A card by Joe Putterlik, who helped to inspire "It Chooses You."
Mike Mills is back there.
"We are watching you"
On Thursday night Partners and Spade hosted a party in honor of the release of Miranda July’s new book It Chooses You. The book chronicles a period in 2009 when procrastinating work on a screenplay July "crisscrossed Los Angeles to meet a random selection of PennySaver sellers, glimpsing thirteen surprisingly moving and profoundly specific realities, along the way shaping her film, and herself, in unexpected ways."
The shop was filled with items that they had bought via classified ads, then repackaged to along with a snippet of an interview with the person selling it. Items on offer included ball-crawl balls, paint tubes, drum sets, posters, flags, scrabble letters, bikes, and old trophies to name but a few. I arrived about an hour after the event started and most everything was already spoken for. It’s amazing how transformative the touch of an artist can be, that literally everything in the store had sold out in a matter of an hour whereas most of the items on their own merits could linger on a junk shop shelf for years without notice.
Also on display were a collection of hand-made cards created by Joe Putterlik. Putterlik was an 81 year old retired housepainter that July met when she went to buy something from him via the Penny saver. He and his cards (many of which are dirty limericks written for his wife) were featured in July’s film The Future which was released last summer and helped to inspire the book. Joe passed away shortly after filming, and it was touching to see his sweet and silly cards presented here with such reverence.
Amy read It Chooses You and said it was great. I trust her endorsement, so check it out.