I’m not going to say that he’s the best in the whole world,” Phillip had said at the Open Palm fundraiser. He was wearing a gray cashmere sweater that matched his beard. “Because there’s a color doctor in Zurich who easily rivals him. But Jens is the best in LA, and definitely the best on the west side. He cured my athlete’s foot.” He lifted his foot and then put it down again before I could smell it. “He’s in Amsterdam most of the year so he’s very selective about who he sees here. Tell him Phil Bettelheim sent you.” He wrote the number on a napkin and began to samba away from me. Her short video The Amateurist (1998) [36] features a dowdy researcher examining, via her own video monitor, a stereotypical "beautiful woman"; July plays both roles. [37] A lengthier video, the 27-minute Nest of Tens (2000), juxtaposes four unrelated scenarios in which "seemingly everyday people go about acting completely normal while demonstrating distinct abnormality". [36] Nest of Tens has been placed in the permanent online collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [38] Miranda grew up in Berkeley, California, where she first began writing plays and staging them at the all-ages club 924 Gilman. She later attended UC Santa Cruz, dropping out in her sophomore year. After leaving college, she moved to Portland, Oregon and took up performance art. Her performances were successful; she has been quoted as saying she has not worked a day job since she was 23 years old. It Chooses You. McSweeney's, Irregulars, 2011. With photographs by Brigitte Sire. ISBN 9781936365012.

Risky fiction: hilarious, dark, uncomfortable, and so accurate in mapping the way fantasies can overtake life that it’s also one of the most honest character studies I’ve read in a longtime…when pregnancy and an infant are introduced in the second half of the book, imagination and fantasy life are replaced with very real anguish, protection, and love.” It’s the essence of red,” he said brusquely. He could sense my skepticism. “Red is an energy, which only develops a hue in crude form. Take thirty milliliters now and then thirty milliliters each morning before first urination.” I swallowed a dropperful. The word phenomenal didn’t seem to trigger anything in him; he was saying Dr. Broyard was expensive but worth it and then his voice began rising toward a polite exit. “Well, I guess I’ll see you at the board meeting to—” but before he could say morrow, I interrupted.In 1998, July made Love Diamond, her first full-length multimedia performance piece – in her description, a "live movie." [43] This two-hour stage work featured July playing multiple characters, humorously depicting women's perceived cultural roles. [48] This was followed by a second full-length performance piece, The Swan Tool, and a six-minute film, Getting Stronger Every Day (2001). [49] The latter is an abstract view of a grown man and a little girl, seemingly taunted by indistinct floating shapes while an offscreen narrator recounts a tale of real-life pedophilia. [49] The Swan Tool is another "live movie", a one-woman show in which July plays Lisa Cobb, a woman searching for her lost body. Although it's peppered with deadpan comedy, the surrealist story concerns "childhood sexual traumas, adult alienation, and persistent, unfocused guilt". [50]

And now, as if that weren’t enough to engender an existential groan of self-hatred among struggling writers and artists the world over, July has written a novel. The First Bad Man has already been garlanded with praise from Lena Dunham (“astounding”), AM Homes (“a book that must be read”) and Dave Eggers (“unforgettable”).

Become a Member

Christine Jesperson is a lonely artist and “Eldercab” driver who uses her fantastical artistic visions to draw her aspirations and objects of desire closer to her. Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), a newly single shoe salesman and father of two boys, is prepared for amazing things to happen. But when he meets Christine, he panics. Life is not so oblique for Richard’s seven-year-old Robby, who is having a risqué internet romance with a stranger, and his fourteen- year-old brother Peter who becomes the guinea pig for neighborhood girls— practicing for their future of romance and marriage. In July’s modern world, the mundane is transcendent and everyday people become radiant characters who speak their innermost thoughts, act on secret impulses, and experience truthful human moments that at times approach the surreal. They seek together-ness through tortured routes and find redemption in small moments that connect them to someone else on earth. An IFC/FILM FOUR and Gina Kwon Production The First Bad Man is the first great book of 2015… July’s work is tied together by her singular, confident, multifaceted voice. Her characters are often unusual and under-confident; her writing is always the former and never the latter. The First Bad Man, July’s debut novel, tells the story of an outwardly boring person whose interior life is a mosaic of delightful neuroses and staggering self-doubt... beautifully worded, emotionally complex, impressively but quietly insightful, and, in the right light, so, so funny.” Get Up: Sleater-Kinney's last show: A retrospective". PitchforkMedia.com. August 28, 2006 . Retrieved August 1, 2019.

a b "Art: July's 'Eleven Heavy Things' comes to MOCA center". Los Angeles Times. July 21, 2011. Archived from the original on September 18, 2015. a b c Tate (January 25, 2016). "Miranda July – 'I Began with Performance' ". TateShots. Tate. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021 . Retrieved November 15, 2018– via YouTube. The first sentence of the message is automatically “[Recipient’s name]? It’s me, [Sender’s Name]” — reminding the stand-in to assume the identity of the sender. Her films have a common theme of "intimacy." For example, many of her work's titles use pronouns ("me," "you," "we," etc.). July creates "slice of life" films using ordinary characters and giving them attention within her films. She describes this as her being, "desperate to bring people together." [5] However, as she's aged she's become more interested in how people sabotage coming together. [16]

a b c d Peloquin, Jahna (August 17, 2012). "Miranda July's bright Future". Star Tribune. Minneapolis, MN. Archived from the original on January 22, 2018. Miranda July is known for artworks that depend upon the public’s participation — be they apps, performances or sculptures. Her interfaith charity shop at Selfridges will present customers with an unexpected retail experience that will resonate with founder Harry Gordon Selfridge’s famous pronouncement in 1909 that his store was created as an open house, where “everyone is welcome.”