brisbane ninja gig tomorrow afternoon!!!

yes! 
brisvegas ninja action is back.
 
tomorrow, thursday. 
1 pm. 
all ages. 
at a very very very bad-ass location very centrally located.

a request: ALL ATTENDEES PLEASE DRESS IN SOLID COLORS; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, white, black (and if necessary, gray or brown)
that means, please try and find the same colored pants & shirt…the same colored shirt + shoes + pants + headwear = A++++++++
 
here’s a hint where it’s going to be:
 

 
follow the twitter for exact spot….
then see you all at the tivoli for the dresden dolls’ show…
7 pm doors. please, get to the venue on time…the Jane Austen argument is on around 7:30, the bedroom philosopher hits quickly thereafter, and THIS JUST IN: we’re going to have a very special performance by BRIEFS (all male, all vaudeville, all trash)…don’t miss anything!!!
 
xxx
afp

the Wedding Blog

neil and i were married one year ago, to the day.

this is the story of our wedding, the “official one,” and what led up to it.

i know, i know…it’s a bit late.

i started compiling this blog in the weeks after our marriage and found - like many of my blogs - that the longer i left it unposted, the more cumbersome it became.
because my life is structured the way it was, blogging about my wedding seemed to “legitimate” it more than a piece of paper from the city hall in san francisco.
i found myself confronted, as people pestered me with constant “WHERE’S THE WEDDING BLOG” emails and twitters, with my puzzlement about why it was so hard to post.

i think it’s because:

a) i didn’t want to become my own one-woman self-published tabloid. posting wedding pictures right after we got married in someone’s living room felt like, i don’t know, cashing in on a moment that should remain unmined. this brings up huge issues that i find myself confronted with more and more as i settle deeper and deeper into my life as “amanda palmer: queen of the internet.” i don’t want to live to document my moments. i don’t want to see a sunset and reach for my iPhone. i don’t want to live my life and love my loves inside out. i fear, sometimes, that i do. i fear for all of us. and in these moments, i find non-action is the only antidote. or something like that.

b) i feel conflicted about marriage in general, and i don’t find it easy to write about. you’ll read about that below. but it’s taken me the past year to even begin the beginning of excavating my feelings about what marriage is, why we do it, and what it means. since i wrote the bulk of this blog, neil and i also threw a more family-oriented private wedding-y party up in scotland. going through that experience shed a lot of light on why we got married the way we did (under cover of night, barely telling anybody) and what the institution of marriage and the traditional traditions were built for. the world has changed, family structures have changed, the family farm and the crown jewels aren’t really the issue around here.

c) what felt magic can becomes either undone or overdone when you try to make a story out of it. especially when you’re a story-maker.

neil is. i am. we both are.

i watch the story unfold.

sometimes i dictate the story to myself, then sometimes to the world.
sometimes i take dictation. sometimes i get it wrong.

……………………..


here’s the story:

neil and i got engaged two years ago, on new year’s day…the first day of 2010.
i had played at symphony hall with the boston pops the night before, and then there was a raucous and historic new year’s celebration in the attic my house, the cloud club. i don’t think we’ve ever had that many dancing drunk people on the top floor at the same time, with music quite as bombastic, and quite that many people making out…. the floor groaning under the weight of the joy. the next morning, i was hung. OVER.

way hungover.

neil loves telling this story, and i always get embarrassed when he tells it. usually it’s hard to embarrass me. so i’ll tell it and maybe it’ll be less embarrassing forever.
 
according to neil - and i do remember this  - i told him i’d marry him in bed the night before.
but he said: you’re drunk. we’ll discuss it in the morning.

he had a good point.

in the morning, i told him i still meant it.
but we agreed that it was quite possible i was still drunk.

also a good point.

so we went out to eat.

but a little background: he’d been asking me to marry him for months; it was a running joke at that point.
he had the habit of turning to me a few times a day and saying, very non-nonchalantly: will you marry me?
and i’d come up with different creative versions of

No.

at one point, i think i started saying

Maybe.

….maybe.

but we both think i’d probably really decided on

Yes.

well before i was drunk on new year’s eve, while i was putting on my costume backstage at symphony hall in boston.
i was a bundle of pre-rachmaninoff nerves and twittering (the old school way. with my voice) to my friend becca, aka becca darling, aka the beecharmer blog-keeper, aka melissa mahony in the “oasis” video.

neil walked into the dressing room to grab something and i turned to becca and said:

“what do you think? do you think i should marry neil gaiman?”

becca, in classic deadpan becca style, nodded.

i said

“you’re probably right.”

and i think that’s when neil and i knew we were going to get married.

the new year’s concert itself was a hit, and a quick youtube search will show you the boston pops backing me on both rachmaninoff AND lady gaga tunes (a first, i believe, at symphony hall in one evening).
our wonderful friend jeremy geidt took this photo of me & neil kissing at midnight, as balloons descended all around us.



and the afterparty, as i said, was epic.

and there i was….hungover.

it was a cold, clear snow-on-the-ground new england winter day, and after peeling ourselves out of bed, we walked down the slushy street to have brunch with my father jack, his wife donna, and my half-brother alex. settling down at the lovely trident cafe on newbury street, i ordered a burrito and a giant smoothie which i promptly threw up in the bathroom.

on the walk home, i was that wonderfully unsteady, buzzy brand of post-hangover-puking, and i remember having to hang onto neil to keep from yakking again in the street.
and as romantic as it sounds….well, it actually was a bit romantic. i felt his caretaking love for me like a warm blanket around my shoulders. i have issues with feeling cared for. i’m always suspicious that there will be a creeping judgment slithering under the surface, a price to be exacted. but all i felt was this english guy walking next to me, with his arm around my shoulder, grinning a wild grin and turning to me occasionally saying “i love you so much.” i felt really, deeply loved in a way i never had. and that feeling had been growing there, having taken root a long while before that. i didn’t know whether to trust it or not.

and

i don’t believe in marriage, i thought to myself.

what am i doing?

i also remember thinking: i may never find a person, a lover, who loves me this much without casting judgement on who i am, what i do.

(on a side note: neil says that one of the moments he realized that *I* really loved *him* was the time he was sick with the flu in a texas hotel room. he puked in the bathroom, and when he came back to bed i still made out with him. that’s love, he said.)

we turned the corner into a little alley that leads from massachusetts avenue to my house. in a little clearing he got down on one knee, in the snow.

i said yes.

and he had no ring, so he drew a ring on my finger with a sharpie. and he kept refreshing it for the next few days. (why does this remind me of “And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn”?)

then we went back to my house, where, lo, a great family brunch party was being held, and it was told to the great mass of people assembled in that place that we were engaged, including my parents, who didn’t believe us. they thought we were joking. the party carried on, and i spent five minutes being amazed that people weren’t making more of a fuss about our announcement. it took us those five minutes to digest that the whole room had indeed thought we were joking. we made a second, awkward, announcement that we actually meant it. after the initial shock more off, people gave us their sincere and baffled congratulations. there were tears.

and then, the first thing i remember after that was people asking: so when’s the big day?

uh.

i hadn’t thought about that. and neil hadn’t either.
so we just told people

someday later.

then time started to pass. my brain started to chew on it.

right around that same time, my benevolent landlord/friend/neighbor/art-partner lee found a batch of old family photos in a plastic bag that i’d given him to scan.
one was of my mother (kathy, she must have been in her early to mid 20s)….and he emailed it to me.

he had given the email the subject line: “HMMM WHERE WILL I BE IN TWENTY YEARS”….

very lee.



this was taken in the 60s, when my mother kathy married my father jack.

what WAS she thinking? i don’t know.

several years later they got divorced, when i was about a year old. my sister was 4.

then dad remarried (he eloped that time, to elaine, my first stepmother), and mom remarried a man who’d just been divorced (my stepfather, john), and then dad got divorced again, and remarried donna, and my sister alyson got married and divorced, and i made a couple of records (one dresden dolls, one solo) with producers who were getting divorced, and my aunt and uncle got divorced, and come to think of it pretty much everybody i knew had parents that were divorced….and when i look back at this series of events i think it’s not so crazy that i made a vow when i was 23 or so:

i’d only get married to someone after living with them for at least ten years, at which point marriage would be, well, irrelevant.

but then i thought: fuck it.

i mean, i must have.

look at me. same bat time, same bat channel.
this one taken in the chabon’s bathroom, a year ago…photo by holly:



holy matrimony, batman.

one of the funny things about my relationship with neil was that we WEREN’T living together, and we weren’t going to for some time, by any count.
and i knew that this was actually what was making our relationship WORK…at least for the moment.

not surprisingly, most of my long-term and significant relationships pre-dated the dresden dolls (i.e. my touring career).

it’s almost impossible to put down enough roots for a real relationship while living in a tour bus or in a different city every night of your life. the few times i tried it i failed rather miserably. ani difranco and tori amos both married members of their touring crew (i think). it doesn’t surprise me. those are the people that you have available; the eligible bachelors of your village.

on the surface, neil understood me in a way i’d been longing for. he knew what it meant to be a workaholic, he knew what it meant to make artistic choices that nobody agreed with, he knew what life on the road was like, he’d done it himself. and under the surface he and i became like magnets to one another: we picked up each other’s weak spots and strong spots and somehow managed to function together like one solid force.

shortly before meeting neil, i’d gone through a heavy soul-searching period where i came to a place in which i could feel powerfully, certainly, guiltlessly single. i hadn’t been able to get there before, it took a lot of thought, and a lot of work. i examined culture and standards and wondered why it was that everyone was INSISTING on this coupling thing.

what the fuck?

i looked hard at the constant (and often media-driven) prescription that happiness is coupling-dependent, marriage-dependent, and child-bearing-dependent. some of the happiest people i’ve met are old and single. and i know they’re not shitting me.

get married? after my vow to myself?

sometimes i think i still don’t know. it definitely felt like a leap of faith into an abyss.

and i certainly remember thinking about the dozens of times that i’d cast judgment upon hearing that people were getting married after only being together for a year, or even two, or three.
i’d scoff and think: “HA, how long do you think THIS one’s going to last?” i actually famously had my biggest foot-in-mouth moment at a wedding reception table in 1998 when i attended the wedding of a college friend of mind (she was marrying a new zealander she’d met a year before, or something) and addressed that very question, word for word, to my friends, loudly and drunkenly at a round table at a wedding reception. i was looked at in complete horror, accompanying with knife-to-throat and finger-to-lips movements from each and every one of them.
(*poetically, they stayed together, and they’re one of the happier couple i’ve ever seen, with two beautiful daughters. your final answer, you rude betch? thirteen years.)
 
maybe it’s true: maybe you just don’t know.

all i can say is: getting married to neil felt like such an obvious thing to do, because i’d found the perfect man for an amanda palmer, and wouldn’t be looking for another partner anytime soon.

and maybe (less romantically), i also felt like i’d been around the block enough times to know that this man was what i wanted, and marriage tells the world.

i’ve watched a lot of relationships (and plenty of my own) fail due to poor chemistry and poor communication.
and most affairs burn hard and fast and then leave you with the smoldering debris of reality.

i’d been in fast-passionate relationships, and in real, i-know-this-is-love love a handful of times, but i’d never been fully comfortable for very long, in fact, almost every relationship couldn’t stay standing more than a year. and the general downfall was often the inkling that i’d be causing a lot of damage to the other party with my signature freedom-obsession. as in business, so in relationships: i despise being told what to do. i just hate it. i like making things up as i go along, i like kissing who i want to when i want to, and i have no desire to be possessed, owned, kept or put in my place as a girlfriend or a wife. as the marquis de merteuil says in “dangerous liaisons,” one of my favorite films of all time (i just re-watched it with casey the other night…i’d forgotten how amazing it is):

“One of the reasons that I never remarried, despite a quite bewildering range of offer, was the determination never again to be ordered around. I must therefore ask you to adopt a less marital tone of voice.”

it was a constant cause of marvel to me that neil looked at these determined and fiercely independent qualities and he not only withstood them, he not only tolerated them, he actually encouraged them. i’d fantasized for years that i’d someday find this person, who would hold me but let me go flying into the void, and simultaneously let me go flying but hold me, keep me tethered to the earth. and when i found him, true to my long-held assumption about what would come to pass should i find a human this miraculous, i actually clung.

therein lies the paradox and the proof that the “if you love somebody set them free” theory holds a hell of a lot of water. i cherish his tolerance of my freedom-obsession so dearly that i’m fearful of doing anything that would hurt him or disrespect him and the freedom he allows me. but it takes a fuckload of faith.

this was a new level of love, a new level of connection, a new level of commitment, and a new kind of understanding.
neil and i often compare our relationship to two planes flying in tandem.


pros and cons?

he was funny. pro.

and famous. pro…and con, sometimes.

he had money. funny, but this was actually a liability in my case, since i’m perfectly capable of supporting myself comfortably, and had never been with someone who had more money than i did, which made me really UNcomfortable, and sometimes still does.

but honestly, and i mean honestly: the selling point was that he actually understood me, deeply, and that he loved me as i was and had no desire to harness me. and he wanted to come on the adventure with me, not pin me down to his own plan, and not simply stand by the sidelines and cheer. i’d found an actual partner.

also he was really cute and great in bed.

i think i’ve gotten way off topic. where were we?……

ah yes, when’s the date?

this was a tricky business.

we discussed every possibility from eloping quietly to having a huge princess di & charles art-wedding, and considered all the pros and cons.
it was like a giant logic puzzle, and we couldn’t untangle it.

when i was a little girl visiting my british grandparent’s house, i used to love poring over the royal wedding album.
it was a huge coffee table book, and i remember looking at princess diana’s 50-foot long train and thinking: that is awesome.
i mean, look how long it is. so pretttttty.



every time i imagined us having a big wedding, i imagined it being as big as possible. i mean, why not? if you’re going to throw a party, throw it.
but the funny thing is, i had absolutely no desire to do any of the work.

i spend my life putting together giant events.

the minute i actually put my brain to it, and the fact that it would take an immense amount of creative energy….it stopped seeming like fun, and started seeming like WORK.
i also started considering the giant dramas that would unfold as people were not invited, not included, over-included, and the whole mess. the fantasy on the outside started to look like a potential inside disaster. we started talking about why we were really having a wedding, for whom, and what, and why, and we had this discussion probably 20 times. and every time we’d think we’d gotten to an answer, we’d realize there was some fatal flaw in the plan.

i also started talking to other people, to see how they’d done it, especially newly-married people around my age.
i can’t tell how how many times i heard:

“don’t do the big wedding. it won’t be for you, and it’ll be a royal pain in the ass.” (no pun intended)
 
nobody who’d run off to elope or get married in a teeny-tiny way had any regrets, but a lot of the people who’d had giant affairs had nightmare tales of epic proportions.

also, i think part of the attraction of having a giant wedding is that, as a bride, you get to be a total rock star for a day.
the attention. the cameras. the swarm and heat of attention and doting.
the focus is pretty much on you for a collection of hours, and you can spend months and months planning how you want to shine in that spotlight.
as amanda palmer, for better or worse, i already do this every day.

i knew that being in the spotlight for a day wasn’t particularly high on my list of priorities.
i get to do that almost anytime i want. and so does neil.

and don’t forget: i’d also made my living as a forlorn living-statue bride for 6 years, wearing a vintage wedding gown i bought for $19.99 at the garment district in cambridge, with hundreds of thousands of eyes on me as i shared looks, love and poetic moments with the general population.



at one point i decided my autobiography was going to be titled “never a bridesmaid always a bride.”
at some level, i feel like i’d been getting married to the world for ages.

i’d spent a lot of time, up there on my milk crate, thinking about how people look at brides and believe in them the way they believe in fairies.
putting on my bridal gown and veil every day from 1997-2002 and heading to work definitely wore the charm down.

but it also made me realize something, those hours on a crate: nowadays, at some level, everybody loves a bride.
and everybody loves a bride, i think, because a bride symbolizes hope.

in a world filled with NO NO NO NO NO and fear and terror and doubt, a bride fills up the space in the minds eye as a giant white tulle YES, and you don’t need to know the romantic backstory. somehow, through some miraculous chain of events, this woman has decided to throw herself into a life commitment. and it means something different now than it did 100, even 50, years ago. because nowadays she has a choice.

so, as a street performer, i got to stand up signifying YES for years on end. and it was especially moving when people in passing cars would throw shit at me, yelling “GET A FUCKING JOB.”

to which i would reply, in my mind of course, i never spoke a word: this IS MY FUCKING JOB YOU MOTHERFUCKER. YES YES YES YES YES YES.

anyway…the point was, i’d clocked a lot of bride hours.

and also, we got faux-married in new orleans, as my birthday present to neil.


(that’s jason webley on the right, pronouncing us man and statue. the photo is by kyle cassidy. for more of kyle’s photos from the new orleans faux-marriage, check out this album olga nunes put together for neil and i.)

we felt a little more married after that, and a big-ass wedding started to seem less necessary.

and we noticed that the idea of a gradual marriage is actually quite healthy.

for starters, after new orleans, i felt entitled to practice calling neil my husband.
we took an overnight amtrak train and told the midwestern retired couple with whom we were randomly seated for dinner that we were newlyweds on our honeymoon.
it wasn’t a COMPLETE lie.
 
we talked about getting married in scotland. we talked about getting married in london. we talked about getting married in vegas. we talked about getting married in new york. bali. africa. the moon.

finally, the day before thanksgiving, we had The Wedding talk again and we finally decided what to do.
we were going to have a giant family-only wedding CELEBRATION in the summer, for just our folks, and elope before that. somewhere.
on thanksgiving, i told my whole family our plan.

then we had to figure out where to elope. we talked about doing it in australia, and even went so far as to convince peter and clare (in whose house i’m currently sitting, editing this blog, and in whose house i composed most of it, one year ago) to donate their backyard, and for a while, that was the plan.

then something happened. at this point, almost a year had passed since our engagement. new year’s was upon us.

while on a retreat, neil had made friends with the writer armistead maupin.
since we were going to be together in san francisco for the dresden dolls’ new year’s show at the warfield, neil invited armistead to watch us, and also he wanted to introduce us over dinner. so we made plans to have dinner with armistead and his husband christopher, and when i told my dear friend lance horne this fact, he said he’d FLY himself and HIS boyfriend to san francisco if he could come to dinner with us because holy shit we’d all be having dinner with armistead maupin. i said: i think that can be arranged.

as neil and i were discussing this dinner arrangement, we both had the same thought at the same time: that we should ditch the australia idea and just get hitched in san francisco surrounded by a bunch of friends, because that would, obviously, be…fabulous.

the second inspiration was to ask jason webley to come and marry us, for real this time. he and neil started searching for online ordaining options.

the third inspiration was to call upon neil’s other writer friends, michael chabon and ayelet waldman, whose home we’d already been welcomed into the year before.
michael and ayelet have a kind of a dream-home, filled with four astoundingly awesome children, random instruments, rugs, books and all manner of homey-goodness. we asked if they would have us and armistead and lance and company over to dinner and by the way get married right before we eat and by the way would rosie possibly mind being our flower girl. they said yes, and rosie, age six, began aggressively plotting her outfit. things were officially underway.

having a wedding with little kids around, i found, is perfect. it’s like christmas: they bring the certain magic to it that makes it magic and without them the magic almost doesn’t exist. shedding your bitterness and believing in the magic of a wedding is almost like believing in santa claus. yes, virginia.

the meal grew to include a few more people, who mostly didn’t get told that they were going to be attending a wedding, but at the last minute we broke down and spilled the beans, just in case anyone was thinking of canceling. january second is still a hangover day, we figured we might want to clarify the importance of not skipping out in case anyone was feeling like a tired-ass pussy.

so when i packed for this trip a few days after christmas, i had to pack for two dresden dolls’ concerts, a wedding, an australian tour, and a still-unclear honeymoon-ish post-australian-tour vacation that neil and i were going to take at the end of this whole ride with miss maddy gaiman and one of her friends.

i thought: what do i wear? i decided, as i often do with photoshoots when i have no idea what mood i’ll be in, to bring Options. Symbolic Options.
i brought a sparkly grey dress made by the wonderful kambriel that i’d worn exactly a year before at the pre-party for the boston pops and the beautiful gold chinese robe that neil had made for me in shanghai for twelve dollars before we were dating and claims to this day was not a Courting Gesture. and i was on the phone with neil while he was packing for san francisco and he said:

you know, i have your wedding dress.

i’d forgotten: after our faux-wedding in new orleans i’d had to continue on the tour bus with the dolls, so i gave him the disheveled and slightly sour-smelling bag of bridal street-performance laundry and he and his assistant the fabulous lorraine had toted it back to minneapolis where they’d had the good sense to dry clean it.

i said: bring it, you never know. so he did.

the new year’s dolls’ concert was transcendent. it was so fucking good, it almost seems a shame that this blog is going to overshadow it with wedding-y-ness, but it was one of those grand, historic, everyone-in-love dresden dolls’ shows. my favorite part of the show was actually BEFORE the show started, when jason was playing “auld lang syne” in catering and a whole collection of dresden dolls’ family and good ol’ san francisco friends and lovers were laughing around tables, eating cake and singing.

and i thought: we’re all together. things just got better from there….zoe, jason, and pomplamoose opened up and rocked the house, and joined us on stage for cover songs and madness, and jason counted us down from 11 to herald in the new beginning. once again, there was much making out. neil came on stage and kissed me, people made out behind the stage curtains, and brian and i played on and on until we hit a state of absolute exhaustion and collapsed. and that was that.



and this is us, that night on stage, hugging jason webley….who, unbeknownst to all, would marry me & neil two nights later:


(side note: i was lucky enough on the day of the show itself to have renee hahn come and do acupuncture on my aching, travel-weary bod. one advantage of doing ANYTHING in san francisco is the number of friends i have who will physically take care of me. renee has been my acupuncturist for years, and i’ve promised her a blog at some point extolling the virtues and awesomeness of acupuncture, which i swear i’ll do. but this blog is getting ridiculously long already. so consider this a commercial break: if you’re in dire need of relief from what’s ailing you and you’re in the bay area, i have two things to say to you: renee hahn for acupuncture - reneehahn.com - and whitney moses for massage - whitneymoses.com - they’re the BEST.)

i don’t remember much of the rest of the night, though i wasn’t drunk enough to have a legitimate hangover the next day. i must have been maturing.
but i was completely exhausted.

neil and i took the 1st off to recuperate, i said goodbye to brian, and we vegetated through the afternoon. we decided it might make sense to have some sort of bachelor/bachelorette shenanigans, but with only 12 hours to plan, it didn’t seem like much would come of that. i decided to take the collected gals in my immediate surroundings out to dinner, and we went to a live jazz restaurant called Bix. we drank cocktails and talked…about sex, vaginal problems, relationships, and as many other things we think up that could not be comfortably done in the presence of men. it was a civilized and respectable hen-party. meanwhile, across the bay bridge, something much less civilized was going down in the world of the bachelor party….but i’ll let neil tell that story.

then, the next day - wedding day - we tangoed.
neil’s friend rain graves had offered us through email, ages ago, to give us a san franciscan tango lesson.
so we showed up for an hour or two, and we didn’t tell her we were about to head to our own wedding.

and during the lesson, when she talked about how the art of tango was to relinquish control to your dance-partner and trust that he would bravely carry you across the floor, i cried.


(photo by rain)

neil thinks he danced like a water yak.
i think he danced beautifully.

then we headed over to the chabon’s house to make up a wedding.

when i arrived, i lugged my suitcases up the stairs - along with the dry-cleaned street-bride dress - and used ayelet’s bedroom as a bridal suite.
rosie looked resplendent in fuchsia. abe (age 8) wore a white tuxedo.



the older chabon kids, zeke and sophie, stood by as rosie and abe wreaked let’s-make-a-wedding havoc…sophie coming in with various shoe options (i didn’t have any shoes, i ended up just wearing my stage boots) and a curling iron. i’d left my makeup bag at the hotel, so i borrowed some from ayelet and whitney. classic.

i showed rosie and abe the various dress options. the sparkly dress? the chinese robe? the stinky street-performer dress i’d worn for years of busking?

after very brief consideration, they pointed at the legitimate (albeit soiled and torn) street-performer wedding gown. so it was. i put it on. casey zipped me up.

i had a pair of borrowed blue underwear, leant by a close friend who told me about the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” superstition.
not being a reader of bridal mags, and having had almost nothing to do with bridal culture ever, i’d never heard it. but it sounded like a challenging game.
we figured her blue underwear counted as three categories: old, borrowed, and blue. i needed something new.

so i arranged surprise brand-new wedding gloves, a whole lot of them, made in secret by the designer who created my australian tour costume, david reynoso, and he fed-exed them to the hotel the day before. i gave a pair to each lady in the house. i was one pair short, so two ladies had to go michael jackson style. still, hot.

around the time i was starting to get dressed, we realized we hadn’t made an actual plan, like, about how to actually run a ceremony and all that.

where in the house, and how to do it?

so i went downstairs to talk to neil and kate and jason, our recently ordained online pastor, but abe threw a small fit informing me that i couldn’t be seen by the groom, so neil had to attend he wedding planning meeting - in michael chabon’s office  - with his eyes closed.

we decided to make abe the ringbearer, and neil gave him my great-grandmother’s ring which i’ve been wearing on and off for the past year as an engagement ring (which still needs its own blog, because it has such a good story of it’s own). abe put the ring in his little tuxedo pocket. we gave rosie a basket of flowers.

we told jason we would each write and read some sort of vow, and we planned the wedding for twenty minutes later. then, football-style, we BROKE, and ran off to our various corners to get ready….jason went off to try to find a printer. neil and i went off to write some vows.

with twenty minutes to improvise a wedding look, the girls went to work on my hair and we decided to use the street-bride veil and grabbed some flowers from downstairs to tuck into it. it looked lovely, actually. holly took pictures and occasionally i would turn to her, or casey, or kate, and say:

holy shit, i’m getting married.

and they would smile and nod.

me & holly gaiman, right before we undertook:



….casey zips me up:



….sophie digs the gloves:



whitney. casey. rosie:



whitney made me a bridal bouquet.

daniel made me a drink downstairs and sent it up with michael chabon.
michael handed it to me and when i asked what it was he said: daniel calls it the “Nervous Bride.”

i wasn’t really nervous until he said that.



once i was all dressed, everybody left and i sat down on the chabon toilet seat to write my vows.
i had about ten minutes to do it. then i started fretting and re-drafting and the vows started getting really long-winded. what, me?

i told kate to tell everyone to hang on and drink, but then people down there started getting antsy, so i wrapped it up, thinking it was about the best i could do and dammit why did i have to cram last-minute on my wedding vows. i think this might be my favorite picture:



it seems to sum up my life in a way i cannot explain, especially the boots.


nothing about this wedding was actually planned. it’s funny when i look back on it.

i wouldn’t have chosen it any other way.

rosie. looking wise beyond her years:


….rosie and abe came up to fetch me, i put my veil over my face, and we all walked down the stairs together.
rosie went first with her basket of rose petals, and abe carried the ring….



…and we piled into the living room where everybody stood waiting. daniel handler (aka lemony snicket, who came with his beautiful wife) borrowed jason’s accordion, and played the wedding march.

jason himself was the best marrying reverend the world has ever seen. he talked to us about saying Yes.

there was crying. he read a poem by e.e. cummings, and we made our vows, and neil put the ring back on my finger, and there was lots more crying. that whole part is a little bit of a blur.



and we ate. neil’s son mike and his girlfriend courtney brought us the best wedding pie decorations ever seen:



there was a bounty of mexican food. this time, after eating it, i didn’t puke. magical!

and we shared stories with each there, and neil and i looked at each other a lot, drunk with affection, and we ate like pigs.
and when it was over, there was music (daniel handler, who’s the accordion player from the magnetic fields, was magically on hand to play us “the book of love”) and we tried to play “puff the magic dragon” and failed. daniel managed to pull out “like a virgin” (perfect!) and we got the whole room dancing at a certain point. between me, jason, and daniel we also managed a not half-bad version of “white wedding.”

we were tired.

then ayelet took abe and rosie up to bed, and we stayed up and played pianos and accordions and guitars, and we all sang along to “hallelujah” and sophie saved us by remembering the lyrics better than we could. me and jason played “flying robert” by request, but i had to write the lyrics down on a piece of paper:


oh, yes.

the bouquet toss:


winner? holly gaiman.


hugging  jason webley, part II:



me, neil, and jason:


and here’s an amazing picture of the whole mess of us. i wish i could do one of those who’s-who puzzles and namecheck everybody, but you can probably figure it out:

(this photo by ayelet…most of the other wedding photos, by the way, are a mishmash of superkate, holly, mike, ayelet and me. i took terrible notes.
it would be a good time, at this moment, to thank them all for doing that. and to thank the chabon/waldmans for hosting us. and to thank whitney
and casey and superkate and holly for being my wonderful girlfriends and holding my hand all day. superkate was especially wonderful, and i owe her huge thanks for being a beautiful human being and incredible assistant in all sorts of surreal moments throughout my life.)

….and after we finished our foods and musics, and we were too tired to keep the magic alive, we said goodnight.

the handsome mr. mike gaiman, tired little rosie, and tired big casey long:



me & abe:


….we were on our way out the door when ayelet grabbed me by the wedding gown. (i’d left it on but taken the makeup off, because i figured if we were going all out then neil should probably carry me across the threshold of the hotel room in the dress. it’d be fun, right? it kind of was).

she told me rosie had wanted me to come up and say goodnight to her, to wake her up and say goodbye, even if she’d already passed out. which she had.

so i went up to her room and tiptoed my way through the dark to her little bed. she was fast asleep, looking like a tuckered-out angel. my life fairly flashed before my eyes in that moment. like the opposite of dying; i saw everything i knew fall away and vanish as i found myself in that bed, with my own six-year old head resting on that pillow, knowing nothing, worrying the worries and wondering the wonders and having the dreams that 6-year olds have, before things stopped making sense, before i’d ever had my heart broken and sewn back together with shaky hands, before i’d ever broken any hearts myself with careless and stupid flicks of the wrist, before i had a head full of ideas and theories about love and relationships.

before i’d ever even considered believing or not believing in anything.

and she opened her eyes and looked up at me and grinned her little 6-year old sleepy grin, and i leaned over to kiss her goodnight.


yes, virginia.



there is a santa claus.





i love him, and the story keeps telling itself.




LOVE,
afp.

The Most Important Thing I Learned In 2011, by Amanda Fucking Palmer

i thought i’d write you a little essay on the most important thing i learned this year.
(more photos of recent melbourne goings-on under the essay.)
i was thinking of putting up a end-of-the-year best-of list of things i’ve seen and read. and maybe i will….after new years. i always think i’m going to do that and never do. this fact may become relevant in my essay.
 
ahem.
 
The Most Important Thing I Learned In 2011, by Amanda Fucking Palmer
 
the most important thing i’ve learned in 2011 came in the form of an experience i had at an airport. i think.
unless i’m forgetting and it occurred somewhere else, but the fact is that if it didn’t occur in a starbucks in amsterdam, it may have occurred in a peet’s coffee and tea in harvard square, or at a coffee bean & tea leaf in los angeles, or at a caribou coffee in the midwest. but i think it was at an airport. 
but anyway….my eureka moment happened somewhere that was hot enough to purchase an iced coffee.
 
the iced coffee came with a straw.
 
the straw, as it often is, was wrapped in white paper. like so:

 
 
and as i have done for my last 30 some-odd straw-using years, i banged the straw in it’s wrapper against whatever coffee-shop surface was available.
 
and like so many times before, the straw developed a fatal crack. 
 
a slit through which my iced coffee would escape. 
 
a slender crack; a vile, bleeding little crevasse which would make the experience of drinking my iced coffee, well…compromised.
not immediately, of course. but at the moment where i’d drunk enough, and the vile crevasse of the straw took in air when went to suck down my caffeinated potion….mayhem.
irritation. and of course….do we destroy the environment, and therefore our peace of mind, by chucking the fucking straw and taking a new one? do we just suffer….?
 
this wasn’t the point.
 
the point was….i realized, in a eureka-like moment, that i’d never considered, for a fleeting moment, the idea of changing my straw-wrapper-opening habit.
 
it just never occurred to me as an option. i’d never really considered becoming the Sort Of Person who would carefully unwrap the straw with two hands instead of banging it violently against a hard surface, forcing it open like the PETALS OF A UNRIPE FLOWER. 
but it wasn’t my fault…was it?
i’d never made the conscious choice to be a Straw Destroyer. 
i just…..was one. like being white. or female. or raised in the suburbs of boston by middle-upper class parents. 
 
STRAW DESTROYER. 
 
i felt a huge combination of emotions at this point.
 
shame.
 
worry.
 
shame.
 
worry.
 
a lifetime of lost moments. 
 
all of those frustrated brain synapses colliding every time i would feel broken-straw-frustration throughout childhood, teen-hood, and most of my adulthood.
 
(commercial break; HERE is a site to read some other first world problems sourced from twitter, including my personal favorites:
“My cousin made fun of me because I thought the Arab Spring was a band.”
“I can’t fit all of the gift cards I received at Christmas into my wallet.”
and
“Nobody believes me when I describe my cocaine habit as ‘retro’.”)

 
those little moments were fleeting, weren’t they?
my discomfort, my frustration…small. eensy-weensy.
but all those moments never added up to anything. 
it never occurred to me that there was an escape from my picayune problem.
 
we’re all crazy. 
 
we do, as humans, pretty much all fit that definition of insanity where we do things over and over and over again expecting different results.

i suppose we’re always on a learning curve. 
from the first moment we decide never to touch the hot stove again (it hurt) to deciding never to slam on the brakes on our bike thus causing a gaugeable/causal physics phenomenon of flipping over the handlebars (it hurt) to deciding never to fall in love again (it hurt). 
 
sometimes it just doesn’t seem like any fun to learn. or change something.
but i don’t think the success is in the change. it’s in the noticing.
 
the shame came from realizing i’d never considered an alternative.
 
the worry came from knowing that i didn’t want to consider an alternative, because i like being sloppy. and i don’t want to be a careful adult.
 
the revelation came when i realized that the moment at hand was significant because my brain, you see, is working the right way. i’m noticing. i’m detached enough, in the good way, to see my own ridiculousness. the yoga and the meditating have a lot to do with this.
 
so whether i choose to remain a Straw Destroyer or not, i’ll be making a conscious decision one way or another.
 
or at least more conscious than….the year before.
 
and that was the most important thing i learned in 2011….
 

DESTROYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

……………………….
 
would love to read in comments about any of your own surreal little A-HA moments like this. 
they’re interesting and sometimes, you don’t even know they happened until you stop and think back. i’ve had several.
 
……………………….
 
the newses…..
 
the dresden dolls australian/new zealand tour is ALMOST sold out in melbourne and sydney, and there are still ample tickets in adelaide, perth, and brisbane…and new zealand has a way to go. HELP US promote those shows if you’re not already. you can go check out the street team, but honestly the best, simple thing you can do right now is email people, facebook it (RSVP to shows and “share” on your walls), tweet it, and generally let people know it’s happening. the promotion is better in some cities than in others. if you’re not following me on twitter and you live down here, for fuck’s sake, FOLLOW ME.

you’ll potentially miss out on secret ninja gigs if you don’t. or at least make a friend who follows me on twitter and DEMAND they text you if something local goes down.
 
on thursday, neil and i did a ninja gig at city library melbourne…..
photos via foreverviolet (on flickr)…

we didn’t announce it on our blogs, we sent the word by twitter (and a bit on facebook) only….about 4 hours before the gig. several hundred people showed up….everybody fit in, i think, and it was perfect. it came about because one of the pink-haired librarians, aimee, dropped us a line saying they’d love to SHOW us the library. i of course, one-upped her, and asked if we could PLAY in the library. she one-upped me, and said they HAD A PIANO IN THE LIBRARY, and it was GAME. ON.

i’ve never met such a cool-ass group of librarians….they fed us wine and cupcakes and gave us books and music from local melbournians. neil read stories, and i took requests for uke and piano.
and we hugged many people. and each other.

 

note the amazing dresden dolls/heartplane tattoo on this dude’s chest:

 

in preparation for the dolls tour and the new years show, i’ve been trying to brush up on some material, and i’ve been back and forth between peter & clare’s piano in surrey hills and meow meow’s piano in fitzroy. i love her dearly…we’ve been friending out in the late night hours.

meow’s piano:
 

 
 
and here’s a picture of me, mikelangelo and meow at the gem bar the other night:


(photo taken by the lovely mandy hall, who helps mikel with all variety of business matters…)
love.
 
 
and now, today…..new year’s eve in melbourne with all our homies….steven mitchell wright, lyndon chester, tom and jen from the jane austen argument, the bedroom philosopher, marieke, meow, mikelangelo, neil who’s about to leave for the states (i won’t see him for three months), and even miss holly gaiman showed up for the festivities….all together for the turn of the year, champagne’ing in melbourne.
 
some local amazing fans are making me masks and outfits for the night’s mayhem….holly made a hat….i couldn’t be happier. pictures will be posted.
 
XXX
AFP

retro oztacular zpectcular!! bad seeds spreading, looking for melbourne digs & brooklyn renter….

HOLA COMRADES!!!!!
 
first, two painfully important thangs, slightly boring for the non-locals….so skip these if you’re not from melbourne or new york.
though they’re in hilarious contrast if you wish to read on for sheer amusement.
 
 
1. MELBOURNE

in the “HOUSE ME AND MY PALS” department…..
 
i have some nefarious plans that haven’t come to light, but they will soon.
what i CAN tell you is that i’m going to need ALL SORTS OF ACCOMMODATIONS in the month of february and march.
in february, i’m looking for A PLACE TO LIVE and i’d love it to be a cozy little old 2-3 room apartment in fitzroy/collingwood/richmond or honestly ANYWHERE near there where i can hang my hat for a good long while and feel infused with life and not live in a lifeless godforsaken rental room with no class or vibe. 
 
it’s long enough that i don’t want to stay in anybody’s house or apartment (not that i don’t love you)….but if you happen to be leaving town or have a spare 3 rooms in your mansion, I’LL TAKE THEM.
 
i’m also looking for digs for several co-conspirators of mine for the end of feb and most of march…so if you DO REAL ESTATE, KNOW ANYONE WHO DOES, or KNOW ANYONE WHO IS GOING OUT OF TOWN AND LEAVING THEIR HOUSE IN THE MELBOUNRE AREA EMPTY - email us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! us@amandapalmer.net.
thank you thank you. always better to go through you guys than the anonymous internetz.
 
 
2. NEW YORK (BROOKLYN)

(and now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT)….
 
neil and i rented an amazing apartment in park slop, brooklyn, about six months ago that we’ve barely used and the time has come to rent it on / sublet it.
it’s AN INCREDIBLE penthouse-y space (brand new, hardwood floors, 2 beds, 2 baths, 11th floor, two balconies, state of the art everything, doorman, blowjobs) in park slope a few blocks from the massive greenwood cemetery. i’ll admit it: it’s schmancy (thus our giving-up-ness of it…if it was cheap, we’d just use it for keyboard and book storage)….but the TIME HAS COME and we need to rent it onward. it has the distinction of having been slept (and spelt) in by me, neil, superkate, michael mcquilken, and all our various lovers (ok. well. not that many. but ENOUGH TO MAKE IT AMAZING). if that doesn’t sell you, maybe the cabinet under-lighting and the view of the statue of liberty will. if you’re interested, email kate at us@amandapalmer.net and she’ll hook you up with more info, pronto. i’m hoping to get it rented / sublet’d from january through may (or rented away altogether). if you know anyone looking, please pass the info on!!!!

 
……………………………….
 
 
 
AND FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD
 
 
 
 
…..as promised on the tweety-thing, as craig ferguson would say……….
 
 
some wonderful photos from the OZ VAULT.
 
today neil and i went on a trip down the great ocean road. it was BREATHTAKING….and our hair did fly accordingly:
 

 
i am in awe of the beauty of this country.
 
america is beautiful, and i’ve driven through it’s vast canyons, valleys, and beaches….
but there’s something about australia. 
 
maybe it’s just because i’ve decided to love it. maybe i could say the same thing about neil.
but i don’t care.  right now, i have them both, and i’m the happiest girl in the universe.
 
 
……………………………………………………………………………..
 
TIMEYWIMEY
retro oz photos……
 
….this whole collection of photos is lifted from a blog that i had sitting in my drafts folder from about….oh….almost exactly two years ago.
this was the tour in early 2010 (i think most of these are february) … i was touring totally on my own, and hooking up with various partners in crime with mikelangelo, hera, and lyndon chester….all of whom are about to figure in the OZ and new zealand hijinks of the coming month, so i figure these photos can at least be justified as a a commercial for their bad-ass-ness.
 
 
but mostly i just want to take a walk down mammary lane and drag you with me.
 
(NOTE: most of these photos have photo credits but some have been lost in the laundry. if you KNOW who took one of these & it’s not credited, EMAIL the photo&credit to photo@amandapalmer.net and w’ell fix it right up.)
 
me playing with the string quartet - all assembled by the amazing lyndon chester, at sydney opera house…

(pulled from flickr.com)
 
 
this one is from the melbourne show at the forum. the hot dude smiling is paul kelly - one of the most incredible (and in america and europe, underrated) songwriters and performers in australia.
 
 
 
i was turned onto his music by a lover in australia in 2000 - my first trip, before i was in the dresden dolls, and just street performing - and it stuck with me hard.
 
in these photos we’re covering his song “winter coat,” which was one of the songs on his 2-disc live collection that i brought back to the states in 2000, and which kept him endeared to me even when nobody in america knew who the fuck he was. he’s a national treasure over here - akin to bob dylan or leonard cohen, and rightly so. 
 
his songs are BRUTALLY honest, and beautiful, they speak from the heart without being sentimental, ever, and draw from the folk tradition without being stodgy….basically, all of the things that made dylan and cohen great and also inexplicable.
 

(pulled from flickr.com)
 
here’s the CLIP of us playing “winter coat”:

 
here’s me at the same gig of mine at the forum…with another great of australian music, mick harvey.
 
you’d probably know him from his work with nick cave and the bad seeds, but he’s also an amazing solo musician.
he’s based here in melbourne…
 

 
in the background, that’s mikelangelo on guitar, playing along with me and mick AND paul kelly covering “henry lee” by nick cave.
 
here’s the clip:

 
honestly? to be on stage with all those people at the same time made me want to die.
 
the only thing that might beat it is if i manage to get PJ Harvey, TuneYards, and the Dresden Dolls all on stage this january when we all play the same festival in tasmania.
IT MIGHT HAPPEN.
 
say wiccan prayers (or whatever the fuck you do)…
 
here’s a photo from my ninja gig at the sydney opera house that i forgot to post 
someone brought an inflatable zebra:

(rachel young, via flickr.com)
 

here’s a brilliant one from the Brisbane ninja gig….

 
same ninja gig, in the institute of modern art….trying (i shit you not) to sing a ramones song, LEARNED ON THE SPOT, via iphone……(that’s mikelangelo with the ‘stache and accordion):

(all from flickrsquared’s stream)
 
and here’s us, BLITZKRIEG BOPPING:


 
 
…SAME DAY, SAME NINJA GIG - at a different location….this time a local corset store, Voodoo Lulu:
 
 
the parade (which some of you will remember from the “down under” CD art)….

(by bec)
 

and this one kills me. it’s from byron bay (bangalow, actually)…
i got a request for “boston” from a girl in the audience…kobi…and i shouted out that i didn’t really have the lyrics and chords on hand (ie: in my brain).
 
she produced the virginia companion (aka the sheet music book from “yes” and “no virginia…” - which is almost sold out HERE on post-war trade) and insisted i do it. so i insisted she come up and sing. and she did. and she KILLED it.
 

 
 
here’s mikelangelo later at the same gig, IN HIS UNDIES:

(by bec)
 
 
me playing ukulele OUTSIDE, at that same fatal gig:

 

and here’s a good one (the best action shot):
(from a whole set by guitarhero posted to the shadowbox)

 
this is me and Hera Hjartardottir (say it nineteen times fast) opening up for me in new zealand that same year (early 2009).
 
this is shameful, but fact…i saw a copy of twilight (yes, THIS “twilight”) lurking in the backseat of someone’s car, and i picked it up…and i started reading it…
 
and i did not stop.
 
i did not stop until i was done, 5 nights later, with a soul full of pain and guilt.
 
i had READ “twilight.”
this was far past the point of no return. this was no cult phenomenon. 
 
i had seen “twilight” advertised in EVERY AIRPORT I HAD TRAVELED THROUGH in the past six months.
 
this was SHAMEFUL.
but i’d finished it, and there was nothing to be done.
 
so i asked hera, who was icelandic and schooled (in my imagination, at least) in the black arts, to help me purge the experience from my soul.
 
we chanted an ancient icelandic prayer, threw the book out into the audience, and hoped that my sins would be vanquished…..
 
 
 
that’s all for now, lovers.
 
i’ve enjoyed this waltz down mammary lane.
 
i wanted to have a reason to post this picture from the bangalow gig….but there’s no reason, other than that i’m really, really happy in it, and wearing a slip that someone had just made me with the text 
 
“ALL THAT TIME I SAVE ON BODY HAIR REMOVAL I DEVOTE TO THE REVOLUTION” - JANET FRASER
 
fuck yeah. given what’s happening with the pubic hair revolution in fashion……
 
 
 
 
 
XXXXXxxxxxxxx
AFP
 
p.s. what’s THIS?

p.p.s. if you donated to the “evening with” kickstarter, there’s a very awesome update for backers only…read it right HERE if you haven’t, yet…

christmas with spiders, hungover + new years costume clarification.

hola comrades….!!!
 
greetings from down underoos

 
 
so, one of the things that i’ve been doing down here is trying to clear the debris out of my life before i break ground on the Giant Next Project (which i’m aching to give you news about, but need ot be patient and wait….but i assure you, giant things are afoot, and they involve huge amounts of new art and music).
 
meanwhile? immense, deep, profound housecleaning and plannage for the next steps of my life. i love and hate this part.
 
neil is being (relatively) patient with me while i engage in the constant ongoing battle of wanting to catch up on (and plan) my life, while simultaneously trying to feel and be married. 
it’s no joke when other married people jab us and quip “your marriage must be very fucking easy, seeing as you never see each other.” they jest, but it’s true - when we’re apart, there’s little room for miscommunication, and typical married-life-bickering that tends to overtake you the minute you need to figure out something simple together - like when to leave the house to go to the store.
 
you should see the arguments that break out over such a simple decision.
 
we’re SO MARRIED.
 
i do have one usual reaction to these mundane arguments…


 
…but have been trying of course to stay the course and even enjoy the process. 
mostly we’re both so used to being alone and improvising our own schedules, that it’s like two swarms of bees colliding in the night….unstoppable improvisational forces tangling with each other. it’s the work of love. there’s nowhere else i’d rather do it, and there’s nobody else i’ve so enjoyed doing it with….neil and i learn each other bit by bit, day by day….for better and for worse.
 
christmas in australia is exactly as wonderful as i assumed it would be. it’s warm but not hot in melbourne and a few days ago we trimmed the tree. 
 
i wore a bra BECAUSE I COULD….
 

 
…while neil hung the traditional “christmas tardis”….which he’d been given as a gift at the tom stoppard/neil gaiman show (which was, by the way, incredible. tom stoppard blew my mind with his honesty and clarity. love. and after seeing me hop of on the bar of the venue and play “ukulele anthem,” he asked me for an amanda palmer mixtape. what more could i ask? the only problem is: what fucking songs do i give tom stoppard? help.)
 
and love abounds.
 

 
 

 
i love it here in melbourne.
 
our hosts - the magnificent peter and clare - are as usual wonderful, joyous, and fattening company. 
as i’m not used to eating before 8pm, clare’s three-sqaure-meal-a-day plan means that i eat exactly three times the food i am accustomed to, and since clare is a CHEF (or whatever you’d call it. she used to edit cookbooks for a living…and she cooks foods with earnest passion) it’s not like you can thumb your nose at any of the food that arrives. you eat. her idea of “whipping up lunch” is to present something that looks like it’s awaiting a zagat rating. 

peter and i have our morning sit-on-the-porch coffee and cigar, everyone discusses relationships and life, and wine is poured in excess. the dogs bark, and the cats meow,and every morning i drag neil gaiman out for a jog. 
 
he wears black.  
 
two days ago, after getting over the morning jetlag (and missing, sadly, as i knew i would, the amazing melbourne fan-flash-gig organized by karina in federation square)…but the photos looked AMAZING!!!
i mean, c’mon:


(more HERE on flickr)


…i went for a walk down brunswisk street yesterday with meow and neil, and we hit the nova to see lars von trier’s “melancholia.” 
 
it’s probably been out for a while in the states, but fuck - what a gem. i was extra happy to be alive for a full 20 minutes after seeing that shit. and i running-commented on this to neil (“look, it’s raining and we’re alive! look, we’re on an escalator, and we’re alive! look, there are no cabs, and it’s raining, and we’re alive!”)…what an excellent film. 
my kind of sci-fi… relatively mundane, and all about people.
 
and one wonderful (and i daresay, kind of superfluous, but lars von trier admitted it was the “shampoo commercial moment” of the film) shot of a fully naked kirtsen dunst:

 
i <3 naked.
 
just saying.
 
…and LAST night we saw the “TERMINATIVITY” (meow’s better half - gatesy from the band tripod - was playing joseph)….all done up in class style at the bella union hall in melbourne.
yes, just what it sounds like. no nudity: but….
still
…a “terminator”-themed christmas musical.
 
i’d recommend you GO, but the shit’s SOLD OUT.
next year…go.
 
where else can you see three wise men doing a beastie-boys style rap, and a shepard singing a song to joseph (who’s concerned about the robot-from-the-future who is stalking and trying to kill his mysteriously pregnant wife) that contains the lyrics,  to the tune of a relatively jaunty major-key-60s-sinatra-dance-along: “chill the fuck out / shut the fuck up / and calm the fuck down”?
 

 
…then we hopped over to the nothcote social club to see justin haezelwood, aka the bedroom philospher, do his christmas show, including his girlfriend sabrina as “the ethnic elf.”
good times, including a beat-ear jazz santa who rhymed santa with “decanter.” Love. the australians clearly have their own take on christmas, and the nog is ON.
 
all you in oz are going to see him open up for the dresden dolls down-under-reunion-tour (tickets and info HERE) and i’m so, so glad - the man’s a genius.
 
if you haven’t seen him do “so postmodern” yet, you haven’t lived. it’s long, but just put it on while you’re vacuuming your radiator, naked but unseen.
that would be…suitably postmodern.

 
of course, the reason i got turned onto him in the first place was his award-winning hipster send-up, “so hungover.”
 
it’s fucking hilarious, and i’ve watched it at least 8 times by now, happily picking up different nuances with each viewing.
it’s PARTICULARLY hilarious if you’re from australia, and more-so if you’re melbourese….but it translates universally.
 
just pretend the subjects involved are from…..williamsburg.

 
oh, and justin’s also going to be at THE NEW YEAR’S SHINDIG at revolt w/ neil & me & a bazillion special guests (there are still some tickets left HERE). 
everyone in town seems to be saying it’s an INCREDIBLE space….i’m getting more and more excited.

while we’re on the topic, and since people have been asking WHAT TO WEAR TO NEW YEARS….i maintain, it’s a rather OPEN theme.

steven and i picked “trash masquerade” to be interpreted at will. when in doubt, vintage anything, up-cycled clothes made of trash will be applauded….

as will anything classy but degraded….

….and since i barely have time to get my shit together, i have NO IDEA what i’ll be wearing, so if any of you are incredibly ambious costumers, and want to make a costume for me, too…let me know so i don’t wind up embarrassed. otherwise, i’ll be coming in a very spank-ling evening gown covered in papertowels and saran wrap. (and if you do: just e-mail art@amandapalmer.net. that’ll get to me).

please, just nobody turn up dressed in police caution tape. we’ll have to unravel you.

……………………………………………
 
tomorrow, if i get my shit together…..some stroll photos down mammary lane. 
i’ve got some serious shit kicking around my drafts folder from oz, years past…..i’m going to destroy you with it.
 
anything else?
here’s a spider living in our shower:

 
 
according to peter and clare - the spider is a FRIEND.
 
 
hi, friend.
 
 
xxx
AFP

holiday santa candle BANGS holiday turkey candle (part two of the new dolls doc)

i’m landed in melbourne, and so fucking happy to be here. the weather is summery and glorious.
tom dickins charioted us from teh airport, the nice lady from the telstra cell phone company saw neil’s tweets and offered to get us some free SIM cards,
i opened up the paper to see that nick cave and warren ellis are down the street from us at a recording studio as we speak, we’re having dinner with tom stoppard, and i spent the morning drinking coffee, experimenting with liking vegemite, and throwing balls to toby the jock dog.
 
now tell me that life here is not amazing.
 
to celebrate the wonderful weather, neil and i have been sitting on a couch, engulfed in headphones, listening to the recordings of our tour, choosing tracks for the kickstarter record….listening back is wonderful and painful and hilarious and is giving our marriage something fun to argue about when we run out of other things to argue about (our two recent favorites are FOOD and POLITENESS).

i’m so happy to see him, i missed his british ass something fierce. also, having him here in australia with me instead of landing here on my own makes our marriage feel somehow realer. like we’re two people who actually do things together.
 
………

the second part of the dolls documentary is up, i just watched it.
 
this one gets very down and dirty….brian and i discuss our sex life with each other (TMI FTW!!!) and i have to say, the closing scene with us holding hands after we climb into our bunks almost made me cry.
we still do that.
 
and the part where the holiday santa candle BANGS the holiday turkey candle….classic. 
note how the turkey then takes on the more “difficult” sex questions as the interviewer.
 
displacement works.
 
i love it.
 
enjoy:

(here’s episode 2 on youtube if you wanna watch/like/comment there) 

…episode 3 goes up on FRIDAY (tomorrow, depending where in the world you are)…if you wanna know when it goes up, subscribe to the youtube and vimeo channels…

xxx
 
AFP

 

queens of the stone poop VS coldpoop: a new dolls documentary (….amanda reflects on aging)

hola comrades!!!!!!!!
 
i’ve left you hanging once again. too much life. always a good sign. HI.
i’m in a cafe in hermosa beach LA, about to board a plane with mr. neil for a good long stretch of couple-time in melbourne…
…we’re doing christmas together this year, with our wonderful friends the nicholls/coney clan. 
 
as usual, businessy-shit first:
 
the dresden dolls shows in sydney and melbourne are almost SOLD OUT….
you can find all of the tour dates we have coming up in oz and new zealand HERE on my site. and if you have tickets, but want to help spread the gospel o’ punk cabaret, the wonderful karina cetin is heading up the reconnaissance (our street team) this time around, and doing a kickass job with promo and organization.
you can find the main hub of promo materials (posters, handbills, facebook profile pics, etc) right HERE (download, print, SHARE): http://bit.ly/DDstreetNFO
and go HERE if you have ideas to promote/questions for karina/want links to organized promo romps………such as FLASH MOBS!! ahm…awesome.
“why street team? i bought a ticket, why do you want me to do more?” some may ask…first, we love you. thank you for buying a ticket. but when people help promote - which in turn helps make sure all the shows sell out and we can wave those fancy figures at people who help map out where-in-the-world-amanda-palmer-should-go-next and come back soon - we try and do some cool exclusive stuff, in return. soundcheck passes, special meet & greets, that kind of thing.
 
on a similar note, me & neil’s new years in melbourne is ALMOST sold out and i’ve never been more excited for a party in all my fucking life. we basically rented a huge space, hired all our friends to throw the ultimate party, and will hopefully at least BREAK EVEN. but the bill is just SICK, SICK, SICK….meow meow (!!) has just been announced as the special guest and we’ve also got the bedroom philosopher, the jane austen argument, mikelangelo and saint clare, lyndon chester, and lance horne on the musical bill, along with aussie comrade jim batt doing bizarro film projection and steven mitchell wright and the various members of the danger ensemble providing theatrical treats. neil and i will both do some of the weird shit we were doing on the tour. best new year’s ever, most likely. the venue (revolt) looks just AMAZING. 
GET YOUR TICKETS HERE WHILE YOU CAN!!!
 
speaking of the tour: here are some more amazing photos from the Neil&Me tour, including some from the incredible photoshoot we did with Wayne Hoecherl & Mikala Taylor in vancouver, with a stage set-up provided by Jessie van Rign & Heidi Wilkinson:


…burlesque dancers and me from neil’s birthday song in seattle…

(more photos at backstagerider.com - burlesque/afp solo/neil solo via paige k. parsons)
 
the kickstarter packages are going great….neil and i are going to be listening to lots of the material on the plane to oz (hooray for headphone splitters, and wine) and choosing what’s going to end up on the disc. we’ll also be sending out some updates to backers there, to keep you in the loop. we’ve already created the CD packaging and the posters that’ll be going out to the kickstarter supporters, and it’s all looking BEAUTIFUL!!!!! we made posters with VELVET!!! here’s me signing a load of the merch, before leaving NYC for mexico last week:
 


…the cute intern in the tie is named ben.
 

and so, from NYC, i flew away, and the dresden dolls reunion show in MEXICO CITY WAS FUCKING SICK.
i cannot tell you how ON FIRE the show was, and how beautiful it was to finally get the band down there after being shouted at by mexico city fans for the better part of TEN YEARS.
it was worth the wait, the orgasm was ALL THAT. we played to a sold-out house in a CRAZY OLD THEATER called teatro fru fru…..
 



 
then we did a ninja gig in a playground to about 300 people, the next day.
during the gig (it was about 6 or 7 pm) a fucking 6.8 EARTHQUAKE hit the city. we considered it a nod of approval from god, and contunied on our ninja-way. it was wonderful…the playground shook, and the park lights went out, and everybody felt even more alive and closer. i fucking love ninja-gigging. brian borrowed two drumsticks from fans who had caught them at the show the night before (and had brought them to the ninja gig to be signed) and played the playground equipment while i strummed “Map of Tasmania” to a whole group of mexcians screaming FUCK IT!!!!!
then we covered some smiths songs, rocky horror (with shout-backs), and ripped together an acoustic version of the old dolls classic “bad habit.” it was an astounding ninja gig…..
 
played on national TV, did photo shoots with rolling stone and nylon, and generally just made out with the entire city.
 
here’s some pictures from the ninja gig….people took SO MUCH VIDEO, and there were so many pictures….VIVA BEING THE MEDIA!!!
 


via arimountains on instagram
 
 
seriously, the whole experience down in mexico was a thing of extreme beauty for the dolls. 
on our last night, we hit the town with our promotor reps (CHIIINOOO!!!!) and alejandro franco, the host of the TV show we’d played on.
we ate tacos, drank mescal (“tequila’s rougher country cousin” as the times once called it), danced til 4am in a goth club called “the real under” that played the cure, tones on tail, peter murphy, sister of mercy, and all the other AMAZING SHIT I LOVE TO DANCE TO…

dancers on 2nd floor:

girl drawing in bathroom:

awesome!!!! who DOES that??

and then got in cars at around 4:30am to a huge public square called garibaldi, where at least two dozen mariachi bands compete for your love while thousands of people carouse drunkenly. i’d never seen anything like it at my life. it was FIVE IN THE FUCKING MORNING, and the entire city was lit up and alive, drinking and dancing to music played by street performers. HEAVEN.

 
brian smoked a cigar….
 
i danced with chino to a mariachi band:

i made out with cassandra in the real under (her boyfriend took this picture):

 
and the WHOLE crew bought AN ELECTRIC SHOCK from the man who was selling cigars. 
why have i never done this before???
it’s probably illegal in the states.


 
we all stood in a circle, holding hands, letting the current run through our fucking bodies….becoming one.



IT WAS AN EXCELLENT NIGHT.
 
…………………………………………
 
we just posted two episodes from a long-ass documentary (the first two of FIVE) shot and directed by jessica fox and edited by sara wolkowitz (aka story sisters productions), that’s been sitting in the can since two thousand FUCKING five-ish.
many of you probably saw one of those shows.
my bright idea back that was to hire jessica to come on the road with us for the entire tour, film EVERYTHING, interview EVERYONE, and then put the footage up.
but time and circumstances squashed us, and we never did. it’s finally ready to get unleashed.
i hope you watch it. (embed and links below)
 
it was shortly after our tour with Nine Inch Nails….we were on tour with devotchka and faun fables as our openers, along with my circus pals jonas woolverton and krin haglund.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
devotchka is famous. still touring: devotchka.net
dawn has a child and is still rocking and making beautiful music: faunfables.net
krin started her own company and also got married and had a baby: krinhaglund.com
and jonas i just saw in vegas, he’s been a permanent part of cirque du soleil for the past few years, and is in a new band, candy warpop: candywarpop.com
HOLY FUCK - our life.
 
anyway….i went back and watched the entire documentary this morning. it was wonderful and terrible, it made me laugh out loud at least 5 times (“queens of the stone poop?” my god, i’d forgotten about that….)
 
but the weirdest thing i felt was….vain? superficial? but happy-making.,..,. 
i kept looking at my face and body, and feeling like i’ve become so much more attractive and powerful in the past 7 years.
my face looks blanker back then..like a little tadpole waiting to become a fish.
i don’t have my permanent forehead crease and my smile lines. 
 
i will NEVER figure out how to wear my hair. but back then it was even more of a disaster.
 
i look so tired. i remember being in the throes of constant touring. living on a bus. shows every single day. very little off time.
very little day-to-day enjoyment, it was just GO GO GO GO FUCKING GO all the time - we were on a warpath, and it’s almost painful to watch that footage and remember what it felt like to be in that body. i was constantly exhausted. i never really stopped to look around. i look at my life right now, the fact that i’m about to take 3 weeks off in australia to go on walks with, make love to, and eat with my husband… and i just want to give myself a cosmic fucking high five. back then i tried so hard to start relationships and they would just crash and burn immediately. my lifestyle couldn’t support it. i’m glad i’ve changed.
 
everyone much older than me keeps telling me that time seems to start flying at an unimaginable speed when you get older.
my friends and their friends are getting sick and dying. it only serves to draw me closer to each moment, to enjoying each coffee, to sipping my wine with more fervor….
i feel like i don’t want to waste a single second of this precious time on earth on the wrong things, the wrong energy, the wrong people. 
it’s like i’m gaining an allergy to negativity and anger in other people that’s actually serving me beautifully. i don’t fight back. i say less. i listen more.
i try to see the pain behind people. it makes it possible to love everybody all the more when you know that everybody is striving to be happy, striving to be peaceful, and trying to bulldoze everything in the way in order to get there.
 
there are no wrong choices….but i feel a stronger and stronger pulls towards the light, and away from the darkness.
 
i find myself taking care of my health - not because i know i should, but because i can actually do the math and see that my life, my brain, my thoughts improve when i take the extra time out of the day to not work and to sit, reflect, write, take care of my body. 
 
i look at myself in this doc and almost see a stranger, even though i lived in that head for so long.
still: looking at the dresden dolls playing gives me goosebumps. i felt it at the show in mexico. we are a fantastic fucking band.
and brian viglione is one of the best drummers on the planet. holy fuck, some of the stuff he’s doing. 
if you’ve never experienced his power live, i hope to god you get to someday. the man is a FORCE. an. unparalleled. FORCE.
 
here it be (or, well, a playlist of what we’ve posted so far):

(click HERE if that embed’s giving you guff…)

if that embed’s giving you a trouble, sorry…youtube’s being a bitch for some as well, but here are direct links…
youtube: episode 1 | episode 2
vimeo: episode 1 | episode 2
 
more when i get to oz……
 
i love you guys. and i’ll see some of you very soon if you’re coming to the shows…
 
onwards, onwards, onwards.
 
 
 
xx
a

art, nakedness & museums, oh my! (warning: contains ART, NAKEDNESS & MUSEUMS, OH MY!)

hola comrades!!!
 
business first. it’s high merch season, lots of you want stuff, and lots of you keep asking about WHAT to buy WHERE so that the money goes to me/the band. i’m drafting a huge blog about all of that….heads up. if you have any SPECIFIC questions (where do i get xx? etc), hit me in the comments below, i’ll be scanning while i write this new one. 
 
also, we JUST put the annual HOLIDAY WEIRDNESS and a bunch of other randomness (including some stuff from the “Evening With Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer” tour) up on the Post-War Trade merch site (if you’re only looking for the holiday stuff, it’s HERE on bandcamp with a bonus audio download of me reading the “yes virginia” letter from the new york sun).

we kept things simple….just a shirt and (as usual) a personalized card from MOI….
but LOOK AT THE SHIRT. yes. the winner is…

 
 
and the HOLIDAY CARD, which i’ll personalize for you (or your lover, or your mom, or your great-great-uncle) up to 140 characters, is an AMAZING photo by pixie, featuring ME IN a DRESS MADE OF SPORKS (thanks to psycho girlfriend). it’s true. you have not lived until you have worn a dress made of sporks:

 
 
please try and get your orders in quick - by december 4th, is the best - to make sure i have time to sign and personalize and get them shipped off before me and viggie head down to mexico for the show…

__________________________________________________

and now. the art and the nakedness. the sound and the fury, the living and the dead.
 
if you didn’t notice the news on twitter or anywhere else….i just did a seriously FUN THING:
i am the recorded voice on the multi-media walk-through guide (the little iPod you can rent to “talk” you through your tour of the exhibit) at the new “Degas and the Nude” exhibit at boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
 
being an indie rock star in your home town has amazing perks. 
but i’d like to think they didn’t just invite me because i’m a local indie rock star. they invited me because i’m 2 NAKED 2 QUIT.
or in more highfalutin terms: i am familiar with the subjective and objective processes of committing stark human-form - sans clothing - to canvas or film. 
 
the beautiful serendipity exploded when i informed the folks at the MFA (MFA/AFP trivia moment alert! MFAAAAAFP!!!!) that i used to be a nude model for a living. 
it’s true, little known fact about yours truly. when i was in my early-to-mid twenties, nude modeling at art schools and for community art classes was one of the many ways i hustled dough.
some days were hilarious…i’d go from standing in complete stillness (with clothes on) as a living statue in the streets of harvard square, to standing in a similar position several hours later three blocks away at the cambridge center for adult education…this time indoors, this time with no clothes on, and this time with no control over when I could move or not. one job paid me closer to $50 an hour. one paid $12.50. guess which is which.
 
part of the reason it’s taken me so long to post this goddam blog is because i wanted to climb under my bed and see if i could dig out the particular shoebox in which i was CERTAIN i had a stack-batch of old nudie photos taken around 2000, during one of the sessions i used to do in dorchester. there’s no photographic evidence of any of the stints that i did at the art schools, because photography was considered a total violation of the space…but there was a group of painters that were more social in nature in a loft in dorchester who would pay me $50 for the night to model for about three hours while everybody got stoned, listened to great music, drew, and generally just hung out. this was one of my favorite jobs.
 
i found the pictures….they’re taken by  a dude named scott fergusen who always had a camera around, and would take shots of the models (with permission) while the painters painted or sketched. i never minded. though i did NOT like taking my clothes off if it was cold. THAT i did not like. 
 
but i loved modeling…i loved the challenge of finding creative poses and holding them, and i simply loved, loved, loved (is this news?) being naked. 




 
 
different decade, same belly.
 
that belly is just 2 legit 2 quit.
 
same bat-time, same bat-belly.
 
oh no, i feel another shirt coming on. 
 
if you’re not shy, and you need quick cash…i recommend figure modeling. you’ll get to stand around naked and get paid. not as much dough as stripping, but much more acceptable to mum and dad. maybe, i guess, depends on your family. anyway….for reals, art schools and community art classes are always looking for models. call and ask. get started on this naked revolution. the whole world is watching. occupy canvas.
 
back to the story.
 
the MFA called me in the spring to see if i could do the voice recording over the summer, but i was going to be in edinburgh right around the time they wanted me to record the script. no worries: they just rented a studio and an engineer in scotland and one day - desperate to escape from my life, i might add (it was a dark couple of weeks) - i hopped in a cab and went to a studio called finiflex in leith, where i read beautifully written script by sandy goldberg. i added my own little personal stories, while the MFA folks (who were super nice) listened in, and gave direction and feedback.

 
 
 
i have to say: i was terrified that this would be a dry and boring project….i’ve never in my life used a multi-media guide, and i’ve often wondered what the hell they actually contain.
up until now, i’ve always seen old people using them at museums and assumed that the voice on the other end was reciting a dry list of facts delivered in a monotone voice (and here’s the kicker) TELLING ME WHAT TO DO…but there goes my judgmental self, i’d never actually tried one. it turns out to be quite an art form in and of itself, as i discovered, and the quality of the multi-media guide really depends on the quality of the people putting it together…and the reader, of course (hi) and most of all: the script writer. 
 
this script was AWESOME. again, sandy NAILED it.
 

 
 
if you’re in boston or the boston area, i highly recommend checking out the show: it’s BEAUTIFUL, and the museum is worth a visit in it’s own right…
i sort of take it for granted having been there dozens of times as a bostonite. info on the show is HERE. if you’re between 7-17, admission is FREE at certain times, and like most museums there’s a student discount. 
 
i think a good art exhibit - any art in any setting, really - leaves you desperate to make things….your own things.
this exhibit did that to me when i went.
 
neil & i were honored to be given a private tour of the exhibit by the curator, george t.m. shackelford, a kind southern gentleman who guided us through the rooms of nudes with a passion and pride so effusive and yet so humble, it was as if he’d painted these masterpieces himself…or modeled in them. hehe. he was so incredibly in love with the art; and it showed. this exhibit is his baby - he’d conceptualized it years ago, and has been putting his heart and soul into collecting the pieces together all in one place for ages…and we saw him the week it opened. i should have brought him a cigar.
he was also my audio-mate…the multi-media guide is predominantly my voice edited together with his. i give the drama, he gives the education.
 
…..
 
i’ve been to hundreds of museums at this point, but i’d never gone through an exhibit and given so much thought to the personnel, the labor, and the artistry behind it.
why did they choose to construct this room this particular way? why put this painting here, and not there? how to lead the eye, the soul, the story from one thing to another?
 
especially in an exhibit like this, which pulls you through an entire LIFETIME of ONE aspect of an artist’s work….? incredible.
 
while listening to george wax passionate about the placement of the statues (if you pay attention, they do magical things, like line up with the paintings that relate to them, like the three desert locations in that sacred coin from indiana jones), i got this incredible urge to paint. 
 
that’s what good concerts always do to me: make me want to leave, so i can go home and write.
 
that’s george on the far left, telling me and neil about the finer details of degas’ work….(this one is called “interior”):
 
 
here’s the narration from the script that goes along with the painting above:
”…On the bureau to the left in the background, we see the man’s hat. On the floor is the woman’s corset -­‐ and an ominous shadow behind the man, on the door. There’s such a feeling of tension; but Degas doesn’t give us a clear sense of what has happened – or maybe is about to happen? – in this room.”
 
like i said, this shit was fun to read.
the exhibit isn’t limited to degas…in fact, it’s illuminated perfectly with contrasting (and influential) works by contemporaries and heroes of degas.
the exhibit tells you the story of a man throughout a lifetime exploration of the nude human body, with and against the acceptable cultural norms. 
 
here’s a great excerpt from the script….in the format i read it from the paper, regarding the painting above (that neil & i are looking at) and a contemporary painting, by gervex:
AMANDA PALMER NARRATION: We can see that the first thing that Degas started figuring out was the lights and darks: the way the light from the window will touch on the body and create shadows in the room. It depicts a private, introspective moment. It’s so different from the painting next to it, with the nude woman splayed across the bed. That one is by a friend of Degas, Henri Gervex.
 
GEORGE SHACKELFORD: [44:36] This painting depicts a scene from a literary work in which Rolla, the hero, the man standing at the window, is driven crazy by the sex goddess that he’s taken on as his girlfriend, Marion.
 
AMANDA PALMER NARRATION: In the poem, Rolla has ruined himself financially and emotionally by pursuing Marian, who is a prostitute. As the dawn breaks, he’s contemplating suicide.
 

 
Think back to Degas’ painting called “Interior” that you saw earlier in the exhibition…Degas included a corset on the floor…Looking back to Gervex’s painting, you’ll notice a petticoat, front and center. It’s been tossed aside. Years later, Gervex said that it was Degas who told him to put it there – as well as the corset to the right. He recalled Degas saying, quote “You have to make them understand that ‘your’ woman is not a model! Where’s the dress she’s taken off? Put a corset on the floor!”
 
DAMN STRAIGHT!!!
 
here’s another drawing … called “the serious client”. these were sketches/drawings that degas did in (or from memory of being in..heeehee) the brothels…and not the upmarket ones. these were never exhibited…they were made from friends (and lovers?)…and to see them now up on the walls of the MFA feels like a nice coup for the advancement of society.
 

 
and here’s the excerpt from the script, i loved reading this one:
”The woman seems to be coaxing the man, in his bowler hat and little mustache. He leans on a thin umbrella – which some see as Degas joking about the size of the shy man’s other, shall we say…. equipment. There’s a sense of caricature to some of the female figures, too. Take your time perusing all the brothel works in this area. There are groupings of women interacting with clients; women preparing for or waiting for clients; and women enjoying each other sexually without clients.”
 
 
oh my beloved….looking at the art:

 
here’s a video of me & neil getting george’s tour through the exhibit…it’ll give you abetter sense of the whole space, and also includes some of the sculptural pieces.
i also talk about modeling and the realization that seeing paintings and art IN REAL LIFE is very different from seeing them reproduced in books (or…on the internet):
 

 
and lo, i’d thought it would be a lovely idea to get naked and have neil do a drawing while we were there. we brought supplies, care of lee at home.
 
i’d suggested it to our hosts, and they were game: i would be the model, neil would be my pastel renderer.
neil’s actually a quite good drawer, i know because i see him draw sometimes. 
i think, like me, he could have been a truly great drawer if he’d wanted to be…he would up being a writer, instead. 
i stopped being a figure model. 
i wound up being a musician. 
but i still take my clothes off constantly. 
it’s the way we’re built, i think.
neil keeps his on constantly.
 
the folks at the MFA were that wonderful combination of excited and terrified. i doubt many people ask to get naked in the gallery. 
but man, this was great PR, and honestly how awesome is it to have your husband draw a nude pastel of you surrounded by arguable the best nude drawings in the world?
 
the only problem was with the security cameras…they insisted on turning them off in the gallery if i was going to have an art party in my birthday suit.
but they couldn’t turn JUST specific cameras off…so they sent in a bunch of staff with ladders to cover the cameras up with coffee cups.
i made lots of jokes about how my friends at museum security, who’d already paid me $50 for the degas strip show i’d promised - were going to be sorely disappointed.
 
security cameras were covered, sigh….
and off we went.
 
STRIP!!!
 
 
 
…to pose…

 
 
…for my beloved….


…who drew…
 
 
…and drew.
 
BAM
 
looking through my old figure drawing photos from when i was 23….
this one caught me:

 
yep. same bat time, same bat pose….ten+ years later.
nice back, palmer.
 
 
 
nice hair, gaiman.
 
here’s one of the finished pastels neil did - he only drew for about ten minutes because he had to run away (literally) and do THIS.
 
i love him.
 
 
so neil headed off, leaving me in possession of his drawings.
 
it was unclear what we should do with them, so i just left in in safekeeping with the MFA, who put them in their archive.
now neil can say his artwork is archived in one of the finest museums in the world. hot DAMN. that worked….
 
SO…
go to the exhibit if you’re in boston-town…..it’s up til february 5th.
 
AND…
if not, just strip down and get your boyfriend/husband/whoever to draw your nekkid body, and tweet me the results.
 
it’s a NAKED DRAWING REVOLUTION AND WE’RE IT!!!
 
all hail degas and all the other freaks of the universe who love rendering the body in its neutral milk state!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
XXXXX
AFP
 
p.s. speaking of nakedness and drawing…bet you didn’t know i’m actually a pretty good drawer. here’s a photo of one of my favorite statues at the MFA…it’s cleopatra, sculpted by thomas gould:

via flickr
 
i drew this pencil sketch of the same statue, over two days sitting on the floor of the MFA, back in my early twenties, in the days when i had nothing better to do than sit around in museums on free-entry-wednesdays and sketch shit:

finally, someone explaining #occupy in a way that makes sense to me

this is best & most on-point video about #occupy i’ve seen.
after trying to put it into words for mexican journalists all day, it’s an especially welcome video to see…

this is what occupy means to me:

here’s the link if the embed gives you grief: youtu.be/BRtc-k6dhgs
AND: they’re crowd-sourcing what they hope will be a “moving and transformative” feature documentary…more on that HERE.


choice quotes: 
 
- “anything that people can articulate can only be articulated within the language of the current political discourse… 
making explicit demands reduces the movement and takes the heart out of it.“ 
 
- ”the system isn’t working for the 1% either…life is pretty bleak at the top, too.“ 
 
- ”everybody wants to live a life of meaning.“ 
 
- ”we buy everything.“ 
 
- ”it’s really hard to create community if the underlying knowledge is: ‘we don’t need each other.’“ 
 
- ”joint consumption doesn’t create intimacy. only joint creativity and gifts create intimacy and connection.”  
 
 
and the end sums it up perfectly………. 
 
“an economist says that ‘more for you is less for me.’
but the lover knows that more for you is more for me, too. 
if you love somebody, their happiness if your happiness. 
their pain is your pain. your sense of self expands to include other beings. 
 
that’s love. 
 
love is the expansion of the self to include the other. 
and that’s a different kind of revolution. 
 
there’s no one to fight. 
there’s no evil to fight. 
there’s no ‘other’ in this revolution. 
 
everybody has a unique calling, and it’s really time to listen to that.
that’s what the future is going to be. 
 
it’s time to get ready for it…
and to contribute to it, and help MAKE IT HAPPEN.”

can i get a fucking A-MEN????

the next time someone asks me what #occupy is about, i’m sending them this link.
and to make it easy to remember it, here: http://bit.ly/AboutOccupy
if your family/friends ask about #occupy tomorrow over thanksgiving dinner, whip this out and make them watch it while you go pee and grab another egg nog.

then watch this clip of a guy quitting his SHIT job at a hotel, and bringing his marching band friends with him….



to get everybody back in the party mood.

i love you all so much, i’m thankful for every breath of existence on this fragile planet.


namaste motherfuckers,

xx
AFP


p.s. thanks to @cassandralong, who showed me this over dinner, and to @briolson, who she thinks tweeted it originally.
spread it yourself, this one’s a good one.