Thank you Regina Hackett at Another Bouncing Ball for highlighting the latest from quirky dry-humored phenom Miranda July. Her films (Me and You and Everyone We Know) and writing (No One Belongs Here More Than You) dance me into a conceptual space that is reminiscent of Yoko Ono’s installation art in its smooth side swipe of everything you were expecting. I don’t know anyone who is undertaking a set of projects quite like hers.
Hackett contrasts July’s latest with “art of self” master Cindy Sherman’s staging genius:
In the late 1970s, Cindy Sherman was the star of her own B-movies. She remains the central figure on her own stage. Recently, Miranda July changed Sherman’s conceit, becoming Polonius to Sherman’s Hamlet – an easy tool, deferential but aspiring to larger things.
July plays at this Poloniusizing with the film Kramer vs Kramer:
This is too good.
And July’s website is pure July: The splash page is a simple black and white text box with the following instructions:
ENTER SECRET PASSWORD
(you know the password, just clear your mind and look within. it will probably be the first word that you think of.) (if this doesn’t work, try looking at a candle for a few seconds.)
Whatever word you enter takes you to the next page and a message in a gaudy oversized font:
YOU OBVIOUSLY KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.
Yeah, I do.
I love Miranda July. Like totally. When she wrote me a letter in college, I positively swooned. Even now, when I think about whose heads I’d most like to climb into, hers is toward the top of the list.
You and July are cut from the same piece of cosmic cloth IMHO…Meant as a compliment, truly.