When Miranda July Shows Up and Makes It Weird

or, Navigating the Autofiction Moshpit

Miranda July reading at Stories, March 24, 2023

Normally, one can go to any bookstore reading and not have to worry about a seat or the event ruining the store parking, but there are a few writers who have the rock star draw, and the one for this story is Miranda July. I went to Stories, an independent bookstore in Echo Park, to see what I thought was going to be a regular reading and discovered otherwise when I got to the counter.

The readings at Stories are in the back, on a covered outdoor patio, but I like to enter in the front and buy the event book before heading to the seating area. And if you are going to a bookstore event, please buy a book of some kind, even if it’s not related to the reading—it’s how the store stays in business—and, preferably, buy the event book so events keep happening. I always buy the book first, mostly to avoid the line that happens immediately after. The event book is usually propped up on a display by the register. This time, there were a crowd of books and I couldn’t figure out which one to pick up.

“What’s the event book?” I asked.

“These over here,” the employee said, in a tone that told me she was tired of the question, and she thought it should have been obvious to me, but yet was trying hard to be polite. She waved her hand around like a Price Is Right showgirl. “And that one and that one and that one over there.”

Most of them were Miranda July books, and that’s when I knew it was going to be packed. She wasn’t listed on any of the flyers I saw but that didn’t matter. Unannounced, word had gotten out and that was enough. Miranda July is The Cool Place for Brunch of indie lit—like those places that open and immediately have people waiting an hour for eggs with a gimmick.

I looked at the Michelle Tea books, which I owned, and saw the Robert Gluck book, Margery Kempe, and then landed on the anthology, and just picked that. Too many choices, but I like getting an anthology and getting it signed by multiple people, so I picked out NDA: An Autofiction Anthology and made my way out the overly populated back exit until I hit the patio, and then squeezed and navigated my way through the crowd to get to a place in the back to stand, much like the last time I made my way to the front of the Teragram Ballroom to see Thee Oh Sees.

I love to see packed-out literary events of any kind, but when it’s a cult of personality, people are usually just waiting for the big name to get up there and patiently bide their time otherwise. Are they listening to the others? Are they buying the books of the others? I’ve done very well opening at poetry readings and comedy clubs for big named creatives, but it doesn’t always translate to book sales or building an audience or whatever the point is. I would rather perform for six people who are really into finding something new than a hundred who are there to see the guy from TV or that dude from the band—but maybe this attitude is why I never made it to that upper echelon. It’s probably bad advice for young creatives.

Robert Gluck read, and did anyone appreciate the gift? Okay, full disclosure: I’m a huge fan of Bob, and I can call him that because I took classes from him at SF State on my first time there, and that’s what he asked us to call him. Bob, aside from being one of the few good Creative Writing teachers I had, is a fantastic writer. Jack The Modernist is a great San Francisco novel. He read from a book I haven’t seen called I, Boombox, which is, as he described, a collection of misreadings.

I’m 53. I don’t know how old Bob is. I hadn’t seen him read in over 20 years. He doesn’t get out much and isn’t a social media type literary guy. Knowing my age and guessing his, can I extrapolate the age-math and guess this could well be the last time I see him. So many of my literary friends from that same era are gone now, or they’re completely off the creative vibe. It’s a grind that few can pull off long term.

Michelle Tea got up and nailed her reading, a blow-by-blow description of watching a Madonna video back in the day and how it shaped her sexuality and the questions and wonder it raised in her. If you’re reading this, you’re likely in-the-know that she and I are friends from way back, and have performed across the country together. But I can still fan out on her work. I love what she does, and how she still manages to put new twists on her writing rather than falling into the easy trap of “writing the last memoir, but what happened next” that is the path of least resistance and what everyone who works a desk in publishing wants you to do.

The last time I can distinctly remember watching videos on TV was either for Jawbreaker or Steel Pole Bath Tub debuting their major label releases. I watched both of those, but don’t remember the order. It was approximately 1995, before most of the crowd at Stories was born. Had any of them watched a video on TV before? Can they picture what a 13 inch tube TV looked like, or know what bad reception looks like on TV? Ugh.

There were other readers, but I couldn’t catch their names because the MC mumbled the names into the mic—it’s infuriating in equal and opposite ways as the fake enthusiasm of the comedy club host—act like you’re enjoying the show. This happens at so many lit venues: the reader is brought up by a whispered bio. You want to see an introduction? Charlie Jane Anders and Jamie DeWolf are the best two people to bring you up onstage. They will make anyone in any crowd excited to see you, and sell you on why you were asked to perform rather than quietly reading off an out-of-date bio they found on the internet.

Even for Miranda, the host ASMRed her introduction. Didn’t matter, the crowd came to life immediately and hung on her words. Miranda read from a story which I imagine was written in all lowercased letters in a really cute font that I haven’t heard of and isn’t available anymore. It’s fine, you know, I can’t tell what I think of her because again, like a new brunch spot, is my opinion tainted because of who goes there? If she was an ignored writer would she be my favorite? I can’t tell anymore. So much of what books I like and don’t result from the time in my life when I discovered them. I know my personal taste is tainted. So yeah, she did really well and you should read one of her stories and figure it out yourself.

I thumbed through the anthology I bought, preparing to get it signed by the readers—Bob, Michelle, and Miranda were not in the book. WTF. It has gorgeous production design—it has a great texture, weight, and layout—but what is the point of having the reading if not to have the authors read? Maybe they were the other authors whose names I couldn’t hear?

To step out of time of the story for a moment, I read two of the stories in the anthology: one by Tao Lin and the other by David Fishkind. Tao’s story was literally about texts and emails he sent to other people. David’s was a story about a couple without proper nouns who gets a dog and wants to move into the country. Both are like Tama Janowitz on Xanax. It’s the slice-of-life fiction where nothing happens of the ‘80s indie lit but somehow less happens. Imagine an Andy Warhol film that’s just a teenager staring at their phone.

After the reading, I make my way over to Bob. When he turns around and looks at me, I’m 20 years old again. Nervous, self-conscious. Those years were my meth years, and I was often coming down during his courses, sometimes poorly self-medicating trying to even out. In 1989, I was three years out of a cult and living in my seventh city. I was unstable at best, only anchored to the world through a love of books and poetry readings. I handed him a poetry book I wrote ten years ago and tried to talk to him a little bit. He did remember me, but was not at all familiar with my career. I was hoping he had seen my last novel, at least, very much in the tradition of other writers he liked. You’re never too old to be an awkward kid again.