Sunday 3 June 2012

Amanda Palmer Says Thank You

Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter had 24,883 backers and raised $1,192,793 in pre-orders for her new record, art book and tour. I pre-ordered, of course. And Amanda, as a polite, shy and retiring young lady, who was brought up properly to say 'thank you', has given us all a very sweet and genteel thank you.

Her latest update opens with...

we webcast thursday from around 8 pm until...2 am? later? i dunno, i lost track.
first, let's holy fuck together. 
HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, gotta stop that, it'll get old.

to review the people-who've-called list:
rolling stone called, the new york times called, time magazine called, the new yorker called, the wall street journal called, billboard called, and the economist called.

they want their media back.

i might give it to them to borrow, but first i want a picture of 24,883 people holding my naked body aloft on the cover of LIFE. 
then we'll talk.

LET'S DO IT.

She announced the title of the new album yesterday, 'Theater Is Evil' and, shortly afterwards, changed it to 'Theatre Is Evil' when Twitter erupted in a spelling discussion and a poll on the Shadowbox. She's not only genteel and ladylike, she listens to her public.

To coincide with the closing of the Kickstarter on Thursday she threw an open party in Brooklyn, New York and invited everyone. Yes, everyone. She announced the location a few hours before it started on Thursday evening and about 500 people turned up. There was music and dancing and fire-eaters and a belly dancer and names, names, names. And then Amanda got naked by having the balloons that her dress was made of popped. She posted photos (of course). 

Amanda told us:

we had sharpie'd EVERY backer name on single pages of used phone books, filling up DOZENS AND DOZENS of books with the 24,000+ names.
yes, since you asked....it took a lot of people a LOT of time.

we hired a giant fish-tank-like enclosure and towed it to a parking lot in brooklyn. 
we got DJs, played crazy dance music, and threw a BIZARRE impromptu countdown party in which the band was more or less locked in the tank all night.
about 500 people showed up and helped us with the spectacle.

we wore swimsuits of the old fashioned variety.

from inside the empty tank, we SHOWED THE NAMES TO THE PARTY, AND TO THE WEBCAST as we counted down to midnight from 8pm...AND FILLED UP THE TANK WITH  ALL 24,000+ NAMES

My name was in that fish-tank.


And that is why we love Amanda and back her with our hearts and money. She's living her dream and, by extension, our dream, my dream. She talks to us directly, not through a management team, and shares secrets and photos with us, typos and all. She sends us new songs to play. And when we meet, she hugs us. I have a nice collection of hugs from over the years. I am looking forward to more hugs.

The world is a far brighter and braver place for having Amanda Fucking Palmer in it.

 


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