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

http://wiki.urbandead.com/images/9/92/Goodgrief3.jpg

they don't seem to mind, mostly. xxx

I read this as the dead not seeming to mind about her grief sharage.

She walked out on stage in a Bernie Sanders T-shirt, holding a ukulele aloft as though it were the Olympic torch. Then she held up a book in her left hand, another symbol of triumph. It was Margaret Wise Brown's classic children's book, "Goodnight Moon," which she took to be a talisman for peace and healing.

She kicked off the first show of her American solo tour by sitting down in a center-stage chair and pouring herself a glass of red wine. Clearly reeling from Tuesday's election results, she explained, "My plan is to read you 'Goodnight Moon' for two hours if I have to, until we all feel OK." And then she read the book to the crowd as though it were bedtime story hour, even recruiting a page-turner from the audience.
She played a few songs on her ukulele ("In My Mind" and "Do You Swear to Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth...") and then moved over to the grand piano for a couple more (the cathartic "The Killing Type" and the waltz-time "The Bed Song"), frequently interrupting the songs with asides or lyrical lapses.
Then came another reading of "Goodnight Moon."
A few more piano songs (the piano-pounding "Lost" and "Delilah") before someone in the audience broke the news that singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen had died. Palmer collapsed to the stage, weeping quite uncontrollably.

Palmer's husband, author Neil Gaiman, who was sitting in the front row with their year-old son Anthony, stepped up onstage to read "Goodnight Moon" (take three) while Palmer gathered herself.
Palmer recited the lyrics to "My IQ" by Ani DiFranco, whose concert she had attended at The Egg the previous evening. Then she invited representatives of Planned Parenthood and the New York Civil Liberties Union onstage to give speeches.
In honor of Gaiman's birthday, Palmer brought out a marching band bass drummer, a baton-twirling cue-card holder and a trumpeter in a white jumpsuit, mask and alien antennas to perform a medley of David Bowie songs and a chorus of "Happy Birthday."
More songs on the uke ("Map of Tasmania" and the soul-baring "Bigger on the Inside") and the piano ("Coin Operated Boy" and "Half Jack," both from her Dresden Doll days). Then a stunning cover of John Grant's majestic ballad "Glacier" and a zippy romp through her playful, hopeful "Ukulele Anthem."
And then finally after more than three hours of rambling, roller coaster emotions, she wrapped up the night with an elegiac, broken-hearted, tear-stained rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."
"You're going to be OK," she said softly as she left the stage

this is the worst thing i've ever come across and i didn't even have to pay money or get up from my bed to experience it

Reads like straight parody. Some of the details are just...who goes to these concerts??!!

Commenter: "Then Neil read Goodnight Moon and you covered "Hallelulah",

― everything, Saturday, 12 November 2016 17:58 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol I thought this was some weapons grade bitchiness but it was actually just a statement of fact??

haha yeah me too

The phrase "attention vampire" comes to mind

man this is the only thing that's made me feel good in like a week, her absolute blindness to her own self centered ness

Trump's blindness to his own self-centeredness used to make me laugh too. Just wait until Amanda Palmer runs for president

Lol this is like a game show: Take a few elements--Bernie shirt, Good Night Moon, Leonard Cohen, the concept of music--and make something so horrifying that we'll feel better about Trump's election

lol I thought this was some weapons grade bitchiness but it was actually just a statement of fact??

― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Monday, November 14, 2016 6:45 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^^
god bless this woman, seriously, I can't even hate anymore, I'm through

tag yourself i'm the third reading of GOODNIGHT MOON

http://i.imgur.com/isTQfFZ.gif

will you warn us before you post shit like that?

you incur the risk by clicking on the thread

i had to stop reading that show description because it was making me want to join the alt-right

lol, s.clover's post just reminded me of this:

You have to be able to imagine loving and feeling compassion for the worst of the worst. Last year, this philosophy got me into a bit of a tangle with the various editors of my memoir-manifesto, The Art of Asking, when I drafted a section explaining that, yes, you must feel compassion even for the worst of the worst. For Hitler. There. I did it. I played the Hitler Card. But does it still count if I’m using the card not to tear down my opponent, but rather to point out that neither my debate partner nor Hitler is truly my opponent? My editors shook their heads. Frankly, nobody will care, Amanda. Please, take it out.

They won. I took him out of the book.

http://www.newstatesman.com/2015/05/playing-hitler-card

I agree with bernard snowy though, I like AP, and being an attention vampire who says ridiculous things is part and parcel of being a pop star. Still, that was a good call from her editors.

took a few deep breaths this year after wondering if i spent too much mental effort hating on AP and her oeuvre and whether it was part of some deep-seated personal misogyny or bias

it turns out what really bugs me is that her entire shtick is that performance should be extremely performative. it's like this dude i knew who, if he had an idea he thought was profound, switched to "extremely profound man" voice to deliver it. it never mattered what the actual idea was after that because i'm just like, why the hell are you doing this voice, i'm going to think this idea is horrible no matter what it is

re: the question of whether one is exerting too much mental effort hating on Palmer - the only way I ever hear about something she's done/said is through choice, either because I've clicked on this thread, or intentionally followed a link to hate-read one of her facebook posts or something. I guess if she was inescapable I might dislike her more - does anyone here actually move in circles where they are exposed to Amanda Palmer against their will, though?

and this is why Trump won the election

lol

I have a few friends who I'm not too close to that are fans so I see or hear the occasional content

btw not sure if anyone's used this before, but I just thought of "supertext" -- when the themes of a work that are usually the subtext are instead flung at the audience with such velocity you forget the actual work

like Bread and Work?

not familiar, i'll investigate

the local vape store had an amanda palmer quote on its sandwich board the other day. thought of ilx.

after hearing about SNL's tribute this one actually seems 100% chill and proper venue for melodrama

If she'd pulled out a copy of Goodbye Mog and read from that after hearing about Cohen I'd like her

I just thank god I don't know anyone who likes her music. It's bad enough I know Gogol Bordello fans.

sorry

I wish she had read Go The Fuck To Sleep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcI2ntnTzIw

there it is

I'm not watching that btw

lol

it turns out what really bugs me is that her entire shtick is that performance should be extremely performative.

It's funny how the effect ends up being completely the opposite of Brechtian. It's all about inviting earnest identification and collapsing critical distance. I don't really dislike her. It's just hard to look away when someone combines extreme earnestness with bad taste.

while, in theory, i'm all for totally committed, flamboyant performers, there doesn't appear to be any substance beyond palmer's performance other than 'look at meeeee', which basically makes her the goth geri halliwell

I tried to shit-post on FB about this the other day but instantly felt bad because evidently a lot of acquaintances see her as some sort of idol who 'is honest, tells it like it is and not afraid to show her true feelings'. I'm almost certain that this audience correlates exactly with people who have a knee-jerk hatred of Kanye and Bieber.

Massive overlap with Terry Pratchett audience I bet.

it's good that ilx isn't the kind of place to run a list thread about "people who were honest, told it like it is and weren't afraid to show their true feelings"

because that would be terrible

It would require a level of cultural naïveté which is broadly incompatible with ILX membership

I'm a Terry Pratchett fan and really don't like AP.

I'm cracking up imagining the type of person that goes to Amanda Palmer show and yells at the stage that Leonard Cohen died

xxp I'm sorry for the lazy generalisation, esp since I've never read any Pratchett - the AP fans I know all like him (hence I was put off) so perhaps a taste differential there.

Well yeah, Pratchett is very much recommended reading for fans of Neil Gaiman.

now I'm imagining Amanda Palmer in the audience yelling at Amanda Palmer on stage

I'm cracking up imagining the type of person that goes to Amanda Palmer show and yells at the stage that Leonard Cohen died

Like, if you're the person who yells that, aren't you kind of revealing to Amanda Palmer that you were checking Twitter during her show?

makes me remember the weirdest moment. it's 2006, i'm with a friend in chicago at a show at smartbar, and we randomly run into a friend of my coworker who is pretty up on technology for the time

he has just glanced at his phone, some nice pre-iphone device

we say hi to each other and he gestures at the phone, and says "steve irwin just died"

"whoa, the crocodile hunter. crazy."

last night on stage, when someone in the audience told me amanda palmer had died. i am not ashamed to say i fell to my knees and wept.

The possibility of this exact scenario is why I never leave the house without my ukelele

xxxityp's I assumed someone just walked in to amanda's show and released a single dove & she instantly knew what that meant