did you catch the last installment of It Chooses You on the New Yorker site? That’s not the end of the book though, there’s more.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/10/joe-fifty-christmas-card-fronts-1-los-angeles-1.html
For you people who asked about an SF event…
Nov 30: City Arts and Lectures
http://www.cityarts.net/n.july.html
10 22 11
ICY on sale from Miranda July on Vimeo.
Ladies and Gentlemen! I am pleased to announce a new book in the world, It Chooses You. I wrote this book.
It is has a cover that is only risque if you look carefully. It is the first book I’ve made that is non-fiction, ie: autobiographical. While not exactly being a “tell-all” I do tell a fair amount. Other people do too. I was looking through my old emails trying to find the one my best friend wrote me after reading it, but I could only this email about a dream she had: “last night i had a dream about you set in thailand, where you were making a movie that was quite a departure from your previous work. it was scared of the thai water getting in my mouth, but i was very tan, with long braids, and very attractive. you were good friends with lots of stars, including julianne moore. i was about to have sex with a few charming people. it was all very vivid and weird. there were no locks on doors and when stores closed they left all theirs goods out, but no one ever stole.” She really liked It Chooses You, and I think you will too. You can get an early copy here: http://bit.ly/qKnJUH
9 28 11
Berliners! Remember the Mexican restaurant in Kreuzberg I mentioned? So many friends asked me for the name of the place that I re-found it, by finding my old apartment on Google maps and then “walking” there using street view. I felt very modern. To have the best appreciation for this restaurant you might have to be an American woman who has spent the entire day working with German men in a windowless room on issues of film post-production that are so subtle that no one is even sure they are visible to anyone but you, the American woman, but you are hell-bent and won’t go back to LA until everything is crossed off your list written in tiny crazy-person handwriting. You have to spend all day making very little progress on the list, and then get on your bike and ride in the dark along the side of Grolitzer park, bumping on cobblestones, face freezing, wearing a dumb warm hat with a hipper hat over it, which doesn’t look so hip on top of the other hat. Park the bike at La Pulqueria and come in and order the 3 enchilada combo to go. Watch the one very pretty waitress as she makes her away around the restaurant and is nice to even you, a non-person in two hats. Then put the dinner in the bike basket and ride home, lock the bike, take the elevator up, hoping there is no one else in it at the same time because you always feel married to them during the short upward journey, and you have so little to offer as a wife right now, even a 2-minute wife. Unlock the apartment door, throw off the two hats, the coat, the boots, the scarf, the mittens. Sit immediately at the kitchen table with the 3 enchilada combo and the computer, and, almost crying with relief to be at this moment in the day, this zenith, watch The Office (american version), a tv show that didn’t seem so incredible back in America, but now is EVERYTHING, all your emotions are processed through the show, you laugh, you cry while eating the enchiladas, which are warm, friendly, loving, kind and reminiscent of Los Angeles, a city which (like The Office) didn’t seem so great when you were actually living there, but now, well, it’s best not to think about it because you might never finish this movie and might never go home.
Bon appetit!
Mexikanisches Restaurant La Pulqueria
Spreewaldplatz 5, Kreuzberg, 10999 Berlin, Germany
+49 30/61657160
http://www.facebook.com/thefuture.derfilm
9 27 11
Londoners!
Tickets just went on sale for the special screening of The Future at the Tate. I will be there, answering questions by forming sounds from my throat with shapes made by my tongue (pictured below) and mouth.
Saturday 22 October 2011, 18.30
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/film/24815.htm
9 26 11
Ok Londoners, I will be making my way towards you, flying with my own giant flapping arms. I may land heavily, descent has never been my strength. Once there I will lay on a towel on my hotel room floor for at least ten minutes, as advised by my acupuncturist. And then the party will begin:
1.
The Future screens at the London Film Festival
Thu 20| 21:00| Vue Screen 5
Fri 21| 12:15| Vue Screen 5
Sun 23| 18:30| Ritzy Screen 2
http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/1693
(The public can book from Monday 26 September.)
2.
A “masterclass” at the LFF
Sat 22| 13:30
| NFT 1
http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/1751
(The public can book from Monday 26 September.)
3.
A “sermon” at The School of Life
The School of Life
SUNDAY 23 OCTOBER 2011, 11.30 -12.45
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1
http://www.theschooloflife.com/Sermons/Miranda-July-on-Strangers_2
(Tickets for sale now.)
4.
And one more thing that will be announced shortly.
9 19 11
I’m getting pretty excited about the The Future in Germany, it opens October 27th and I will be there in the days leading up, to introduce you to it. Here’s the brand new German facebook site www.facebook.com/thefuture.derfilm, and they are working on some other intriguing web activities which I will update you about soon. At this time last year I was in Berlin finishing The Future (yes it’s true, it is a German/US co-production) and I have to say I feel a bit nostalgic about riding my bike to work, past drug dealers in the park, always feeling guilty that I rode right past them, never once stopping to buy drugs. I also miss poppy seed cake, the oddly good mexican restuarant, even being cold seems kind of romantic right now. Here are some items I bought at shops in my neighborhood, Kreuzberg, on my first day in the city. Good thing I went on the first day, because I was working so hard for the next month that I never had another had another moment to wander around like this, my favorite kind of day. Any Germans reading this? Tschüss.
9 10 11
Skype Q+A, at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville, TN. It dawns on me that they are being lit by a giant projection of my face. This is the closest I get to being the sun.
9 9 11
Recorded the director’s commentary track for the DVD The Future today. Just before I started it occured to me I’ve never actually heard a director’s commentary. But that didn’t stop me from talking for 91 minutes straight. About Midnight In Paris.
8 26 11
The Future is playing in Seattle! Miami! Brooklyn! Cleveland! Berkeley! And many other places: http://thefuturetheaters.blogspot.com/
Answer #1 & 2: My ass and my signal
Answer #3: Pineapple
Answer #4: Patti Smith
Answer # 5: Fans
8 19 11
Many of you have asked about “the signal” between Sophie and Jason -the song that will trigger them to remember their love even if they get amnesia or something tragic happens to make them forget. It is “Where or When”, sung by Peggy Lee with the Benny Goodman Trio. (The singing starts at 1:17.) Even listening to it now, for the trillionth time, it is still so haunting.
And for those of you who don’t yet know about “the signal”, maybe the movie opens in your city today?? Please check: http://thefuturetheaters.blogspot.com/
We are trying to bring you the signal, the cat, the dance, all of it.
8 15 11
Denver! Atlanta! Las Vegas! San Francisco! My hometown of Berkeley! These are just some of the cities The Future is playing in starting this Friday. Check here to see where else: http://bit.ly/oFTra3 If you live in one of these cities and read this blog then you are The Official Host of The Future in your city — you are the core constituency. Please welcome it, introduce it to your friends, take care of it for me. Your word of mouthing and facebooking has been breathtaking to watch, don’t stop and I won’t either.
8 13 11
Whenever I stand before an audience I always wonder What did all these people do today, before they came to the theater? I imagine several hundred lives, filled with their intricicies and challenges and it seems like a minor miracle that they all managed to get here, on time, and are sitting so neatly like teeth. Most of you I will not see tonight at the Arclight — but I will see a couple of you. Right now you are looking at this website, but what else will you do today before I see you? Please send me your to do list for today — noting if you will be at the 5:20 or 7:30 screening. (Because I may have some questions for you during the Q+A.)
Tickets here.
If you are seeing The Future at another theater today, please also send your to do list; I would like to see the day I will be a small part of. (Note the theater and screeninging time please.)
(The picture is of my To Do list when I was editing The Future. All that done, but always still more to do.)
8 11 11
Woah: This Friday The Future opens in Austin, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Diego & Portland! It is important to see it in the theater because how else will get your “I Have Seen The Future” button?? Which I designed myself so that it will go with any outfit, and even improve some outfits. Check here for exactly where: http://thefuturetheaters.blogspot.com/
Video Shot This Weekend (I made it in advance.)