Miranda July Is Totally Not Kidding

Miranda July stood in her living room in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, apologizing for the sunflowers. It really was a copious amount of sunflowers. They sprouted from Mason jars and vases, punctuating the austere, Shaker-like furniture in the sunny home that July, who is 37, shares with her husband, the filmmaker Mike Mills, who's 45. Noticing me noticing the sunflowers, she interjected: "We just had a party. We don't usually have sunflowers everywhere." In person, July was very still, with ringlets of curly hair falling over her wide blue eyes like a protective visor, and she seemed perceptively aware of the "precious" label that is often attached both to her and to her work. At a different point in our time together, I followed her into a hotel room in San Francisco, where Mills had left her a knitted octopus wearing a scarf and hat on the couch. She laughed when she saw it but also appeared a bit mortified: "Oh, God," she said. "It's kind of a joke. . . . It's not. . . . Really, this isn't us at all." At their house, Mills emerged from his office; in contrast to July's measured composure,… Read full this story

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