It Chooses You

Enquanto (não) escrevia o argumento do filme The Future, Miranda July desenvolveu um interesse obsessivo pelo jornal de classificados PennySaver. O interesse era de um tipo que eu compreendo muito bem (*). Quem são os anunciantes? Em que mundo paralelo é que vivem? Ou, melhor explicado:

Tuesday was the day the PennySaver booklet was delivered. It came hidden among the coupons and other junk mail. I read it while I ate lunch, and then, because I was in no hurry to get back to not writing, I usually kept reading it straight through to the real estate ads in the back. I carefully considered each item—not as a buyer, but as a curious citizen of Los Angeles. Each listing was like a very brief newspaper article. News flash: someone in LA is selling a jacket. The jacket is leather. It is also large and black. The person thinks it is worth ten dollars. But the person is not very confident about that price, and is willing to consider other, lower prices. I wanted to know more things about what this leather-jacket person thought, how they were getting through the days, what they hoped, what they feared—but none of that information was listed. What was listed was the person’s phone number.

Claro que, enquanto os meus interesses obsessivos acabam, na melhor das hipóteses, em posts, os da Miranda July resultam em livros barra performances barra lojas (lojas? Sim, lojas). Tudo isto sempre muito bom, sempre muito inesperado.

[Sem que nada no interior do livro o explique, a manta de retalhos que constitui a sua capa contém uns quadrados do Mutts, incluindo o Mooch a dizer Joy to the world (*).]