amanda palmer's open poem to jonathan chait (and other crimes)

It's a shame, really (though a minor shame), since she is absolutely not terrible and in fact was pretty great when I saw her a few weeks back. But as a person she's this horrible mix of showbiz kid, whimsy-miner, pretentious artiste, ironic hipster and all sorts of other unctuous things.

she was a living statue. You almost don't need to say anything else.

I like a big chunk of her music, and she was actually very nice when I met her, but that doesn't excuse any of this shit.

frankly, i don't care about the weird ethical shit like you guys do. I just want her to grow ordinary eyebrows.

that's p much my position

...and I recognize that she sucks, the terrible person thing is just shit icing on the shit cake.

Oh dear.

RT @amandapalmer: just sat alone with bono in an irish pub for an hour and talked about music.

Did he end up with her eyebrows and did she end up with his glasses?

"music"

Then they pretended they were conjoined twins...

music = "factivism, stadiums, kickstarter and eyebrows"

i don't know if i can go on

just wait for their collaborative album

if only that pub could have been bombed

Guys it's worse than you might guess -- they were in Long Beach for the TED Talks.

TED CAN FUCK OFF THEN

Bono, Amanda Palmer and Ted Nugent walked into a bar...

(I know TED ain't Ted. Fuck it.)

imagining them both just talking over each other the whole time

I know where that pub is if anyone wants to toss in a tear gas canister.

IRA really needs to get its shit together

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMj_P_6H69g

"i had the most profound encounters with people"

amanda palmer's open tab with bono

i love the way she just tosses out "i wrote the songs" as an afterthought because she said something nice about the drummer and that can't just sit there and let people think that he was actually as important as her or anything.

this is so insufferable. like stunningly so.

"they weren't with us on the sidewalk."

"master level ninja fan connection"

The comments on that video are a good catalyst for a Two Minute Hate session if you haven't had the minimum amount of cathartic anger.

didn't make it past the living statue wannabramovic story but man that explained a lot really

I don't think she aimed that high, it was more like those silver- or gold-painted cowboy dudes on the sidewalk

oh sure, i get that; i'm just saying that it's a rosetta stone with the "my art elevates me literally and figuratively above you; should you connect, we are making my glorious art but if you do not you are a sad sad person"

is her version of a sad person when she draws on weepy eyebrows?

people who I have seen praising amanda palmer's TED talk on the Internet in the past hour: rashida jones, kenan

haha

to be fair, kenan's stint as sidewalk masturbator was probably well-received

well, received

if unwelcome

"we made an art out of asking people to help us"

if by us you mean ME

"and then twitter came along and made things even more magic because I could ask instantly for anything, anywhere"

after describing how a house full of honduran immigrants slept on couches so her band could take the beds, the mom thanking palmer the next morning ("in her broken english") for staying there and making music her daughter enjoys: "and i'm thinking: this is fair."

"guys, if you have social capital you don't have to charge for your art - people will pay simply to interact with you!"

^ ok that one's not a direct quote, just a sum-up

i won't make the argument that only celebs who got their status through old school channels can do this, though - i'm sure if one of those random instagam kids with a ton of followers started auctioning off their toilet paper they'd see some profit.

the opening "i stood on a crate and acknowledged sad people's existences, got 60 bucks mon-thurs, 90 bucks on fridays" anecdote definitely underscores that you don't have to be an actual famous person to creatively sell a sense of human connection

if one wanted to risk sounding like a bret easton ellis character, one could argue that by allow people pay to engage with her, rather than pay to experience her art, she's actually letting people pay for what benefits them - interacting with someone whose art they enjoy. In a sense, she's acknowledging that there's no guarantee that listening to her music is inherently rewarding to all, while it's definitely rewarding for a fan to drive down and give her a neti pot or buy her toenail clippings or whatever.

basically, anyone can hear the scripture, but only those who believe need tithe

AlexReynard 1 hour ago

This woman perfectly shows why feminism fails and what true empowerment looks like.

Feminism *claims* to be empowering. Instead, it encourages women to believe they are oppressed, shun personal responsibility, and most of all, rationalize their worst fears of other people. Amanda instead lives and breathes trust. Connection with others. What we SHOULD strive for.

Amanda promotes trust, Feminism promotes fear. Vulnerability vs. victimhood. One is healthy for human development, one isn't.
·

Do people still use the word schnorrer? Schnorrer.

It really unnerves me that an AP Ted Talk exists, and for my sanity, I'm just going to not watch it.

Though it is the next logical step in her eternal journey.

da croupier otmfm

Though it would be super cool if she was more erudite about her argument-- some data instead of endless anecdotal pathos-- deferred to the many artists who've preceded her with this same notion-- wasn't so congratulatory about it-- perhaps acknowledged, as croup notes, that a significant amount of her artist-fan interaction relates solely to the cult of personality and not the art itself-- I don't find myself hating this TED talk that much aside from that awful part about sleeping in the beds of displaced Hondurans. She's awful but she's not wrong. I'm going to stop reading threads about her though this is a disappointing way to spend a day