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

Yeah, surely everyone who writes a piece like that (or any piece in fact) has other things they could be doing instead.

It is his first novel since 2006, and it's on his blog - I'd assume there's an awareness of it and an expectation that he'd talk about it. The dick move was leaving it in for the Guardian.

oh come on; I'm not an apologist but this is a major stretch. the "I should be talking about ____ but instead I'll talk about ____" is a fairly common lead, and a mass-market author's new book is a fairly obvious choice for blank number one.

(I would tend to doubt most publications do any editing of their syndicated articles.)

the dick move was being neil gaiman tbh

The idea that a professional writer and frequent blogger might deal with the death of a friend by writing something is maybe not so outlandish as to merit an opening paragraph. Don't most people interrupt their working day (if they can) immediately after a friend dies? This is a bit too much like, well I've got major shit to do because I'm kind of a big deal but that's not important right now because #feelings.

perhaps, as with the accordion, an otherwise obnoxious instrument will be put to good use on weird al's forthcoming record

wtf accordions are great.

^

could be

http://vimeo.com/9373087

It really couldn't, but thank you for lolravingamericans.

yeah whatever dude

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yayWmpL5hGc

Posted without comment - Jon Ronson's big Amanda Palmer article in the Guardian: Amanda Palmer: visionary or egotist?

Amanda flinches. "I don't do poetry," she says.

"I was just a very dark kid," she says. "My family was complicated."

"Oh?" I say, my ears pricking up. "What were the problems?"

"I actually put my finger on it recently while discussing something with my family," she replies, "and realised what precisely the chasm between me and them might be. It was a house of no metaphors. I had very literal parents and I wanted to survive with metaphor and art, and there was a real sense of shame around it."

"They were judgmental towards you?" I ask.

"There was a real judgment cast in my family about me wanting attention," she nods. "It wasn't that my parents didn't encourage my artistic pursuits – they did very much – but they didn't understand them."

"But the $1.2m," I say.

"I immediately spent all that money on the packaging and the mailing, and it was all gone six weeks later."

"Really?" I say.

"The pain and irony of my situation now is that everyone thinks I'm rich," she says.

[...]

Around half past midnight we share Gaiman's limo – provided by his publishers – back into central Philadelphia. She and Gaiman stay at the Ritz-Carlton, while I stay at the crappier DoubleTree down the road.

"If you stuck me in a room and gave me art-making tools but told me no one would ever see the results, I don't think I'd have much desire to make art," she says. "What I do comes from a deep desire to be seen and to see others.

whereis such room

sings "What a house without metahors can doooooo"

Back in the bar at the railway station, Amanda told me she had something to say that might "come out sounding megalomaniacal or wrong, so I trust you not to misinterpret it". She said that, in the midst of the Kickstarter controversy, the New Yorker published an article "tearing me to pieces". It included "the basest, most cruel insult someone could throw at me, which was to tell me that Bertolt Brecht would not be proud of me". She paused. "And then it dawned on me how deeply hated Bertolt Brecht was, and all of a sudden my mood improved." She smiled at me, and at the girl behind the bar, who had just told her how much she loved the Dresden Dolls. "I finally saw the bigger picture," she said, "which was: I was only put on this Earth to connect with the people who were attuned."

Mm, that explains it -- my built-in rabbit-ears are busted.

;_;

Amanda is 10G trapped in a 4G lte world

We climb out of the taxi. Amanda warns me not to fill the room with outsider-journalist bad vibes. She says that, as a result of all the controversies, "my community has tightened in our resolve to connect on our own terms". Her fans increasingly see the world as "us and them", she says.

The indie rock Sarah Palin?

HFS OTM

she's a sociopath

All these aggrandizing personal anecdotes where she tells stories about things that happen BUT SHE SEES WHAT IT IS REALLY ABOUT are tired

the basest, most cruel insult someone could throw at me

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

lol Bruneau w the post of the day...

It cost 1.2 million to send 24,883 packages? That's $47.90 a package.

No wait, 6356 of those backers only received digital media.

I don't want to call her a liar but I sure as fuck don't believe a word

Best part of that article is that they played a ukulele house show making $5,000 and then took the limo to the Ritz-Carlton hotel they ended up staying at. Scroll down to the comments and you will find stans vehemently arguing that these people are not rich!

well shit dude she had to make her own dinner

When did this whole thing start, the "white musicians lying about their finances" thing? It's makes me so angry. I want musicians to get paid, get rich. It's so frustrating when the ones that do get rich start lying about it. Or reposition their definition of "rich" to keep themselves in the percentile of the populace.

Maybe it's part of a larger problem of white people lying about stuff, huh

Her insistence on not being rich brings to mind the Chris Rock routine about the difference between rich and wealthy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY

Is singer Amanda Palmer a free-spirited visionary – or a deluded egotist?

Clearly she is a deluded free-spirited egoist.

Sad that her parents would not let her live in a realm of metaphor. Must have been a tough upbringing.

Inside, Amanda explains, are 25 Amanda Palmer fans. They don't know each other but they met online – during the Kickstarter appeal – to pool $5,000 for her to play a concert for them. She's doing 35 of these concerts across the US.

Holy fucking shit, someone who netted more than $100k for playing 35 living room ukelele shows counts as rich in my book. Unless she has absolutely no concept of money/saving.

bingo

I hope she's rich, I'm glad she's rich if she is
also Doubletrees typically have pools and free waffles, I don't know what arts reporter was complaining about

Doesn't Doubletree also give you free cookies?

So, $200 to have your favourite musician come play in your living room ....

Jon Ronson, arghghghghgh. I'll guarantee you Gaiman's publisher paid for the Ritz-Carlton. The next day, the same publisher made out that he couldn't pay more than $5k for some newcomer's manuscript.

I would totally pay $200 to have Prince or The Cure play in my living room

Jane Siberry has been doing that for the last five years. Come to your house, play a tiny show, ten people each, conversation and tea and food and stuff. Great way to make a living through your 50s, if you have loads of talent and a dwindling fanbase, afaic

I would pay $200 for all sorts of musicians to play my living room. And I bet most of them would not to be so lame as to profess lack of money , even the ones that were poor, let alone the rare few whose money was a matter of public record.

Tbf Jane Sibbery seems like she's been trying to lose fans for years. Didn't she even change her name for a while? Bands and musicians should sell naming rights.

"It hurt my feelings in an unprecedented way," she says.

She's a complicated woman xp

Her music rules tho

'never before in the history of feelings has hurt been borne by one perceptive woman as i have borne this'