Paw Paw Fruit

Miranda July: A life full of ideas, and dreaming of flight

PHILADELPHIA - When Miranda July was in grade school, she'd strut around the yard at recess and say to her friends, "Dare me to do something - just dare me!"

It wasn't that she was a "wild" kid, she explains. "It was more just wanting to be put in some absurd situation that would just be unthinkably shocking. And performative, somehow."

Like going up to the front of a movie theater, standing on the little stage and doing a soft-shoe.

"I promptly got kicked out," she remembers, "and the movie hadn't really started yet. It was just previews."

Another time, she ran onto a basketball court where these "much older and giant guys" were playing.

"The dare was to just go onto the court and start pretending like I was playing with them, and I did, I tried to get the ball. For some reason, this was hilarious and terrifying. And they were just like, What the heh? I was like some sort of weird animal that had skittered through the game."

Speaking of weird animals, July's new movie, "The Future," begins with the sad, quavery voice of a cat, Paw Paw, addressing the audience. We see her little feet. We feel her pain.

A meditation about time and relationships, about truth, consequences and life in the digital age, "The Future" was written and directed by July. It stars July, too, as a sort of ennui-struck children's dance instructress who lives with a similarly inert tech support guy (Hamish Linklater). They're adopting this cat. And strange stuff happens.

It's almost as if July's fifth-grade pals had dared her to make a movie with a talking cat in it. And, oh, yeah, a talking moon. You have to be a little fearless to do stuff like that.

"But there's a lot of fear in me, too," July says. "It's just that when it comes to making things, I'm so determined, and that overtakes everything, and I have a pretty clear idea of what I want . ... It's like this itch, I just have to make it right. And all the fear falls away, or works in service of the idea. So I guess I still am a little like the kid being dared - before I really figured out that one could be an artist."

"The Future" is July's second feature. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Her first, "Me and You and Everyone We Know," which also stars July, was released in 2005. Her collection of stories, "No One Belongs Here More Than You," won the 2007 Frank O'Connor International Story Award. She makes videos and Web-based projects and still does performance art - that's how she got started, standing on a stage in front of audiences in Portland, Ore., her old hometown. Essentially, she dared herself to deliver the goods, to be "performative," somehow.

Zingerman's Creamery - Blog Archive » Paw Paw Party

Did you know that Michigan has an indigenous tropical tasting fruit? Our gelato maker Josh has been working tirelessly for years to promote this unknown Michigan fruit. To step up our promotion of the Paw Paw, this season we are throwing it a party! Come learn about Paws Paws, The history, the fall out, the come back! taste locally grown paw paw varieties and this years Paw Paw gelato of course!

$25 the in advance, $30 at the door, registration required. Please call (734) 929-0500 to reserve.

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