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empty joy, and help me: i'm about to interview pussy riot. (Patreon)

Published:
2020-10-03 10:23:44
Imported:
2023-03

Content

hallo loves.

greetings from havelock north, new zealand. 

well then, it's been an interesting few days, hasn't it. 

the most recurring conversation/sentiment i have seen online and while wandering around this town is a feeling-confusion. people are struggling with their sense of compassion about donald trump. people joke that they want him to die but ha ha not really but kind of really but wouldn't it be nice if he just got really sick but i mean not really but....there's a lot of that happening.

i felt a kind of empty joy when i heard donald and melania trump had covid. 

first, justice, a sense of justice, and then a kind of relief, and then a kind of stupid numbness.

i received the news, by the way, not via twitter or the radio, but by a random kiwi in the streets of havelock north. i was walking ash to the post office, she was sitting at a cafe table. (i am almost never ever recognized in havelock north because...yeah. it's not that kind of town). 

she was in her fifties, and looked at me gleefully and said "it's amanda palmer! amanda! donald trump has covid!!!"

there came that weird kind of relief (oh good, maybe things will be okay now) and then a sort of destabilizing argument within myself (oh wait, things aren't going to be okay no matter what, and what makes you think this will make things ok? why are you so gullible) and on and on.

karma is not a weapon.

i was with a bunch of kiwis tonight and kept saying, over and over:

the fact that nobody really knows whether or not the president is lying and the fact that that is so normal is the scariest part of this.

trust is broken at a fundamental level.

how can a relationship, a country, a system of people work when trust is broken at a fundamental level? it can't.

this was the sky tonight...

and i went to a tiny concert for about 20 minutes and stole this footage. if you've missed tiny concerts, here's a little stream. go find her....anna coddington. she took me to a good place in my soul.

music is life, and i can't believe i get to see live music when so many i know cannot. see it. or make it. or anything. 

it's so weird.

......

anyway....i am about to go to bed, after a long day with ash.

it's been a rough week with getting the podcast and jack and gaby's piece out the door all within a few days, and this betch is TIRED. but there's one thing i gotta ask before i shut my shit down for a sweet ass off-line sunday.....

when i crank back up on my monday (sunday for most of you) i'm going to be interviewing nadya tolokonnikova - of pussy riot - for the podcast.

nadya and i became pals over the internet a few years ago, and she sent me a copy of her book when it came out in 2018...it's called Read & Riot: A Pussy Riot Guide to Activism, and the book's tagline is "a guerrilla guide to radical protest and joyful political resistance”. (we'll be reading it in the podcast book club, so go get a copy).


many of you probably know pussy riot from when they made headlines back in 2012, after nadya and one other member of pussy riot were arrested for performing  staging an anti-putin performance inside moscow's cathedral of christ the saviour.

for a while, balaclavas had a new meaning in global imagery.

since then, nadya has been weaving around the world and on social media, doing her activism, putting that book out, writing and making music, performing, and figuring out how to best spend her time. she's also on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pussyriot/.

a few weeks ago we were chatting, and i invited her onto the podcast.

she's going to be my first guest who's POST-COVID. whee-ha.

and now....

YOU.

arm me with questions.

if you have anything you're particularly interested in, please hit me in the comments, and i'll weave it into our conversation, which will likely be about 2 hours and get whittled down to one for the podcast.

i'm particularly interested in asking her experiences with or without mindfulness while in prison, what she thinks about using patreon and how it's changed anything for her, how she thinks art can help right now in covid, and how she rides the strange line between being pussy riot the "brand" and pussy riot the force majeur. 

i wonder how she straddles that line.

anyway: HIT ME WITH QUESTIONS. PLEASE UPVOTE THE ONES YOU LIKE! i'll use this post as a reference when i talk to her.

and thank you all, by the way, for all the positive feedback on the podcast! i am so glad people are loving it. the team put a ton of work into it and it's nice to see it taking off so beautifully.

i hope you're all doing ok.

hang in there.

x

a

p.s. for some not empty joy: i took ash to a parade today and they covered the whole crowd with foam. every day i cannot believe where i am and where i am not and what is happening where i am.




Files

Comments

Anonymous

Question for mrs Tolokonnikova: what is the fits memory of music in your life? Was there something musically special around the place you grew up (I don't mean, Russian or Slavic influences - but more locally). Wishing you both a happy conversaition

Evgeniy Semyonov

Oh, very cool, would listen as soon as possible.

VitAnyaNaked

You know, I think it will be an interesting podcast with the well-known and scandalous Nadia Tolokonnikova from Pussy Riot. Great!

Anonymous

I am so fucking stoked for this podcast episode. Questions for Nadya: Do you ever get frustrated seeing people around you just not wanting to fight for the causes you care about, or criticizing the way YOU fight for those causes? If so, how do you deal with that? (I would love to hear both your takes on this, honestly!)

Anonymous

Can she comment on Irina Slavinas tragic death? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-journalist-irina-slavina-dies-setting-herself-fire/ Can she comment what direction she sees democracies taking based on her experience?

Anonymous

I am curious to hear how Nadya would describe the current experience for journalists and activists in Russia. I got to see Masha (also from Pussy Riot) speak back in 2016 and I'm curious if it has changed at all (because it seemed really scary at the time - the 18 yo journalist with her said she could be dead within a year for what she's doing).

Anonymous

I love and respect you Amanda so I feel I should be honest. I am disappointed. If Pussy Riot really were victims of the silencing of free speech, we would never have heard of them. one has to dwell into Russian history to see how artists were silenced, to admire the innovative use of fairy tales to sneak, yes sneak messages through censorship. Pussy Riot does not hold a candle to the punk bards whose music was played secretly, recorded on X-ray film where the party goers would unplug telephones to not be over heard. That was a battle and a laugh at censorship. Pussy Riot are media giants. Their message and activism is easily accessible. So I guess my question is, how do you feel you compare to your predecessors who lived through intolerable regimes? Do you see yourself on the levels of someone like Yanka whose demise was questionable? Do you see yourself as someone being silenced?

Fanny von B

When I heard Trump was ill my first thought was Mike Pence and I cried because he is arguably worse.

Katie Roberts Art

Pussy Riot question: Violence vs peaceful activist action. Do you think there is a role for violence, aggressive or confrontational acts in the current politics? Is punching a Nazi ok? Should we shut down trolls/arseholes or ignore them? Is ‘aggressive’ action in the face of global patriarchal dominance effective? As a pacifist I find it hard to reconcile violence or aggression and confrontation even - I understand it is considered less effective as a way of creating change as well - although I have started to consider it has a role. What’s your view and experience of being on the extremist edges of feminist art and activism. (If you consider that you are.) Thanks Amanda. Much love from Melbs. Xx

Anonymous

as much as i feel even more contempt for his character than i do for trump (who lacks the intelligence to be held fully accountable for many of his actions -- but no intelligent creature wants a moron of all people choosing the rules they have to break) , i do hope that biden is the next president . the only thing the democrats are good at is pretending to take care of things well (while their men in particular , and some women who love men , still commit the same fascist crimes as the republicans behind the news) , which is what is needed for the pandemic (but truthfully nothing else after the state of things is stilled & balanced) . and trump losing power will put an end to the culture shift towards open cruelty among the citizens , and to the increase in vulnerable people fighting each other for scraps . i don't personally think trump was smart enough to really realize that he symbolized those culture changes (the same is not true of many of his henchmen and henchwomen), but i do also think he gathered that something bad was afoot and wanted to be a part of the Thrill . i think if there is this shift in power, we will see another decadent period just as we have seen every decade since the 60s . unfortunately however , all the subdued evidence points to the fact that we do not have a say in who leads this country . how could it be a coincidence that so many nations had an ultrafascist shift in their governments at the same time trump was elected ? this was also the case when hitler rose to power, so did others in other major nations . in north korea , they have sham elections , but the citizens at least pretend to believe that they live in a democracy . the rest of the world sees clearly , because they are looking into a fish bowl . the same is true of us , and we are just as regulated of a nation as they are (and fewer of our rules make sense) . it is pretty clear that the leaders of the most "powerful" countries have negotations , deals , compromises , and threats , that choose who leads what nation . recently , i was interested to hear kim jong un threaten trump with a phrase along the lines of " if you want to have a smooth re election " . this comes after a string of negotations of trump with him . kim jong un in all the other circumstances hasn't made a threat like that to anyone publicly before , and i don't think it was the military threat that most uncertainly interpreted it as . it doesn't add up , and north korea has never been a nation to uphold the veneer of other governments . i find it very difficult to even imagine that we have anything other than sham elections . expressing our voice through protests and art will do something , because all governments are paranoid and fear revolt , but while i accept that most will view me as a conspiracist , i don't think it is wise to be so certain that any of our votes will make any difference . i hear stories of people causing complications in their life to vote in the election , and it's disorienting to see people direct so much energy into something that is hard to see as anything other than false hope . we also should not forget to be prepared for biden's own tyranny . have we forgotten his "war on drugs" ? he was worse than most republicans in that regard . never retracted tha position . among other generally right-wing positions . he's just a snakier fascist .