When Genius meets Genius

It's not that they were so incredibly cool when paired together. In fact, almost the opposite. But, they're coolness alone made it doubly good to be there.

One of the greater things I did in while I was in nyc was go to the Public Library with Suzanne and enter from the side door, into the Humanities and Social Sciences library, to see Miranda July read from her new book, hear Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond and have David Byrne wrap it all up, with both an interview and a song.

Miranda July made Me and You and Everyone We Know, a movie that is so juicy it's hard to describe. I highly recommend watching it though.
I included that link to it, but I suggest not reading the blurb about it. It can't describe it either. It's supposedly a summary, but you can't summarize this movie. At least, you shouldn't have to.

Besides making this happen for awhile now....recently, Miss July came out with a book, titled, No One Belongs Here More Than You. She read a few passages from it and we, her audience, were mesmerized. I want to buy the book, but I want her to come over and read it to me. Probably not gonna happen. So, I got the most out of the moments we were there. She also had an audience participation part, sorta, in that, we, the audience, were taken in by her off-the-cuff-stories at one point. Only to be highly amused later when it was revealed those stories were true but the people pointed out as characters were just innocent by-standers. It was an awesome roller coaster.

David Byrne, never one to disappoint, gave a quirky, somewhat halting "interview" with Miranda in part III of the night. You could tell he'd put a lot of thought into his questions. So much so that the questions were more like musings and then the "what up with that?" bit at the end. It was curious to watch. One of his questions was about the dis-illusioned utopias her characters seem to invent/live in. And she answered that she didn't see those characters as dis-illusioned or ill-fated, but believed that those characters, like alot of us, have hope that that utopia does exist,
"Having that hope is almost the same as living there," she said.
(i shouted out a big 'right on!' and started clapping, as others joined in)

Miranda July's website is worth spending some serious time with, and if you haven't already discovered David Byrne's Journal, go there now and eat up some culture and politics davidbyrne style.


*the top tri-image is from joanie4jackie, a miranda july project
*the image of the crowd is from david byrne's journal, 4-7-06