The State of All Things: October 20th, 2021 noooo (Patreon)

Greetings and salutations, dear patrons, my loves…

**UPDATE: 11:43 pm new zealand time. friday october 23rd. thank you all for your beautiful comments. you guys have settled my heart, and i more or less responded to them all. i’ll give the comments on this this post one last read tomorrow then i’m onto the next one.**

What a month. What a goddamn moment in time.  There's a lot. And a little. You put your whole self in, and you shake it all about.

This is a LONG althing, mates. 

I also made you a little 20(ish)-minute video - poem-reading and direct lovings included - from my little New Zealand candle-lit living room, embedded above, but if you can't play it (if you're using the patreon app, it may be an issue), just watch it on vimeo here: https://vimeo.com/635998745/ef46cb68a2

First up, the Althing Table of Contents, more or less:

• LIFE & TIMES UPDATE...& WHAT WE GOT UP TO IN SEPTEMBER
• PROJECTS RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER
• WHAT'S COMING DOWN THE PIKE
• DISPATCHES FROM THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLES OF TEAM AFP
• HOW THE PATREON ITSELF IS DOING - this is where we break down the numbers & stats
• OTHER ARTISTS TO SUPPORT
• ART BEGETTING ART - a selection of beautiful art from around the internets inspired by my work

and starting this month, introducing a brand new section...

• THE PATRON COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD!!!!

You all always have amazing news and projects and books and ideas to share, and you beauties are a diverse and talented global bunch with plenty to say yourselves....so we thought the Althing would be a good place for us to share the great works of art and charity, etc, that you folks are doing. 

Alex, bless him beyond belief, is helping me keep tabs to figure out good shares, along with helping me format the whole Althing.

AND SO, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LET US BEGIN.

..................

Welcome to this month's State of All Things, or "Althing" for short. For those of y'all who are new here, a brief explainer for you: once a month I put together these newsletter round-up posts, to give you the highlights of the past month, let you know where I am in the world, and generally keep you up to date on... THE STATE OF ALL THINGS.

If you find that you can't keep up with all the emails I send on Patreon (I KNOW....THERE'S A LOT) then you can think of this as the monthly digest to catch you up.

And while we're pointing newcomers (or oldies who don't know that these things exist...) we have the WHOLE CATALOGUE OF ALL THINGS I'VE RELEASED ON PATREON for your perusal here on my website. It needs a clean, but it'll do for now.

I will say this til I'm blue in the face: CAP YOUR PLEDGE!!!!  PLEEEEEASE CAP YOUR PLEDGE. Since my patreon page charges "per thing", not "per month" and sometimes there are multiple Things per month, you can set a maximum amount you want to spend per month, so you don't go bankrupt even if I release 10 billion Things. You can read more about capping your pledge here.

AND NOW.....

WTF IS GOING ON?????

HOW ARE YOU?????

HOW AM I???

HOW ARE WE?????

Welllllllllll.

FIRST UP....it was just our UK Merch Queen Alex's BIRTHDAY...so can you please wish this stunning human being of Team AFP a happy happy happy ass birthday. Alex has been a huge and important part of our family over the years, and has been currently taking on more and more work since Hayley left, including the un-enviable task of helping me put these epic monthly posts together. 

ALL HAIL QUEEN ALEX, shown here, playing golf on his birthday, in the UK, with dinosaurs. 

Of course.

(.....and to those feeling generous, you can always send Queen Alex love & fan-mail at alex@amandapalmer. It may brighten up his day between grumpy "why is my patreon account not working" emails.) 

As for me?

Greetings from day SIXTY-ONE of full lockdown on Waiheke Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Whew.

It's the theme of our lives at this point, but let me state it plainly, people:

This was not the fucking plan.

As I type this, my little island of 9,000 residents just announced it's first (EVER) case of covid.

Here we go, yo!!!! Strap it, and....WHEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We don't know what it means yet, and the government hasn't shifted the lockdown rules on us yet (or announced "places of interest", but I was at the local Countdown Supermarket 48 hours ago, so I may be self-isolating sometime soon). It looks promising...it turns out the infected person went straight from the ferry to their accommodation. But that doesn't mean they didn't possibly transmit it to someone on the ferry.

EEK.

Either way....the landscape is finally shifting - covid is here, on our doorstep, in our community. There were 94 new cases of covid reported today in Aotearoa New Zealand - a daily record by a landslide here in New Zealand. But there have still only been a total of 28 deaths from covid in this country. 

That is not a typo. Not 280. Not 28,000. Not 280,000. 

TWENTY. EIGHT. 

Two. Eight. 

This government is currently doing a really complicated dance between trying to ramp up vaccinations and keeping the population locked down enough to prevent a deadly level of spread. But the general approach has worked. People are not dying in the thousands....like they are in the states. For this, I am deeply grateful, and more than willing to pitch in and do my part.

It's been a total case of switch-o-change-o as America and Europe and the UK finally "open up" and get back to their pre-covid routines and New Zealand heads back to "stay-at-home" orders after a year+ of total covid-free normalcy. 

Right now, Ash and I - along with the rest of Auckland - are in Level 3 lockdown. That means no school, no shops (besides groceries) are open (though many have contactless pick-up), and no fraternizing unless it's outdoors & distanced with a single bubble and no more than ten people.

So....why not go home to the states?

Well, not unsurprisingly, given the government's general approach to covid here....I still feel safer and more secure here at the moment than anywhere else. Neil has chosen to head back to the UK for the time being, he flew away quietly a flew a few weeks ago, and he cannot return to New Zealand  at will - the border pretty much shuts behind you, and until further notice, you have to be very, very lucky to get a space in government-run hotel quarantine.

So....here I go again on my own. Goin' down the only road I've ever known. 

Like a drifter I was...wait wait wait, wrong song. 

Let's be more zen.

Que Sera Sera. 

What will be, will be. 

To everything, turn, turn, turn.

My friends...there are only so many things in this life we can control, and we've all gotten a heavy dose of this reminder lately, in pandemic times.

And for sure, and don't kill me here....

I don't know where I'm going.

But I sure know where I've been.

:)

Here I am....alive, healthy, existentially contemplative and doing LOTS AND LOTS of fucking lego.

Lego for days. 

Lego on every surface.

Lego in bed.

Legos in the bathroom.

Legos in every pocket of every item of my clothing.

Lego, lego everywhere.

Leggo my eggo.

Leggo my ego.

It does feel like groundhog day, and I'm staring at April 2020 again: I am, yet again, back in full lockdown, solo parenting, basically unable to "work", and instead of solo-raising a four-year-old, I'm now solo-raising a six-year-old who's much more conscious of his environment. 

Last lockdown, he was still getting pushed around in a stroller. Now he can help me do the fucking dishes!!! This is a huge improvement.

My child is evolving from a person I "have to take care of" into a friend. A roommate, kinda.

He's so beautiful. He's so complicated. He's so weird. He's super-resilient and super-fragile and a sometimes a little and sometimes a lot confused about what The Big People are up to, and what the world means. 

He is obsessed with TRAPS. 

His new favorite movie(s) is(are) "Home Alone" (AND "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York....neither of which I'd ever seen it before, oh my god, I was missing OUT), and his new Thing In Life is to design his own traps, in 3D and in diagrams. 

Here is a recent diagram:

And.....here is what happened this morning after breakfast while I was doing the dishes and Ash decided to make a "burglar trap" in his room out of an entire (ENTIRE) ball of blue yarn:

So yeah.

Any plans I had to get back to "work" and make new music, run my fragile and faltering business, clean up my very backlogged inbox, tend to and clean up this patreon page and you patrons, finish my dusty video projects, start a webcast series, do more podcasts, write a book, say yes to charity work that's badly needed in the states as abortion rights go down the drain, WHAT....EVER....have all been frozen so that my 6-year-old can be raised by an actively caring human and not in front of a television. 

It has taken me eight days to make the time away from Ash to write this post and send it out. I was hoping to get it out around October 9th. 

It's fine.

Honestly? 

Prioritizing Ash feels like a very, very easy decision to make. The kid is worth it. 

I mean....look at this kid.

The other night, I let him cut his own hair. With the Big Scissors. He wanted to.

Talk about a complete trust fall. He wouldn't let me touch the scissors. HE HAD TO DO IT. HIMSELF.

He just....cut.

I stood there, letting him hack. He actually did a pretty great job. 

The trust fall is happening on every level, in every direction right now.

I'm also....just cutting. Somewhat blindly. I'm trying to go slow. But I have dull scissors, yellow light, and no mirror. 

I'm just cuttin' and hopin'.

Since the moment I began this crazy patreon idea.....I've never been more grateful to this community for existing, here, on this platform.

If I did not have you 12,000 or so people supporting me here, I literally do not know how I would be carrying the financial and emotional pressures of paying rent on our house here, buying our groceries, keeping the staff on salary, keeping everybody's insurance (see Michael's surgery/insurance story below if you wanna know how fucking important THAT one is....and especially read that one if you're not an American so you can understand how fucking fucked-up the US health care system is), paying our tech bills, and so on and so on.

It's everything, you being here. 

You're really floating me in a very, very difficult moment.

This was not the plan.

Don't forget - just three months ago, I was gearing up to back to the states (in June, I had flights booked to go to New York in August.... and then delta hit, and I delayed the plans to return to September)...and boom. 

Then delta hit New Zealand, and into lockdown we went. Would I have gone back to the states if I'd known then what I know now? No. In all honesty....no.

I still think it's wiser - for Ash's sake, especially - to stay here in New Zealand than to head back to the oncoming winter in upstate New York. 

I'm deeply relieved, like many Americans, that the case numbers and deaths are (finally) really falling and hopefully stabilizing in New York. But our life there right now would be a difficult, transitional one. Neil wouldn't be there to help parent, he has committed to being in the UK for a while. So I'd still be a solo parent. 

Our house in Woodstock is currently getting deeply renovated (parts of it were literally mouldy, filled with toxins, and falling apart. We decided to rip the band-aid and do the Big Dig). Ash loves his school here, and it looks like we'll be able to return there relatively soon (stress on relatively, I'm crossing my fingers for December). 

And most importantly....in the states, Winter is Coming, which means unpredictability of Covid, and here, Summer is Coming, which means that no matter what the Covid Deal Is, we can be outside and freely roaming.

 Now that the New Zealand weather has warmed up, Ash spends most days playing outside in nature, on the trails, in the rockpools, examining stoat traps, learning the names of the plants and birds of Waiheke. The kererū. The piwakawaka. The tui. The agapantha. The flax. 

The sorrel. Ash eats wild sorrel every time we see it. When I have him on the back of my bike, and he spots sorrel at the side of the road, he yells STOP MAMA, SORREL and I park, he gets off, he picks and eats the sorrel. This is the quality of our life here. It's slow, it's magical, it's made up of sweet and simple moments.

Here's Ash, a few days ago, at 1pm still in his fucking pajamas (he had one of those days when he didn't want to take them off and I was like: why not??), eating some sorrel by the side of the road.

We love our current rental house here (more on that below, and the addition of a new "household" member).....the very rental house that you patrons are paying for. Yes: you pay my rent. That's where a decent chunk of your patreon money is going every month. The next time I do a full patron webcast - hopefully soon, but fuck, with lockdown it's very hard to find a time - I'll show you all around. 

It's got four rooms, we can walk to the ocean in ten minutes, it's got a nice kitchen (which is perfect for lockdown, since I spend 70% of the day in the goddamn kitchen cooking and doing dishes) and, most importantly for Ash, it's a comforting and predictable space. We've made a home here. 

It's enough. For now, it's enough.

So that's my current plan. Stay here through the American winter, see how things go back home and hope they stay stable (*all fingers crossed*), and start thinking about heading back in the US spring/summertime. 

So...that's the life news and the life plan, and enough about that. I want to talk about more interesting things.

Let me tell you about now, and about lockdown, and about how very, very different it is from hardcore NZ lockdown number 1 (which lasted from about mid-March 2020 to about mid-May 2020). During that lockdown, I hit rock bottom. I found myself living as a solo parent in a little town called Havelock North, in a rental house, having come to New Zealand with one suitcase full of show clothes.

I pretty much knew one person in this country. Kya, my old college friend. She lived in a town called Havelock North, in an area called Hawke's Bay that I knew practically nothing about, save that I'd visited Kya there once or twice before for a few days. I had never heard of Havelock North. I had never been to Havelock North.

And there I was, suddenly solo parenting and emotionally traumatized in a weird Air BNB in a town called Havelock North while the world collapsed around me. Kya and her family - and their house, after lockdown - became my only link to the past and to my world. With New York in Covid flames, I rented a smaller house in Havelock North for me and Ash, and gradually, my reality became, well, my reality: I got a car, I found Ash a school to attend, I spent every day surviving a strange new planet and wondering when I was going to wake up from this strange, unbelievable dream. 

How long could it last?

The dream continues.

I spent a total of ten months living in Havelock North, raising Ash on my own...though I had wonderful helping hands along the way...Xanthea from Australia pitched in at the beginning before heading back to Australia, our new friend Naomi started taking shifts and helping me mama, and the women who worked at Best Start (the kindy/pre-school that Ash attended Mondays through Fridays) were like angels from heaven. They held him. They helped raise him. They carried me, too.

Life started to feel normal. And there was no covid in New Zealand. After May 2020, the only cases in the country were nabbed and isolated at the border. (That also meant that Neil, who, by that point, wanted to come back to New Zealand....could not come back. Ash was sad. We...dealt. 

In January of 2021, after nine months away, Neil managed to get back into the country and I suggested we all move to Waiheke, for several reasons. First off, Hawke's Bay ran a little too conservative for my taste and I was too exhausted by life to be a weirdo foreigner. But more importantly, I wanted Ash to experience a little bit more culture...and Hawke's Bay did not have a ton on offer. At least in Auckland we'd be able to go to more Theater, plays, libraries, and see more slices of multi-culturalism. And...Waiheke looked like paradise. A tiny village island with one library, one small theater, a few yoga studios, a few coffeeshops, and lots of lots of shoreline to explore. Boats. And a 35-minute ferry to downtown Auckland, where I could also work as an artist and musician when needed...I was starting to get frustrated with having to fly to Auckland from Hawke's Bay every time I needed to hit a recording studio or do any media. So....we moved. 

I also bore in mind that WHEN (I mean, not IF) we went back into lockdown...we'd be stuck in Auckland's alert Level, which would almost always be presumably higher than the rest of New Zealand, since this is where the cases ARE. All cases of Covid come in from overseas, and New Zeand is a teeny country of 5 million people with one big city boasting an international airport and massive port....you got it, Auckland. Auckland is home to 1.7 Million people. The population of New Zealand is 5 million. Do the math. (Ok, I'll do it for you. That means 34% - a THIRD - of kiwis live in one city. Auckland.  

I ALSO knew that being on an island with ferry access to a city is not the same as being in a city.

And it's borne out, until now: Waiheke has NEVER had a case of covid....until today. And we'll see if we can contain it. Maybe we can - and it'll be one of those things where a case or two shows up and then we head back to zero. Or maybe there will be widespread testing and boom, done, covid is here and there are already 100 cases on the island. We'll find out more in the next week. I'll keep you abreast.

But unlike my flailing and lonely and rock-bottom disoriented time in Havelock North....I've had time here to root down. We have routines. We know the locals. We have a compassionate, small group of supportive friends and families around us, even though it's lockdown.

Since lockdown hit, and especially since moving to level 3, I have borrowed or been given all of these things from my neighbours:

-A hammer

-An axe

-Birthday treats and presents from Ash (we did his birthday in full lockdown, it was hard)

-A book about grief (and a jar of soup) after my stepmother (Jack's wife, Donna) died suddenly on the first day of lockdown

-A bunch of strawberry seedlings

-Board games for Ash

-Four bags of compost

-Bookcases

-Cheese scones

-Hand-me-down clothes for Ash

-A kite

-Salad Microgreens (from a friend of a friend who usually provides them to the winery restaurants)

-Hand Drums for Ash

-and....Loaner Vinyl from three different households.

We play records ALL. DAY. LONG....on a $100 record player I bought back in Hawke's Bay.

Here's a little assortment of our recent faves...

but my all time fave vinyl this past month has been Bix Beiderbecke. I don't know why it's so soothing. But it is.

(Don't take my word for it....you can listen to 90 minutes of free BIX on youtube here.....and if it brightens your day as much as it does mine, you're welcome).

Ash's two current fave records are "The Best of Blondie" and "Mister Rogers Knows That You Are Special".

Sometimes I cry when we listen to it.

I have never heard a more authentically beautiful record album come out of a human being.

I feel like my whole career has been an inauthentic lie, listening to this record.

Sometimes I wish I had time. I wish I had time so I could Thing a Thing on patreon where I just do a full cover of the entire "You Are Special" record.

If I never get around to that, which I probably won't, let me just give you the summary:

YOU ARE SPECIAL. 

AND I LOVE YOU AS MUCH AS FRED ROGERS DOES.

I FUCKING DO.

I really do.

........

About a week ago, we welcomed two new additions to our household:

A PIANO, for mama, and a BUNKBED, for Ash.

The Bunkbed is a loaner from the family we are bubbled with, thy bought it a few years ago for their daughter and then moved house, and the poor Bunkbed had to go live under the carport since they didn't have room for it in the house. I ogled it and asked them if I could maybe borrow it for Ash. They'd be delighted. It needed a deep clean.

So about a week ago, while Ash played with the neighbors kid, I spent five hours deep-cleaning a Bunkbed. I used soap and water and castille soap and vinegar and steel wool to de-mould it....I realize this screenshot from a video I took of myself scrubbing contains a hanging boob and honestly I just could not be fucked caring about it so HOORAY FOR YOU PATRONS YOU GET A FREE BOOB IN THE ALTHING THIS MONTH:

....and then I did two linseed oil treatments.

It still smells like linseed oil all over the house....but

look at her SHINE.

Ash loves it.

And for mama...

a piano.

My god.

I have been real-piano-free since I moved into this rental ten months ago.

I borrowed a portable electric piano from a pal in Hawke's Bay, but the connections were a little janky and there wasn't a full keyboard, and I never sat down to play and compose on it. Some instruments just don't cooperate. 

I kept not getting a piano because a piano is a bug huge expensive pain in the ass (even if you can find one for free, it's a big pain in the ass to move and tune them).

After I decided to stay in New Zealand through the American Winter/NZ summer, I started slowly researching piano options. There's a professional piano rental place in Auckland and I'd had it on my long list of things to do to head over there on the ferry and inquire about a monthly rental...when level 4 lockdown hit. There goes that fucking idea. I wished I'd gotten my shit together faster. Lockdown without a piano seemed particularly cruel.

Then, out of the blue a few weeks ago, I happened to mention on a random facebook post (about patronage) that I was hopefully going to get a goddamn piano someday...and that, y'know, when I did, patron money would be paying for it.

Someone named Ana made a comment about maybe getting a free piano in Wellington and it set off this chain...

One thing led to an obvious other...and....keeping a very masked and respectful distance from the movers.....

I cleaned it. I had it tuned.

And I cried the first time I set my hands on it.

I AM NOW WHOLE AGAIN.

LIKE HOLLY HUNTER IN "THE PIANO".

LIKE HOLLY HUNTER AT THE VERY END OF THE MOVIE WHEN SHE  HAS ESCAPED THE SAD PLACE AND ABUSIVE CREEPY GUY WHO CUT OFF HER FINGER AND GONE OFF SOMEWHERE WITH THE OTHER GUY AND HAS A NEW PIANO!!!! 

I am now whole again.

WHAT?

You haven't seen The Piano? Don't read the rest of this Althing. Just go watch The Piano.

You'll understand my entire life. It'll all make sense.

If you know, you know.

Sinking, but accepting!!!

The funding from my patrons is making all of this possible.I don't have to spell it out, do I? 

Without you, without patronage, none of this would be possible...not like this.

Not this real, not this freedom.

I have no words but

Thank you.

It means the world to me that you're all here, carrying me and my kid through this insane fucking moment.

Thank you. 

When I get a little more stable, I'll webcast and play it for all of you.

Soon. Let me survive lockdown for a while.

It's a lot.

.....

MEANWHILE....WHAT I GOT UP TO IN SEPTEMBER.

Despite the lockdown....some fun was had this month...

I DID A SPECIAL WEBCAST....

This was a webcast for the $10 folks and up, but since it was so goddamn beautiful and soul-healing, I decided to make the archive viewable for all patrons. It's not "publicly" accessible, you'll have to login with your Patreon account, but you can see the archive here.

We had guest speaker Hinemoa Elder, a local maori teen and child psychologist here in Aotearoa New Zealand. It was so so so so good and healing. Go watch it. Go. 

Two beloved poet-patrons - Kristin Ryan and Angel Rosen - came up on screen to share some poems they'd written.

And Team AFP members Michael and Hayley also popped up and we all heart-soul-shared together.

You can read all my thoughts on the webcast here.

But suffice to say..... I love these goddamn webchats. I love that Crowdcast lets me bring guests up on screen. I love this goddamn community. I really do. It's just getting realer and deeper and better and more like family every day.

......

I took part in Do Re #MeToo, a webcast event organised by the Abortion Access Front. 

The brief? Cover the most sexist song we could think of. 

FUCK YEAH.

I collaborated with gorgeous kiwi musician (and distant relative of mine) Reb Fountain to mash-up Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke and Rape Me by Nirvana. 

More on that release down below.....

......

PROJECTS RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER:

We released TWO projects in September...

The State of All Things: September 2021, your regularly scheduled round-up digest of the month before.

......

AND:

Blurred Lines + Rape Me Mash up (was the second Thing of the month, both the audio and the video.

I'm so fucking proud of this piece. 

Here it is on YOUTUBE.

And if you read the full post, you can see my original explanation as to why this was initially very strictly patron-only (TL;DR: tedious legal reasons, and mama doesn't want to get sued.)

BUT, after reading all the comments about how strongly this piece resonated with everyone, and after consulting some more, I've decided that YES, actually, we probably SHOULD put this out to the public. So you can now share the public link with everyone right here.

This project wound up having such a huge impact on so many people - and the comments on the youtube clip are worth poring over. It's gotten almost 200k hits as of this writing.

And as I mentioned above, the release of this project also helped contribute towards our $3k donation to the Abortion Access Fund. 

THE CIRCLE OF PATRONAGE.

A long-time patron Aimsel, who's a journalist over in the States, also wrote a beautiful write-up of the project, and I answered a few questions, and you can read that piece here. 

......

Random, but related...

I was in an article that LOUDER THAN SOUND put out....to celebrate the anniversary of IN UTERO....

...and very ironicaly, this came out a day or two before the mashup.

The article featured my cover of "Polly", which is just as harrowing and feminist AF if you haven't ever heard/seen it.....(and yes, trigger warning):

https://youtu.be/lg0dWANc3mo

.......

WHAT'S COMIN' DOWN THE PIKE....

I WROTE A NEW SONG.

It's a pained lockdown song - the only song I've written this whole year - called "The Ballad of The New York Times". I premiered it live at the Waiheke concert that we filmed back in July.

I was hoping to get into the studio and do a really professional cut of it, but TBH, the footage and recording from the show itself is pretty damn glorious, so I think I'm going to just say FUCK IT and THING IT AS A SINGLE ("THINGLE!!!) before the month is out. 

It'll feel good to put out something new from my heart.

..............

The Abortion Podcast series process slowly plods along. 

I know we said it would be out in September, but.....life happened. Lockdown happened. And society happened, and the story around abortion rights is constantly changing all the goddamn time at the moment, which means we're re-writing and re-recording and then by the time I'm free to record, things have changed again.

But I promise.....soon. It'll be ready when it's really GOOD. This is why patronage is so wonderful. We can work on this and put it out when it's READY.

......

And for those of you who have been around a long time, this will all be old news to you by now, but we STILL have a few projects that have been on the backburner for years at this point... they will see their day in the sun one day.....

• the ENTIRE Waiheke Small Hall Crawl concert film from July...hopefully coming out soon. Still working on the edit with the crew.
• The Look Mummy, No Hands music video & documentary....so late. Someday.
• Tasmania Confession Booth documentary...still working on it.
• Michael Dunaway's documentary from the There Will Be No Intermission tour...still working on that, too.

AND....

I AM PRAYING AND HOPING to have the time and bandwidth to finally break ground on a patron-fueled advice column called ASK AMANDA soon...but....lockdown. I'm working on ideas and concepts slowly, so stay tuned.

.........

I am still trying to get my shit together to start the DISCORD. I know, I know.

Just be patient. We'll get there.

............

DISPATCHES FROM TEAM AFP.....

From Michael, my Brooklyn-based assistant:

Hello Patrons,

I know I promised a longer update this month, so here you go!

September was a complete wonderful blur. I started the month off by taking a vacation to Martha’s Vineyard (my first trip ever) and spent a lot of time on the beach, watching sunrises and sunsets with one of my partners and eating more oysters in 5 days than I normally would in an entire season (in the northern hemisphere, oysters are best in the “-ber” months).

Then I played a week of catch up in my email before my actual 40th birthday on the 16th, which I share with the cutest birthday-twin ever: dear little Ash.  

For that celebration I had a small group of wonderful friends and chosen family over to my tiny Brooklyn Backyard. Looking around at all the faces I realized that most of the people there, my nearest and dearest in New York I have either met or gotten closer to through this amazing job/community.  This job has many perks!

Here are a whole lot of candles in several different pies (because pie is far superior to cake, period end of story). Photo by Lindsay Katt.

The following week was spent having many conversations with Amanda about work, life, the future, and the State of All Things in general and preparing myself for an upcoming surgical procedure on my hip which happened on Oct 1st.

The tl;dr of that procedure is that I have crappy genes regarding my joints and I have early stages of osteo-arthritis in my hip. I watched my father go through the same thing and rather than being able to take care of it early he wound up barely being able to walk and having his first hip replacement surgery when he was only 48 and I really didn’t want to have to go the same route.  So I chose to be proactive.

Here’s the thing though. . . I live in America, the only “developed” country without universal healthcare.  

I know that many of you around the world have some understanding of what that means, but I want to let you all know just how fortunate I am and how thankful I am of not only having this job and having Amanda as my employer, but to each and every one of you.  

Without your support and continued patronage of Amanda, I would not have been able to have this procedure. This procedure will hopefully allow me to remain active, give me the ability to exercise, and to simply walk without being in constant pain and discomfort.  The procedure itself was rather minor, but the outcome and prognosis are literally life changing.  And it would have been 100% impossible without the incredible private insurance that Amanda insisted that I (and Hayley when she was still employed) have and that she insists on paying for.

Again, for those of you who are unfamiliar with America’s “HealthCare System” (and I use that term loosely), generally you can get insurance on your own or through your employer.  Even if you are able to get insurance through your employer it’s often hundreds of dollars a month that is taken out of your paycheck.  Even then, a lot of times it barely covers basic needs and necessities and with most insurance companies you have to jump through an inordinate number of hoops in order to get “pre-approved” for something that you need, otherwise they will refuse to cover the cost of whatever you need and you will have to pay for it “out of pocket”.

Now, from what I understand from Canada, the UK, Australia, etc when you talk about paying for something “out of pocket” you generally get charged at most a few hundred dollars because their health care systems are considered a right and are funded through the government.  Well in the good ol’ USA where our Health systems are run by for-profit corporations they can charge. . . well, whatever the hell they feel like charging.  Because they can.  Because you need it and you’ll pay whatever it costs in order to basically live your life.  Which, for millions of Americans, means that you go into exorbitant debt just to get the care that you need, which includes everything from having a baby, to cancer treatment, to life saving care in the ER after an accident.  It all costs ridiculous amounts of money.

How ridiculous could it be though, right?  

Well, let me tell you.  I received this “estimate” from my doctor a few days before my surgery was scheduled and even I was shocked.  I know the insurance system better than most.  I’ve dealt with a lot of health care payments for myself and others and my father sold insurance for over 20 years while I was growing up.  

This one image shook me in ways I can’t quite describe.

The “out of pocket” costs mentioned above would be $114,461.  

For a 90 minute arthroscopic outpatient procedure.  

The ONLY reason my cost was $350 was because of the incredible insurance that I have.  Before working for Amanda, I had a corporate desk job working for one of the biggest media companies in the world.  I had really good insurance, better than most.  With the insurance I had there, I would have had to pay around 10 - 20% of the costs, somewhere between $11,000- $22,000.   

That’s a brand new car.  

That’s a downpayment on a HOUSE!  

Now you see why this would have been impossible for me to do without the very specific and privileged position that I’m in.

Part of me thinks that this update is far too long, wordy, and unnecessary for an Althing update, but I just really want to let you all know (who aren’t already keenly aware) just how fucked America is in regard to HealthCare and just how fucking grateful I am to each and every one of you.  

In so many emotional ways you have already, but in this very specific and quantifiable way, you have literally changed my life for the better.

The recovery is lengthy and a bit annoying to be honest, but none of that really matters because at the end of the day I know that I can take care of my body, my mental health, my teeth (a whole separate ball of wax insurance-wise), and myself as a human because you support Amanda and she continues to find value in the work that I do for her and for this amazing community.

A simple “Thank You” is woefully insufficient, but I send it to each and every one of you freely and with a virtual hug until we can all hug again in person.  

At least a hundred and fourteen thousand times, Thank You.

Love, 

Michael

{Thank you, Michael...for sharing this story and for bearing with us all so beautifully, and we'll always bear with you. We got you. You're incredibly Hip. I had to. -xxx AFP}

......

From Jordan, my Sydney-based manager:

Greetings Dear Patrons,

I can’t believe that it’s the October Althing… This means the year is ¾’s over. What a year! It’s crawled and flown all at the same time.

This month the project with the biggest impact for me has been the Mashup video; Blurred Lines / Rape Me with Reb Fountain. Whilst it might seem to be an easy thing to just upload a video of a performance…. this was actually a very complicated project to get out the door and as such I am all the more pleased to see the phenomenal and cathartic responses it has garnered.

The decision was made to initially release the clip JUST for the #DoReMeToo event and for the Patreon. However, as the week wore on both Amanda and I felt disappointed not to share this project with the word at large. We knew the value of this piece, we felt its power and we strongly believed in it and wanted other people to have access to it. We have had to make a lot of decisions about how to release this project. As Amanda alluded to, there was no shortage of complex legal issues to navigate. However, navigate them we did, with a little help from our friends. With a deep breath of anticipation, we uploaded the clip and set it free….

What an outpouring of emotion. What a sense of communal catharsis. This song hit home for so many. As the view count kept climbing and the comments kept coming, I felt so many emotions coursing through me. I was proud to have helped Amanda bring this work into the world. I was proud of the reception it was getting, I was pleased with the “numbers”… but the numbers couldn’t compare to the reeling effect of being overwhelmed by the emotional punches of reading the comments on Facebook & Instagram. 

I was bowled over by the sheer volume of people brave enough to speak their truth and talk openly about their experiences with rape and sexual misconduct. So much pain. So many people feeling like their realities and pain were not acknowledged or worse, worth acknowledgement. So many people holding each other up. So much support being given. This was the real payday for me. Seeing such a visceral reaction to Amanda & Reb’s work ripple through the internet and seeing how these feelings reverberated through so many people and helped them to deal with their emotions and damage together. This was one of the high points of my career.

It’s this type of work for which I was born and for what I devote my life to. I love music, I love putting out records, producing tours, programming and curating events… but when the art has a… context… there is a special aspect to it that cannot be measured in sales or numbers. Whether 100 people see this art or 100,000… I am there for it, all in. It’s particularly validating however, when it’s over 100,000!!!

Thank you for enabling this work to do its magic dear Patrons. Amanda has said this before, but I will echo her words here – it would not have been possible without you.

Jordan.

{I hope you can all see why Jordan is the Best Manager Ever. Thank you Jordan. I love you. Thank you for helping me do what I do. - AFP}

......

Alex, our UK Merch Queen-slash-general AFP patreon elf:

HEY FOLKS!!!

September has well and truly stretched me and tested me, if I'm honest.

I'm currently writing this update at 6:02am from a hotel room in Leicester, UK. 

As I've mentioned in previous updates, I split my time between AFP and a couple of other artists, including self-described "socialist, feminist, lesbian, left-wing protest singer" Grace Petrie over here in the UK. And Grace has  new album coming out!! And coinciding with the new album is... a tour. whew.

So the past few weeks have been a bit of a juggling act between trying to order merch for this tour, pack and dispatch all the pre-orders for this album, PLUS keep the fires burning with Team AFP missions... and I think we pulled it off!!

And now we try a new juggling act, where I'm out on tour, back behind the merch table at gigs, flogging merch out to people... and then trying to carve out time on days off, or backstage in dressings rooms, or at 6am in hotel rooms when I can't sleep, to keep the Patreon fires running here. 

I'm also very happy to announce that THE ART IN THE MAIL PUZZLES HAVE FINALLY GONE OUT!!!

I'm so happy that after more than a month (!!!) they finally got released from customs hell in the US, meaning everything could finally be shipped out to the $25+ patrons.

Here's a van that I had to hire to drive them all to the post office when I realised that 200 boxes would not fit in Spongebob, my poor little car:

The good news is that Amanda and I are already cooking up the NEXT Art In The Mail, and this one should be a much quicker affair, so hopefully you won't be waiting another 9 months..... but now I've said that, it'll probably take TEN MONTHS. But let's keep our fingers crossed :) 

As for the rest of the puzzles.... we're gonna give the Art In The Mail patrons a couple weeks to receive theirs, and have a go at putting them together, and then we'll be putting the remaining copies up for sale exclusively to patrons.

And now.... here I am, out on tour.

It's truly a bizarre feeling. 

These tweets from our tour manager sum it up quite nicely:

I've spent the last 18 months barely leaving the house. I can count on my hands the number of social occasions I've been to. I only went inside my parents' house for the first time 6 months ago. I've socialised inside two people's houses. I've not eaten out in a restaurant or a pub. I don't go anywhere without wearing a mask. I've been to the cinema twice - both times when I've checked the screenings to make sure there were less than 30 people attending, in a huge screen so I could sit 10 metres away from everyone else, and keep my mask on.

And now suddenly I'm thrown back into life as it used to be, 18 months ago.

I travel in a van with 3 other people, and we go to clubs where there are sound techs and lighting techs and promoters and bar staff, and I set up a merch table and then the room slowly fills with between 100 and 300 people, and then we check into hotels every night.

In case you aren't following the UK news, our government removed ALL restrictions back in July. It was called "Freedom Day". No restrictions on venue capacities, no mandate for masks, not even any regulations around having to isolate if you come into contact with someone who has COVID. You're advised to get tested, but it's still up to you whether you do or not.

Call me over-cautious, but..... I'm still doing rapid lateral flow tests for myself every day, and have invested in an array of exciting new masks to wear behind my table every night.

Forced cognitive dissonance indeed.

But... I cannot express how bloody lovely to hear crowds singing along again. Especially the defiant anti-fascist songs that Grace writes so well. I've cried on more than one occasion.

Today we had a day off, and I accidentally took a nap at 6pm and then woke up very confused at 8pm. So here I still am at 6am wide awake.

Love from the road.

6:23am in Leicester.

Tomorrow we are driving to Reading.

((And if you want to come out and enjoy some beautiful queer leftie folk music, in November we'll be back out on the road hitting up Croydon, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Newcastle.. ALL OVER THE PLACE. Tickets and whatnot are all at gracepetrie.com/gigs 

Grace's album Connectivity was also out last week, you can order it from Bandcamp, and I can't tell you how much it would mean to her. during release week, we managed to get this motherfucker ON THE CHARTS. It reached #37 in the Official UK Album Chart.... and #1 on the UK Album Download Chart. For a small, completely independent artist, who has never had any major label funding, no industry assistance, built everything completely from scratch in her own bedroom, this is fucking magnificent, and I honestly could not be prouder.

The album itself is a complete stormer - my personal picks are "Some Days Are Worse Than Others" and "IKEA".

LOVE

-alex

xoxox

{You're sleighing it on all fronts, Merch Queen. WE LOVE YOU, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!- AFP}

......

From Kelly Welles, our UK podcast writer / copy-editor / general wonderful-helper:

Dear Patrons,

Here in the UK, someone pushed the Autumn/Fall button. There's a chill in the air and the leaves are starting to dry out. It's getting darker earlier too.

The end of summer is always bad news wherever you are in the world, but this year in England, dusk creeping in feels bleaker than ever. Bear with me while I give you some background.

In March 2021 thirty-three year old Sarah Everard was abducted as she walked home from a friend's house. A serving Metropolitan police officer, Wayne Couzens, was arrested a few days later and charged with her kidnap, rape and murder. On 14th March, vigils for Sarah were held. The police were criticised for their handling of the event at Clapham Common, London, where four women were restrained and arrested. 

The Metropolitan Police didn't enjoy a glowing reputation before news broke that one of their officers had abducted, raped and murdered a woman, but trust between communities and officers in London reached a new low this week when details of the case became public.

During Wayne Couzens sentencing hearing, it was revealed that Couzens had used his police warrant card and the UK's COVID-19 lockdown protocols to approach and arrest Sarah. He handcuffed her in the back of his car before driving her to Kent, some eighty miles away.

Most of the time Twitter is a shitshow but people started talking about how they felt. As more voices joined in, more were empowered to share fears and confessions. Hundreds of stories have been shared, ranging from casual mistreatment by police officers to outrageous abuses of power, the trauma of which still resonates today.

The most consistent statement was also the shortest.

'I would have got into that car,' many said helplessly. 'I know I would have.'

It's still raw. Given the authorities have had seven months to get their excuses together, the Metropolitan Police's suggestion that people who are fearful during an arrest should 'wave down a bus' is, to put it diplomatically, disappointing. Few people have faith that the British Police are capable of the reform it would take to operate fairly. British institutions are founded and built by the Patriarchy. The fact that we've tolerated it for as long as we have is because many of us are insulated from the worst of their crimes - until recently we only listened to those white and middle class enough to have a platform. If you're black, gay, trans, disabled or basically anything other than a cishet white male, no one cared.

I wish I'd paid more attention. But I didn't and I'll learn from that. It's impossible to imagine what will happen as a result of this case but we owe it to all the people who have suffered at the hands of the police to make it something positive.

I hope you're all ok. Everything is so hard right now, but we're all here for each other in this gorgeous community and we'll come through it.

Kx

{Thanks for the update, dearest Kelly...and for running around on this crazy listing Team AFP ship. Stay safe over there. -AFP}

......

HOW THE PATREON ITSELF IS DOING....

As of this writing there are about 12,411 patrons pledging about $40,000 for the first Thing each month.

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NEWCOMERS: you are welcome to (and encouraged to) CAP YOUR PLEDGE!!!!! I cannot stress this highly enough.

Your pledge on Patreon supports me per Thing that I release, but sometimes it's unpredictable how many Things will come out in a month (sometimes it's just 1, usually it's 2 or 3, we have been known to do 6 or 7). 

We know this can create financial insecurity and uncertainty - so Patreon allows you to cap your pledge. This is, essentially, setting a MAXIMUM amount that you want to pay per month. YOU CAN BUDGET. Say for example, you're happy to pay $3 per Thing, but you don't want to pay more than $10 a month. In that's the case, you can "cap" your pledge at $10, and whether I release 4 Things or 40 Things, you won't be charged more than $10. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, you will still have access to ALL the things, even if you cap your pledge!!! It doesn't effect access.

You can read all about capping your pledge here.

I go over this stuff in every Althing, but if you're new to all this: Patreon charges you monthly & retroactively, meaning that you get billed on the 1st of the month for all the Things released the month prior.

Because people have their pledges capped (SEE ABOVE), the first "Thing" raises the most money by far, and anything released thereafter raises less and less. I LIKE THIS! THIS IS GOOD! It means I never feel guilty about releasing TOO MUCH!! So really. Please, cap your pledge if you are on a budget.

The numbers below are gross. Not net. Meaning: it's the money raised before fees were deducted by patreon and is not the total deposited to me. patreon takes a 5% fee (which they use to build and sustain the platform, which is GOOD) and then there's a payment processing fee, which varies on a ton of factors and is usually between 5-9% of the total collected.

Also, none of this reflects the money I SPENT MAKING THE ART, running the business, paying the office rent, paying for crowdcast, getting myself around, getting the team around and fed and slept, all the collaborators, and my actual staff payroll, etc.

I don't share that level of nitty-detail-stuff with you because I assume it would bore you to fucking tears. but you can trust me: paying for a full-time staff, office, manager, accountant, and massive team of art-collaborators ain't cheap. sometimes we barely break even, especially when we do a lot of charity projects.

In July, I Thanged FIVE Things:

The State of All Things: August 4th 2021, which earned about $47,031 from 12,362 patrons.

The Couch of Truth Episode Two: "Miscarriage: Where Is The Hallmark Card?", which earned about $18,534 from 6,823 patrons.

The Couch of Truth Episode Three: "Grief: And It's Going To Hurt", which earned about $10,689 from 4,177 patrons.

The Couch of Truth Episode Four: "Abortion: Three Stories", which earned about $8,603 from 3,333 patrons.

The Couch of Truth Episode Five: "Having A Kid... Or Not: Two Stories About Being Okay", which earned about $7,536 from 3,013 patrons.

(we say "about" because patreon may be still trying to process some pledges that have yet to go through...we never know, you know.)

Them's the numbers.

......

AHEM.

The 21st anniversary of a little band you might have heard of is also coming up......

(photo by Lisa Gordon)

THE DRESDEN DOLLS ARE TURNING 21 on HALLOWEEN.

We are making some beautiful new merch to celebrate - we commissioned a gorgeous new design from Malleus:

NOM NOM NOM.

We're gonna print that up on shirts and hoodies, as well as fancy-schmancy screen-printed posters, and some digital cheaper posters for the more budget-conscious amongst you.

We're also gonna be celebrating our HISTORY by reprinting some vintage designs...

AND for the first time ever, we will have punk cabaret MUGS and TEA TOWELS, using that vintage manifesto design:

yaaaaaa.

AS ALWAYS, SIGN UP TO THE DRESDEN DOLLS MAILING LIST TO GET FIRST ACCESS TO ALL THE THINGS ALL THE TIME. DO IT!

(NOTE: the dresden dolls mailing list is NOT THE SAME as the amanda palmer mailing list, which you should also be on, please....there are TWO different mailing lists!!!!)

......

October has also seen the airing of a fun little thing I did a few months back with Lucy Lawless... for the last couple years she's been starring in a TV show called "My Life Is Murder" over here in New Zealand

A few months ago she asked if I'd do her a favour and cameo in the show...

The silly bit part was to play a "spoken word artist" at a fictional fringe show that her character and sidekick are attending.

Here's me in full artist-weirdo make up, along with Lucy, and the make up artist Stefan Knight.

I sent out a clip of the full scene out to $5 patrons - if you're a $5 patron you can see the post here.

(SIDE NOTE: we know there are some playback issues watching videos within the patreon app - we're working on it with patreon, but for now we're trying to include direct links to stream the videos on vimeo, but also if you log into patreon ON A BROWSER (not on the mobile app) you should be good)

This also seems a good time to remind you that if you're in the $5 tier, I try to send out these weird random surprises that aren't quite shareable with the whole wide internet, if you want to join the fun there.

......

And from the desk of past Things being given a new life...and a few places our money is flowing and going...

US publication Meat For Tea picked up the "Getting Strangled, Gracefully" piece that I wrote and published a couple of months back, and it's featured in their latest issue.

You can pick up a hard copy for $12, or a pdf copy for $5 here on their site - and it also features pieces from SO MANY people:

......

And from the desk of paying it forward, I thought it might be nice to share some of the donations we've made this month, so you can see that your patron dollars are not all being spent on hookers and blow...

We donated $3,000 USD to the Abortion Access Front, the organisers of the Do Re #MeToo fundraiser. They're a super important organisation fighting for abortion rights within the US, and a donation of that size was largely made possible by Thinging the release of the song we recorded, which means it's DIRECTLY...YOUR PATRON DOLLARS.

......

This gofundme was set up by an artist friend of mine, Elizabeth, here in Aotearoa New Zealand. She's crowdfunding to be able to hold an exhibition showing the art that she's been working on, after a reduction in exhibition funds has left her work in jeopardy.

Her work is really important stuff....

"My pursuits in the Fine Arts, coupled with a strong research background in Maori and Indigenous Studies, Feminism, Gender, Critical Theory and Social Consciousness, has resulted in PhD scholarship that serves as a counter-narrative designed to highlight the intersecting relationships between Maori women representations, science, art and colonisation. A contribution to the promotion of representations of Pacific women as potential sources of empowerment, that enrich our lives and enhance well being."

Please support if you can.

......

Artworks Theatre is a local performing arts hub here on Waiheke island, and I'm so proud to be able to throw some cash their way to keep the arts going through our lockdowns.

......

At the beginning of September, there was a terror attack in Auckland - someone stabbed seven people at the shopping mall, while they were doing their lockdown grocery shopping.

This fundraiser was set up by a board member of the Muslim Association of Canterbury to help the victims, so I chipped in there.

......

And of course, after the horrific events in Afghanistan, a fundraiser was set up to help provide basic necessities for refugees arriving in Aotearoa New Zealand, so I threw a little in the hat there.

......

And finally for this month, this little bar, Common Room, in my Lockdown 2020 home Hawke's Bay, is in danger of closing down after COVID, and they've set up a fundraiser to help. It's a beautiful little space of art and music, and I really hope it stays.

From the description on their page:

Everyone’s welcome at Common Room. Its diversity and no dickhead policy has made Common Room a safe space for many, a place where outsiders can become insiders.

Common Room, and Gerard particularly, has created and curated an arts space, supports local artists, made a place for musicians, poets, and creators of all kinds, that allows all of us a window to new experiences while enjoying great beer, local wine, and fabulous cocktails. Common Room has hosted some of New Zealand’s most outstanding artists and musicians, pulling off some legendary shows that have opened this community up to a world of art and culture.

Lovers and lifelong friends have met over the firepit, children have been born from these meetings, kids play pinball and munch hashtag fries under the warm eye of the Common Room family. Bonds have been made in this space whose importance can’t be denied.

MORE OF THIS YES.

......

OTHER ARTISTS TO SUPPORT & CHECK OUT.....

Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-American journalist who covers feminism and Muslim rights.

She just published an essay called "Abortion Is Normal" that absolutely blew me away....she's also over on Patreon and on Twitter @monaeltahawy and I can't recommend enough that you follow and support her.

......

From my soul-art-photographer-brother Kyle Cassidy, who's taken SO MANY gorgeous photos of me over the years, including the cover of Who Killed Amanda Palmer,....

....comes a new ONLINE THEATER project he's been working on since last year:

A DOLL'S HOUSE

Nora Helmer has a beautiful life and a dreadful secret: She’s $300,000 in debt, possibly going to jail and being blackmailed by one of her husband’s subordinates. On top of it all, she’s quarantined alone at home where her only human interaction comes from friends who drop by on Bubble Chat throughout the day.

As Nora’s story unfolds, so do the lives of the people around her: COVID19, desperation, unemployment and power struggles interweave over Bubble a Zoom-like environment created specifically for in this independently funded film which brings Henrik Ibsen’s Victorian masterpiece to lockdown.

Tickets are $6.66 and good for 30 days. Watch it as many times as you want. Bring your friends.

Link to tickets here: laurel-tree-theater.ticketleap.com/a-dolls-house-2020-virtual/

Not sure?......watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/sjphixPx3E4

We love Kyle.

......

I also just found out about Sir Chloe, an incredible songwriter....they're currently working with John Congleton (who's produced a couple of records that maybe you've heard of...inclUding my last two albums, kickstarter-funded Theatre is Evil and the patron-funded There Will Be No Intermission.) 

Here's your musical feast to sink your teeth and ears into, and then you can follow them over on Instagram and Twitter 

......

My friend and fellow performance-art weirdo Alisa Tanaka-King was preparing a show about DUMPLINGS for Melbourne Fringe Festival... and now it's moved online because of COVID situation.

The GOOD NEWS is that that means everyone can watch it, wherever you are in the world!!

You can get tickets here, and it even comes with recipes to make your own dumplings.

FOOD PERFORMANCE ART.

GO SEE.

......

AND INTRODUCING....

THE PATRON COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD!!

As I said up top, we KNOW how creative this community is, and so we're trying something new... every month we're gonna share a handful of community announcements, new, promotions, fundraisers, etc. 

Feel free to send things over to patronhelp@amandapalmer.net (and please remember we won't be able to share EVERYTHING that's sent, so please be understanding!!)

For this month:

We've mentioned this in the past, but beloved patron Angel Rosen (who you may recognise from the poetry webcast linked above) is putting together A POETRY ANTHOLOGY CREATED BY PATRONS!!

Here's some words from her about the project, and how YOU can get involved:

I'm accepting poetry submissions for a patron collaborative poetry anthology. We've extended the deadline to December 1, 2021, so that absolutely everyone can submit! You can find out more information here:

http://poetryclubafp.wordpress.com

Poetry of any style, quality, length and language is welcome.  There are currently just under 100 submissions. I will also be looking to get a team together to help sort, proofread, organize and format. You can find me on Twitter at @axiopoeticus or by email at poetryclubafp@gmail.com if you have questions or want to help!

......

One of my patrons, MJ Fraser, has written an self-published a novel, titled "The Hunt"...

Forced to run. Hunted like animals. By humans, the unrelenting enemy of vampires.

17-year-old Alesco has known nothing else. Hiding, always moving from place to place, never safe. It wasn't always so.

Vampires and humans lived in harmony. Until The Hunt.

Now, 100 years later, things are starting to change.

Can Alesco and her family avoid capture? Who is the Master, Father of the vampires? And how does a simple action by one human hunter set the course for change?

MJ also has a Patreon you can check out here.

......

Patron Gianluca Ficca is part of a band called Dana Plato, who have just released their debut album "Wrong Quotes"

The album is out on Bandcamp and streaming on Spotify, so....GO GO GO.

ENJOY.

......

ART BEGETTING ART.....

And this is where we like to share some of the gorgeous AFP-inspired art that comes out way through the internet....

Emailed in by Steven Wind (@stevenrobertwind on Instagram)

......

A gorgeous new acrylic painting by Joni Augustine....

Based on this photo I shared a few weeks back, when Level 4 lockdown first hit....

......

This gorgeous piece was sent in by Sorina Tomuletiu (@tom_instigator on Instagram, or www.sorinatomuletiu.ro/en), and she included this message:

This is an ink rendition that I've done last year during lockdown using one of Gabrielle Motola’s photos as reference. I found it in the first part of the Medium article about the AFP tour. Cross-hatching can be so damn rewarding and relaxing…

A thing that stuck with me after seeing the There will be no intermission show was how Amanda defined the artist’s job: “go into the dark and make light”. I find this photo perfectly illustrated that.

Gabrielle Motola, the photographer who toured with me, also has her own patreon, and she makes delicious offerings of photographs and words, in the vein of Humans of New York. You can support her HERE.

......

And, finally, this doodle was posted on the Shadowbox by Chrissy Carlson, inspired by the COUCH OF TRUTH web series I put out over the last couple of months....funded, yes, by you the patrons:

......

Don't forget - if you make any art, SHARE IT WITH US!! You can tag me @amandapalmer on any socials, or share over on the Shadowbox, or email it to art@amandapalmer.net

We love seeing it alllllll.

......

That's pretty much it, folks.

And lastly....here's the text of the poem I read in the video.

KINDNESS

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and

purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

it is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you every where

like a shadow or a friend.

............

You are the shadow, my loves.

You are the friend.

That's all for now.

Thank you for your patronage.

It's everything.

Thank you for having my back.

xxx

AFP

------THE STUFF I SAY AT THE END OF EVERY POST---------

1. if you are a patron and new to my work, don’t forget your patronage allows you access to ALL of my patreon releases to date. HERE is the link to download my latest big solo record, “There Will Be No Intermission”, and HERE is a link to download the PDF of the art/essay book that goes with it.

2. if you’re a patron reading this post via an email notification, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol. that's always nice for me to see, so i know who's reading.

3. see All the Things (over 150 of them) i've made so far on patreon:

http://amandapalmer.net/things

4. JOIN THE SHADOWBOX COMMUNITY FORUM, find your people, and discuss everything: https://forum.theshadowbox.net/

5. 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/

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