Missed connections, Instagram lovers, and, of course, poop.
Kajillionaireis out September 25.
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Are mothers allowed to do this?
Usually, shes obsessive-compulsive clean, but she lets that stuff go.
She can be an artist first and not a mom or wife or domestic sex goddess.
Welcome to Planet Miranda July.
Population: one, or maybe 5 million, depending on how you count souls.
The fact that this rent has only gone up $30 a year is amazing.
Originally, 2020 was supposed to be her 401(k) year.
She would say yes to publicity!
She would say yes to making money!
Money has long fascinated her as a concept, but it wasnt ever the goal.
But yo dont misunderstand: This is her choice.
Its a carryover from her DIY, riot-grrrl-adjacent days in Portland in her early 20s.
Money bought time to do art.
She waited tables; she worked at Pop-A-Lock.
She shoplifted little things and scammed copy centers.
(Sorry, Kinkos!)
She stripped and then worked at a peep show.
She hated it, so she thought about efficiency.
It got her enough money to buy something big she cant remember, maybe a laptop.
I was able to get out of the hole I was in and not look back, she says.
The house in Echo Park has been the container for much of her career.
Sometimes her projects made money; often they didnt.
The story was unexpected, even for July.
She first saw the characters as she was waking up, faint like faraway fireflies.
She caught the image and whispered it into a voice memo, which she simply titled Family Movie.
I was like,Ugh, she says.
Just the saddest feeling.
This is family stuff I would never willingly go toward.
The entire experience of making it was a thrill.
But after production, the release stalled.
The studio, Annapurna, was facing bankruptcy, which meant she had to find another distributor at Sundance.
(Focus Features came onboard.)
The movie fell into limbo, and so did Julys spirits.
I was very, very depressed last year, she says.
Its like church and state between our work and private life, says Mills.
Neither of us ever has any idea how much money the other has, July adds.
When quarantine restrictions began, suddenly home was all there was.
It became harder to do her Wednesday overnights, but it was just as necessary to keep doing them.
Miranda July grew upin a house of books.
Her mother published poetry and occasionally took on other jobs for money.
Her father is an outsize presence in the family dynamic.
My dad will fall down the rabbit hole of crisis and make it have a larger meaning cosmologically.
There is just incredible haunting, debilitating anxiety and trauma in that person.
Her undiagnosed chronic eye problem, for instance, might be a manifestation of inherited trauma.
Its not inherited psychic pain from your mothers suicide.Also theres just so much pus.
Her relationship with her older brother, Robin, was grounding.
He was a talented woodworker at a young age, carving knickknacks and furniture with hidden compartments.
It had a wooden refrigerator and a sink made from a bottle with a spigot.
It went from being a kids playhouse to a house for me to be in, says July.
Things we made did not have to be childlike; they could be professional.
There was no point ever going down from that level.
During high school, July felt wild, left to her own devices.
No one was watching me, July recalls.
I mean, who lets their kid write a murderer for years?
Her father is able to connect only through a really narrow channel.
Their conversations require a high level of esotericism and intensity in order for him to engage.
Shes interested in relationships that might exist in alternate realities or through a surrogate.
The ultimate cosmic missed connection.
It means theyre constantly hustling, but badly the worst con artists in the world, says co-star Wood.
There are no soft kisses or tender hugs.
We had to really strip away all of that and build her from the ground up.
The film isnt autobiographical, but the feelings connect.
I know how hurtful it is to not feel held, July says.
Unsurprisingly,we begin talking about poop.
Before she met Mills, July dated the director Miguel Arteta, whom she met through the Sundance labs.
She pinpoints the end of that relationship to a day when she had to use the bathroom badly.
He was in the bathroom, she explains.
Sergio bursts into the bathroom while Naima is sitting on the toilet.
Shes looking for honesty, emotional engagement.
Just say what youre thinking, she says, as she follows Naima around the house with the pan.
I guess thats yours as much as mine.
I could never use it because of back and forth forever.
Better known as ))<>(( for short.
(So very French.)
She wondered if she could pull off something similar.
She also knew a real-life child who was having a scatological moment in their life.
Julys work is always about taking the risk of going somewhere unfamiliar and then finding her way back.
Sometimes people do not want to go there.
Sometimes a dead talking cat named Paw Paw is a bridge too far.
Talking about poop is gross to some, poignant for others.
The audience would ignore or even boo her.
So thank you for giving me this opportunity to explore it so publicly with you.
Because Im curious, she says.
If you really were not down for this, how would it strike you?
What would repulse you?
Theres a real steel to her commitment to earnest oddities.
Im always hoping the strangeness is familiar, she says.
Youre feeling very out on a limb, but you cant shake the feeling youve been there before.
Thered be no satisfaction in being understood if the thing you were understanding was a given.
Still, you cant change perception.
I could say, Yeah, I gangbanged, and people would still be like, I dont know.
It doesnt really matter what I do, so I feel pretty free at this point.
A nervous July handed Fateman a manila folder labeled Ways to go back in time/enter other dimensions.
An intense relationship followed.
July would increasingly spend her high-school years at Fatemans house, sleeping alongside her in a twin-size bed.
They were in love but werent lovers, even though everyone thought they were.
Collaborative projects have long been an interest of Julys, in addition to interdimensional travel.
You could be a different person in a different context me, you, everyone.
They were vibing in a way that was very two-performers-together, July recalls.
She was showing Qualley something and accidentally swung her into Taylor Swift.
Qualley was feeling extra-emotional that day because she had just broken up with Pete Davidson.
Swift said she knew someone who had dated the comedian too, and presto!
An evening of chemistry.
Qualley read it and sent back notes to put it closer to her own voice.
Scene: July is in her studio; Qualley is in her apartment in New York.
Medium: Recorded on FaceTime,postedon Julys Instagram page.
Qualley, shaky and teary-eyed: Can I see you?
Margaret
It doesnt have to be for long.
A single tear trickles down her left cheek.
I have a family, July says, her voice going up with the tail of the sentence.
I have, like, a whole thing, a whole life thats at stake.
Qualley gets up, pirouettes, singsongs: I loooooooove you, Miraaaaaaaanda.
Youre fucking with me and my entire life when you do that, says July.
Because you know that, like, brings up a lot of stuff.
And I know
I just wanna be with you.
I know you dont want to be with me.
Thats not the issue.
I would love to be there.
I would love it.
Well then, come here!
You realize this is the exact thing we did last time.
I came over and then its just, like, downward spiral.
Im, like, shaking right now.
Qualley shows July her foot.
July cant take it anymore and hangs up.
Still, the ritual was healing for her.
It helped pull her out of her creative doldrums, and she felt bonded to Qualley.
The made-up is as real as you want it to be.
Me and Margarets relationship is queer to me, July says.
Were not lovers, but also its odd.
It never feels like other relationships.
I think life should be more like that.
I have a bizarre sensation when I find out shes going to be somewhere Im going.
I feel like my ex is about to show up, Qualley tells me.
You get that feeling in your stomach where youre nervous and excited.
Its not a cut-and-dried thing with her.
The piece works because of the medium, too.
Its responsive and of the moment, operating along the rhizomatic lines of social media.
No pitch meetings, no one to beg for money.
Its these projects that channel her DIY artistic roots best.
During quarantine, she started another Instagram project calledJopie,a movie we made together when we were apart.
She downloaded the submissions, then curated and edited them together into a seamless movie.
She executed it during her Wednesday workday.
Oh, this is very pure and far away from any industry, she thought.
Im like 25 or whatever.
Some age I never even really was.
July picks up the computerand shows me the rest of the house.
The rows of bookshelves behind her are organized alphabetically.
Two matching armchairs upholstered in a lemon print sit under the window.
I recognize the space in front of the bathroom where she and Qualley did their Instagram project.
The entire house is an archive of the strange and serendipitous relationships that have emerged from her career.
Like the dreamworld, unexpected connections are possible if you just extend a hand.
Babies, primordial beings.
What do you absorb?
She couldnt do that.
No, no, no.
July had had a difficult childbirth.
Hopper spent weeks in the neonatal intensive-care unit.
We had been through this huge trauma.
Like, there was no way on earth I was going to let the baby cry, she says.
She found a therapist who had extensive sleep-training methods that didnt involve letting the child cry.
This is what you do: When you put the baby in the crib, you step away.
If they begin to cry, you pick them up, soothe them, and put them down again.
The first time, July froze.
She couldnt do this.
She called the therapist, sobbing, on the phone.
Look, Im so fucked up.
I didnt fully tell you we went through this crazy thing, she remembers telling her.
The woman suggested she say a mantra, the goal being to let the baby know theyre safe.
Theres nothing that is too crazy, that is too much, that you cant hold.
It was a strength I hadnt felt before.
I did that every night for every nap for weeks.
you’ve got the option to take care of yourself because you know Im here.
Hopper is 8 now.
To be an artist means that sometimes she has to leave.
The back and forth of the domestic to the full-time worker is hard for me, she says.
Its her own learning process.
On a recent Thursday, she came back home after her night at the studio.
Are you sad at all?
No, Hopper replied.
You go away, you come back.
