Huntermadeit

for may’s delivery of The Best Mail On Planet Earth i sent subscribers a red telephone handset that plugs into their cell phone. well what the heck right. attached was a private temporary phone number that went straight to my cell phone. for thirty days i encouraged subscribers to call me any time any amount of times for a spontaneous poem, horoscope, recipe, song, etc. The GoodTime Hotline was born.

different time zones helped skew context: 2am sleeping or in the middle of cooking dinner or in the shower or 5am sleeping or on the phone with my mum or a bad day or a good day or high energy or low energy i answered every single call that came in except for a few that failed due to technical issues with a secondary phone number. the GoodTime Hotline was a demanding experience in providing some form of immediate creative output for those who love my work most without time to prepare or rehearse…there was no warning…chance was our medium! and some really painfully awkward and really funny and really beautiful things happened, none of which i remember (by intention). hundreds of these special, fragile connections happened and were left where we found them.

these leaps of language faith ended with me thanking the caller and saying goodbye before they could get a word in or unfolded into longer conversations. what a beautiful experiment…thank you everyone who called and tried out something weird with me. NU WORLDS!!! <3 june's delivery is gonna be awesome...

while walking to university of tampa to hear miranda july talk i found an entire butterfly, dead, resting under the fence just a bit off the sidewalk. i knew miranda and i were going to collaborate by the end of the night, i just wasn’t sure how…

i sat directly across from where she’d be speaking. miranda read “The Swim Team” from her book No One Belongs Here More Than You. she read about the butterfly stroke as i tapped my foot slowly, lending small lift to Rocky’s small wings. i would conduct a Butterfly Quality Control Test for her to complete.

during the Q&A, i asked in front of an audience of a couple hundred if she would complete the inspection when she was done speaking. she agreed.

miranda was entirely generous in our collaboration. she read and answered every question out loud, taking her time to see that the inspection was thorough and honest, even whispering “Rocky” to the dead butterfly to gather the cold hard facts.

her professionalism and attention to detail were no surprise to onlookers. she was so delighted with the results she proclaimed “that was awesome” and i thanked her before politely being asked to leave immediately by the event manager.

miranda july & a butterfly is the first of many collaborations to come and we’re excited to see what’s next! :^) bye