a MISSIVE from your FOREIGN TOUR CORRESPONDENTS, and some probing questions for you.... (Patreon)

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hallo loves.

i’ve got a beautiful long-read post for you today, that will hopefully inspire you as much as it inspired me....

it’s not written by me. it’s been put together by jack and gabrielle, your Foreign Tour Correspondents…it’s not the official piece, it’s more like a check-in and a mission statement. i asked them to do it, and reading what they wrote makes me so proud that we are doing this. and..jack is a better writer than me. this is GOOD.

may i just say, in my own clonky way, that my heart is overflowing lately with a different kind of love for you, my patrons. hard to explain, but something about the rhythm of the european tour, talking more about the patreon to the public, and seeing what is happening to this world…i don’t know. my insides are shifting and my soul has gotten a chiropractic adjustment lately that has somehow unleashed a larger wave a gratitude. 

you’re here. i’m here. we’re doing this. nobody else is doing this quite like we are doing this. it’s an unwritten history, and it feels scary and beautiful all at the same time.

isn't in nice when we all can....oh you know.

ok, over to jack and gaby.

Gaby and Jack on their way to Amsterdam for their first foray into the AFP universe together.

Greetings from your Foreign Tour Correspondent Jack, just arrived back in London after a head-spinning tour of a dozen European cities. I’m exhausted, so I can only imagine how Amanda feels.

A lot of you are probably still wanting to know, who am I, and what is this foreign tour correspondent business about. Well I’m a 33 year-old, British-born, Australian-raised, genderqueer nerd called Jack. I try to make sense of the world through writing it, and to that end I’ve written a bunch of speculative fiction stories, environmental journalism, and a variety of essays and poems up on Medium. You almost certainly don’t know me - I am not famous and I mostly avoid social media because of the stress it fosters in everyone else I know, (though I begrudgingly have a twitter account). I’ve known Amanda a long time, and after reading my musings for many years she asked me to come on board the tour and write them professionally.

As many of you know, Gabrielle and I have between us covered almost every stop on the tour from Amsterdam to Paris, plus a raft of rallies, strikes and ninja-gigs in between. 

Antifa protest against the far right "Steeler Jungs"  in Steele, suburb of Essen Germany. 

Jasmijn Defize, one of the organisers of the march, rallying protesters at the Youth For Climate March in Antwerp, Belgium

Amanda at her ninja gig, enjoying a patron gifted beer while they ameliorate her dirndl in Graz, Austria

While Gaby photographs, I’ve been interviewing Amanda, her peers, the crew and you guys, all to try and build a mosaic understanding of where this community stands at this hinge moment in 2019, and what that means for all of us going forward. There’s a lot of emotion involved in this tour, and we want to record some of it, and it’s really exciting having the funding and time to do it properly.

[Gaby in italics:] I’ll say. There is nothing quite like the feeling of knowing that each day you put your heart soul and sweat into your work, you’re not burying yourself in debt or deficit. You’re OKAY. To be taken care of financially as an artist as you work is a dream and I’m grateful to all of you for being afforded the opportunity to work in this way. I hope you’ll enjoy the fruits of our collective efforts.

The end of the first half of the show in the beautiful Congress Graz theatre. These sorts of shots made me really nervous to do at first but I'm getting to love doing them!

I’ve come home with 50,000 words of notes and diaries to whittle down into a piece that should be going up online in the next 2-3 weeks. That’s a bit scary for me - we are all human, and this is a big stage to potentially screw up on. Plus Amanda, Gabrielle and the tech-crew have already proven their excellence on the tour, while I have spent two weeks putting dresses on and off and telling everyone ‘I’m thinking’. Now I descend into the writing cave, and soon you will have a chance to judge the thinking for yourselves.

I snuck a few ones of Jack changing out of his dirndl in Graz, Austria backstage in the greenroom. I say snuck. He let me. I love photographing Jack.

He's less shy than he was at first (and so am I) which is a total JOY!

Why are we doing it? Partly mercenary reasons – I wanted a job, Amanda wants publicity. But also because the Approved Media Channels offer a very limited perspective on the world, very short term, and most of them are too cautious to come to terms with the magnitude of change that is convulsing our society. But the usual alternative to mainstream media is social media, which tends towards reinforcing our pre-existing beliefs and doesn’t lend itself to long-form reflection, and I’m not interested in writing a piece of advertising.

So we’re hoping that there is an appetite for the kind of in-depth piece that prestige magazines excel at, but offered from outside the system. As someone who would happily perform a five hour show if it weren’t for curfews, Amanda clearly has no problem with length, and if you the patrons are enjoying her mammoth performances, I hope you’ll also appreciate something a little more discursive.

Taken in Amsterdam at the Meervaart Theatre. The show is really dark (and lit beautifully) which makes sense for the show, but for the photographer, (me, hello!) it's a real challenge to get the audience exposed at all in a shot with Amanda. We have a plan to make it a little more accessible in the UK.

I did manage this though, straining off the stage light in cried while I was shooting this and I was so happy to capture it. If any of you are photographers and this means something to you, I was at 1/40th of a second on a 300mm lens at f2.8

Post Patreon photo in Essen.

Hugs in Essen at the Colosseum. 

I learned from the lady with the pink hair (her mom told her) that you need 4 hugs a day to survive, 8 a day to maintain and 12 a day to grow. I think I managed to net about 8 that day just in this setting alone.

Patreon photo by the carousel in the park (Killesbergturm) in Stuttgart. This location broke our 3-minute walk from the venue rule, but I think it was well worth it. 

Jack, Judith, Amanda and I on our way there at speed, battling an 'under construction' concrete walkways (me backwards). So much concrete (damn the war). 

There are plenty of interviews out there asking Amanda what feminism means to her, and if she likes getting into fights on the internet. I want to go a little deeper, and I want to include all your voices as well. I’m keen to keep hearing from anyone who considers themselves part of this community. Some questions I would throw your way if I could (I wouldn’t expect you to respond to all of them, but perhaps one!):

- What was your emotional experience listening to the show, if you have seen it?

- Do you believe in practising radical empathy for everyone, even murderers and wannabe dictators? Or do you find that there are people you cannot empathise with, or don’t want to?

- Do you think Amanda’s music is political? Has Amanda’s art changed your thinking on an issue?

- At times on this tour, I have felt like we are living through a moment like the end of the Soviet Union. Our political system can no longer rationally respond to external shocks like climate change, living standards are stagnant and civil society groups are marching with immense moral force. Do you agree? How does this moment feel to you, in your country? What do you think is going to happen in the next ten years? I would particularly love to hear from anybody from Eastern Europe who actually remembers the fall of the Eastern Bloc.

- Do you have any stories of forming friendships through the fan community?

- Do you think that Amanda’s community is a valuable safe haven online? Or is being here just a way of burying your head in the sand and not engaging with the rest of the world? Or both!

- Criticism! Did you dislike the show? Has Amanda brought up strong emotions? Let me know! If you email, anonymity guaranteed!

- And finally, do you make art? Why?

If anybody has any personal stories they want to share, about abortion, loss, love, hope, death, anything at all, I would be honoured to read or hear them. I can’t promise it will make it into the piece, but I can promise to listen. 

You can respond in the comments, approach me at a future event, or email me your thoughts directly at jackisontour@gmail.com. 

Thanks to everyone who has already spoken with me – to Judith, Klara, Mercedes, Julian, Simon, Leo, Franz, Orly, the mighty women of Burschenschaft Tyrannia, Charlotte, Jayem, Lady J, Lander, Johannes Christ, Zadek, Hulda, Hilary, Saskia, Eva, Anna, Lukas, Zohra, Sarah, Gaba and all the other people who’ve invited me to hear their thoughts.

We’ll be releasing our first piece before the Ireland tour, but Gaby and I will be following the tour to Ireland and much of the UK, and we are interested in setting up some more interviews for future instalments, accompanied by formal photographic portraits by Gabrielle. So if you see us at a show, come say hi, and if you have a longer story that you think is relevant and would really like told, send me an email. We can’t promise anything, but if time permits we would love to sit down with you and talk a little more in depth. 

Finally, here’s a taste of the piece as its coming together, as seen through the eyes of your foreign tour correspondent.

---

VIENNA - Saturday 14th September

In Vienna we reconvened at 2pm, where Amanda had a ninja gig in Karsplatz in front of the astonishingly baroque Karlskirche. Amanda had agreed to perform for a charity called Open Piano for Refugees, a group that uses music to help integrate immigrants into Germany and Austria. I got there fifteen minutes late, by which point a thousand people had gathered around a pond in the church square. Babies cried, strangers chatted, I saw solemn grown men standing on cafe chairs to see. Somewhere within the throng was the strumming of a ukulele.

It’s times like this that Amanda’s charisma and energy really shines through. I caught glimpses of her between the bodies, pounding at an open-air piano or moving among seated fans, singing her uke songs. Gaby loyally followed, snapping shot after shot. I preferred to lurk at the edge, soaking up the atmosphere. That many people crushed together can sometimes feel scary, but not today.

Amanda’s powerful voice carried clearly. She sang Map of Tasmania and Creep. She played long past her half four deadline. “Shall we just skip the show, get some beers, keep playing?” she shouted. She raised the mood expertly, and then when she judged the people around her most receptive, she hit them with politics. She talked about her and Neil visiting refugee camps, and reminded the audience of the photo of Alan Kurdi, drowned on a beach, and this launched her into her song she had only played once before in public - IN HARM’S WAY. Amanda says she has no protest songs, but this is nothing if not a protest against inhumanity and cruelty. It just doesn’t have a very strong bass line.

(Watch the video of "In Harm's Way" live in Vienna at Open Piano for Refugees)

What I cannot see cannot be not untrue

Standing on the barrier of me and you are

Standing where the ocean meets the sand

We cross though we barely understand

The grass is always greener on the land

What we cannot say cannot be not our fault

Searching for a harbor where the sharks don't call

I'm waiting where the boats arrive at night

I see the ones before me disappearing into light

Why would you go when you could stay?

Why would you try when you could walk away?

Why should I care when you're not mine?

Why would I care when you're not even my kind?

Why would you stand when you could lie?

Why would you bother to find something kind to say?

Why would you bother to love your own neighbor?

And why would you bother to love your own brother?

And love's so expensive these days

I looked around at the spellbound audience of all ages, at the searing blue sky, at the Karlskirche looming and glittering. Even as Amanda was diving into the dark it was so, so bright.

White.

Gold.

Wind.

Water.

In a distant apartment block, an arm waved a red shirt from a window and it was like a call to revolution.

Look for the rest in the next few weeks.

-Jack Nicholls & Gabrielle Motola.

...........

i'm not crying you're crying.

i am so glad this is happening, it feels very Meant To BE.

i love you all.

please send along love to jack and gaby, and please help jack out and comments liberally below.

xxx

AFP

p.s. there's been some massive flares on the facebook patron group - a lot of converging topics have upset people and i wish i had more bandwidth right now to be more involved. it makes me sad to see the community suffering in various ways over there, and i'll say it again: i think facebook is the worst platform for a community forum, and we're working on building an alternative, as we have been for a few years. 

hayley and i both wrote to the group this morning...if you wanna please read here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/afpland/permalink/938133819879618/

(this is a closed group but pretty much anybody can join it, there's an honor system that you really are a patron)

there's plenty to discuss about a lot of things...for the moment, just follow the rules of kindness and be compassionate towards each other. i've got a draft going for everybody's input about how we can make a new forum experience more robust, threaded, and good for everybody - it probably also includes having a few more moderators in different time-zones.

peace in our times.

------THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS---------

1. if you’re a patron, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol.

2. see All the Things i've made so far on patreon: http://amandapalmer.net/patreon-things

3. join the official AFP-patron facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/afpland

4. new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/

5. general AFP/patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer: patronhelp@amandapalmer.net