I so wish I could go to this:
Eleven Heavy Things

So I was wanting to subscribe to this thing called The Thing. It’s an awesome, creative idea. If you’re too lazy to have clicked on the link, basically you subscribe to getting 4 “everyday objects that incorporate text” by four different artists, sent to you over the course of a year in brown paper packaging. These things could be anything really, but most of all, they are a mystery. How fun!

So, back to the story. After months of deliberating (due to the costs and the fact that I had little to no money), I had finally decided to subscribe. I decided that it meant a lot to me and I could use part of my graduation money for something that, while frivolous in a way, would make me happier than anything I could possibly need (and most things that I want). Thus is the allure of art. No sooner than the day after I had decided to subscribe did I get an e-mail from the ever generous LHH with the subject of “i’m about to make your day.” I open it to read this (hope you don’t mind I’m posting this):

“I broke down and subscribed to something very exciting. you may be able to guess. It is for us to share, but your half of it (which you may choose) is a gift from me to you. The subscription will be delivered to you in Omaha, NE. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but I just wanted to do it. hopefully you will receive installment #1 within the next few weeks. Hopefully it will inspire you.”

Well, I received it, I love it and I am inspired. Thank you, Laura! It is awesome. It felt like Christmas day to me, but without the annoyance of having to get up at 7 am. In addition to being overjoyed at finding such a large piece of mail for me on my front step (one of the most exciting things to have happen), I feel extremely lucky to have such thoughtful and generous friends like you. I’m feeling so fortunate and warm hearted that I have actually deliberated for the past 2 minutes about writing, “That is the true gift” after that last sentence. I’m serious. But I could only hear Sharon Stone saying it. So, I will keep it there as long as you all imagine her saying it (with a slight Southern twang).

Now, since I have created such a mystery over what is exactly in the tube, and I am failing to deliver the photographic goods due to my impatience with the computer taking forever to load one specific photo (really, the money shot) for some reason, you’ll have to go here to see The Thing. It’s like an online scavenger hunt. Enter the secret password and then scroll down to see something beautiful and vinyl.

Miranda July on The Sound of Young America right HERE!

I finished No one belongs here more than you by Miranda July. I liked it very, very much. Unfortunately, I had already read six of the stories in other publications. I also attended a reading where she read two more that I hadn’t read before: “This Person” and “The Sister.” I loved hearing “That Person” read aloud, especially by July herself with the sort of even, non-inflection that perfectly characterizes the voice of that story. That brought the total of previously read/heard stories up to eight, leaving me an equal eight completely new stories to cherish. And cherish them I did. I read seven in spurts and then for some reason left “Mon Plaisir” unread until last night. All of the stories were great. Out of the new ones I read, “It Was Romance” and “Ten True Things” stick out. “Birthmark” is an older one that I really love.

Suffice it to say, I am a very big fan of all of July’s varied work in multiple mediums, her writing included. I guess my biggest compliment to her is to say that she is one of the most inspiring artists to me that is working today. Inspiring sounds like a lofty, oft-used word, but in this context is means simply her work makes me want to do stuff. Stuff like writing, making films, videos, and drawings. It’s rare that a work of writing or art can entertain, connect with you emotionally, prompt introspection, make you laugh, surprise you, and get you excited about creating something yourself; July’s work often reaches these heights.

The stories in No one belongs here more than you are deceptively simplistic. I don’t want to get all analytical and/or descriptive here, it just seems kind of inappropriate for her work, and I don’t feel like it, but I do want to recognize that her work contains these layers: layers of self-recognition, self-deception, self-loathing. So much is said by what is left unsaid in these stories, and how they’re told. I’m not making much sense, and this is why I didn’t want to go here in the first place. Trying to talk about them almost unravels the stories themselves…not in a way where they don’t stand up upon closer inspection, but in a way that…I don’t know takes away their magical quality. I suppose magical is a word that is sometimes used to describe July’s work and while I think it is fitting in ways, it also carries the connotation of being thin or flighty…whimsical…like unicorns and rainbows. I don’t think this describes her work at all. I think what is so striking about her work (writing especially) is that it is grounded in a very real, often dark and sad world. The fact that she can find the unique, the wonderful, the uplifting, the magical in the mundane, often depressing world is joyful, but if she is a writer of fairy tale like wonder, she more closely resembles the Brothers Grimm than Hans Christian Andersen.

The New Yorker summer fiction issue with cover art by Adrian Tomine has some great essays written by great writers such as Miranda July, Jeffrey Eugenides, A.M. Homes, Dave Eggers, Marisa Silver, Gary Shteyngart and others (well, two others…Charles D’Ambrosio and Roger Angell) on their “real-life summer movie memories.” You can read them online.

The issue also features fiction pieces from Ms. July and Denis Johnson and more (not going to name them all this time).

A really great video for Blonde Redhead directed by Mike Mills and featuring Miranda July. It’s simple and wonderful. Not to mention for a great song.

Here is me with Miranda, who appears to be wearing the exact same green turtleneck as she is in the video. Or maybe she bought more than one and rotates.

Check out this site for her new book of short stories entitled No one belongs here more than you., coming out May 15th, the same day she will be appearing at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She is also appearing in a few other select cities named on the website.