The State of All Things: February 2022 (Patreon)

HELLO MY LOVES!

Welcome to The Althing/Newsletter for February.....the video above should be playable embedded, let us know if it doesn't work. It's LIVE FROM THE VEG GARDEN. Cue ironic "In My Mind" lyrics, for those who are laughing at me. I'm reading ALL the comments until this line is deleted, so talk to me. Tell me how you're doing, respond to the post, etc etc. I'm HERE.

CONTENTS OF THIS ALTHING:

• GENERAL WTF-STILL-THIS-IS-MY-LIFE-IN-AOTEOROA UPDATE
• WHAT'S HAPPENED THIS MONTH...
• ROUNDUP OF PROJECTS RELEASED IN JANUARY...
• WHAT'S COMING DOWN THE PIKE...OR NOT....
• 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...links links links
• ART BEGETTING ART - a selection of gorgeous art from around the internets, inspired by my work....
• THE PATRON COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD - news, arts and askings from YOU, the members of this beautiful little community....

And here we go.

GENERAL LIFE-IN-AOTEOROA UPDATE

I'll chat more deeply in the video, where it's easier than typing, but upshot: I AM STILL HERE. 

Yep. 

Still here in Aotearoa New Zealand, still living in my rental house that you're all paying the rent for, still wondering how this world works. I've spent a lot of time in this last week posting things about the situation in Ukraine on twitter, IG and facebook, and I'm going to write a longer post here, soon. This world. Man.

MEanwhile, TA DA!!!! Covid is HERE IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND. Hai Covid. After all this time, Omicron cases are besieging the island I live on, but almost everyone here is vaxxed and double-boosted. Still, my friends are dropping like flies. Not hospital sick, but bed-sick.

I thought I had a few moments of rest (Neil has taken Ash for a spell!! My Ask Amanda deadlines are now over!) but I will not rest too much, I will take soup and tea and coffees and newspapers and toilet paper and stuff to all my friends on the island who are now housebound. It is NICE. It is nice to finally have a little bit of time to be of service to my pals, espeically after feeling like I've been on the receiving end of so much kindness in this country, on this island. I put out a post on social media asking what people are cooking for their Covid friends, and I got hundreds of suggestions. Here are some of the things I've made...including a nice garden-porn shot from my kiwi back yard:

FOOOODS.

So, wow. I don't have Covid....YET. But I've been exposed, so I am laying low. I took a rapid test on Friday and came out negative, but I have a feeling I may have hung with someone with Covid on Friday. So....I'm gonna test again on Wednesday (tomrorow). WISH ME LUCK! If I have Covid, it's not a terrible time to deal with it. I'm in a not-too-crazy place in life. Come waht may, come what may....

It's going to be a month of ease, I hope.

I feel, for the first time in ages, that I am not under the gun of time and pain.

I have the SURFACE PRESSURE (Disney/Encanto/Lin-Manuel Miranda coming out - I just listened to mixes, it's SO GOOD - and that's very very very exciting...more on that below. 

And there's "ASK AMANDA" to ponder the future of...and lots and lots of things to catch up on, catch YOU up on, and ASK YOU. So be ready for a lot of polls and asking and tweaking this month. SHE IS BACK AT HER DESK, PEOPLE, and she's on fire.

I'm also on day three of a fast. YES. Fasting. What it sounds like. If you want to know more, it's one of the things I'd love to share with you all as one of my favorite new health routines, and I'm falling in love with it the way I feel passionately in love with cold-water swimming and ice baths a few years ago. IT FEELS VERY GOOD. And I am more clear-headed, and happier. I've been toying with the idea of doing a whole month (or a couple months?) of focus on physical and mental health and wellness here on the patreon...if it's something y'all would be interested in. Tell me in the comments.

OKAY HERE WE GO YO.....

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WHAT'S HAPPENED THIS MONTH

FOUR ASK AMANDA LETTERS ON SUBSTACK!

As you'll know if you've followed me for a while, I have ALWAYS wanted to write an advice column, and now FINALLY, IT LIVES. Substack invited me to be their "Writer in Residency" for the month of Feburary and I charged in and decided to use the invite to gear up the advice column of my dreams. I hired an illustrator (Sarah Beetson) and got to know a really good copyeditor who worked through every piece with me. IT WAS WONDERFUL and also took a lot more time than I thought. I figured it would be n easy gig and take me 2-4 hours a week. Very very wrong, Amanda. It wound up taking closer to 10-20. In order to be GOOD.

If you've missed it ALLL:

You can read my introductory post here... 

And here is the first letter I answered:

"I'm 39 and dying of cancer. How do I help the love of my life?" 

It's a long and beautiful piece, and I'm really proud of it. It would mean so much for me if you go over and read it, and COMMENT. I've been loving the comment section so much. This is why I made it.

The second article is titled "Envy and Survival in the Time of COVID" and you can read that one here 

This piece was a little different - instead of one BIG letter, I tackled a few letters that were all tied together under the theme of... well, living during the pandemic, how we're dealing, how others are dealing, how we deal WITH others dealing.

Number three was called "How do I Overcome The Sadness of a Lost Friendship"...and boy was it a good one....it's here:

.....and number four is just coming out now and I'm going to write a separate patreon post about it, but if you're like I CANNOT WAIT, it's here. 

Now I'm gonna take an Ask Amanda break.

You can still subscribe to the newsletter for FREE while I figure out what I'm doing. 

Part of the Substack "deal" is that you gotta basically have a paid tier too, otherwise you're freeloading. There's just one tier on Ask amanda, which is $5 per month. All those supporters got video clips of me reading hte post and adding extra commentary...and they've been fun (and time-consuming, and tearful)....

But anyway: hold your thoughts on this one because I'll do a dedicated poll and post about this coming up.

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THE ROUNDUP OF PROJECTS RELEASED IN JANUARY...

The first project released in January was the January State of All Things - check it out if you want to catch up with LAST MONTH'S goings-on and check-ins.

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The second project of the month was a big one...

I went into the studio here in Auckland, webcast THE ENTIRE TWO-DAY SESSION, chose, arranged, and recorded a cover as requested in the comments of the webcast. 

You can catch up with all the goodness in the official release post here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/61824556

There wound up being THREE webcasts:

Day One - playing various cover songs and deciding what the fuck I was going to do

Day Two - recording Enjoy The Silence

Day Two, Part Two (bonus cast for the nerds!!) - mixing the recording

Since a few people have asked - these webcasts will stay up FOREVER, so watch 'em at your leisure :)

We're also looking into getting them edited down into an hour or so 'best of the process' film to put on youtube.... hold the phone on that. Many people said they'd like an ECONOMICAL WATCH so they don't have to see 10+ hours of footage but can just get the "best bits". WHY NOT THING THAT, I asked. And people live on the cast said yes, so we are gonna work on that.

I loved this whole project so much. So much that.... WE'RE GONNA DO IT AGAIN. Which leads us onto

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WHAT'S COMING DOWN THE PIKE...

"SURFACE PRESSURE" RECORDING LIVE WEBCAST COVER FEATURING JHEREK BISCHOFF & THE BLACK QUARTER

Oh man.... I am so excited for this one.

Ash has been obsessed with the soundtrack to the new movie "Encanto", and to my surprise when I posted about it, it turns out TONS of people were requesting me to cover the song "Surface Pressure" (written by none other than Lin-Manuel Miranda). It all strated beacuse my pal from Hawke's Bay, made the request, and it blew up.

So...WE DID IT.

Here I am in the studio with The Black Quartet:

If you wanna get prepared, you can hear the Disney version of the song here, as sung by Jessica Darrow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQwVKr8rCYw

Jherek and I had our PRE-SESSION arrangement chat, which was ALSO webcast for all patrons, so you can check that out here.....

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/taqjhe7j

And then we had a bonus catch-up call that was also webcast, and you can find that here....

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/5obnffgm

AND HERE are the two casts from the actual recordings sessions !

THIS one is THE BIGGIE!!! It's long, 4 hours, and has the strings and piano!

and THIS one is short  (about an hour) and is just me killing it in the vocal booth.

THE WHOLE SONG, mixed and mastered, will probably come out this or next week.

We're working on it....

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I DID A THING ON TWITTER....

Twitter launched a thing called "Spaces" a few months ago - basically their answer to Clubhouse - different accounts can hop on together and SPEAK.

This guy I know through TED, Adam, hosts a regular spot where he interviews people for an hour or so, and he reached out to ask if I was interested.....

We talked a few days ago, but the conversation has been ARCHIVED, here. It's really good if you wanna podcast-y kinda thing....

https://twitter.com/BestLiveAudio/status/1493011741743226880

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MARIAAAAA....

THE UNIVERSE IN VERSE is an annual event put on by my beautiful friend Maria Popova (aka The Marginalian, formerly known as Brain Pickings).

You may remember when Neil and I collaborated on an animation made from one of the poems her wrote for a previous Universe in Verse (The Mushroom Hunters, funded by patrons, with music by my omnipresent bestie Jherek Bischoff).

So....ordinarily, artists gather to read poetry at a live event, but while we're still in pandemic-land, this year it's moving ONLINE, with ANIMATED POETRY.

The poems are being released periodically, you can keep up with it here (and of course I'll give you a heads up when my poem - which is a SURPRISE, and will probably also be THINGED here - is coming up):

https://www.themarginalian.org/the-universe-in-verse/

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THE GREAT SPOTIFY DEBATE

(photo by Lester Cohen/WireImage)

Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are removing their music from Spotify because of their ties with Joe Rogan (read more about it here). Brene Brown decided to keep her podcast there. It's all really interesting.I generally stick to Bandcamp and send traffic there, anyway. What do you use to listen to music? Tell me. Tidal? Apple Music? If I left Spotify, would you be grumpy? I've seen lots of feedback about this on social media but am curious about y'all patrons take.

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DISPATCHES FROM THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLES OF TEAM AFP...

From Merch Queen and Patreon Queen Alex...

Hello hello, patrons.

What a fucking world, and what a time. For the last few days I've been fluctuating up and down. I can only imagine what it's like for people in worse affected countries right now... all I can do is send my love, and my hope that more peaceful times are on the horizon. 

But in the meantime...... on the merch front, things have been pretty quiet, but we ARE now in the final stages of the next Art In The Mail planning. If you're in the Art In The Mail tier ($25 and up) you'll remember we sent out these images a couple months ago, and now they are FINALLY going ahead...

STAINED GLASS ART.

These are gonna be 12 inch square stickers, which is very exciting. If you're not in the Art In The Mail tier, there's still time to sign up, we should be sending out the opt-in form for these in the next week or so.

And other than that, in personal news, my big accomplishment is that last year I decided to knit a temperature blanket, and finally at the end of January this year I caught up and finished it.

A temperature blanket is made up of one row per day, and it's coloured according to the daily temperature (so starting at 0 degrees in white, then into icy blues, and greens, up to yellows and oranges for the hot days)

It turns out a blanket of 365 rows is...... quite big.

Here it is in all its beautiful glory:

And that'll do for this month I think.

Take care of yourselves, everyone. And take of everyone else, where you can.

-Alex

xox

{I AM SO PROUD OF THIS BLANKET, QUEEN! I've been watching it incubate for the longest time. - AFP}

......

Jordan (my Sydneysider manager) and Michael (my faithful assistant in Brooklyn, even after all this time) are both doing fine and didn't have anything to add this month...I think we can assume that everyone is just Fried As, as the kiwis would say. I'll poke them to try to include something next month.

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HOW THE PATREON BIZ IS DOING

As of this writing there are about 12,000 patrons pledging about $39,000 for the first Thing each month.

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NEWCOMERS: you are welcome to (and encouraged to) CAP YOUR PLEDGE! PLEASE.

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.

In December, I Thanged TWO Things:

The Emergency Soothing Piano improv webcast, which earned about $44,863 from 12,119 patrons.

The State of All Things: December 2021, which earned about $18,369 from 6,681 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.

And remember: these numbers 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.

These numbers also do not reflect the money I SPENT MAKING THE ART, paying my staff, 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.

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OTHER ARTISTS TO SUPPORT...

Since I'm in a substack-y mood this month, I figured I'd also offer some CONGRATULATIONS and WELCOME TO THE TEAM to a couple of other people I'm super excited to see just joined up to Substack...

NICK OFFERMAN - how can you not love him - has just launched his newsletter "Donkey Thoughts", which will be coming out twice a week:

https://nickofferman.substack.com/ 

Super funny, super compassionate, I just love him. He writes and records little stories and .....thoughts.

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TEGAN AND SARA, my old indie rock pals, joined Substack a little while ago, after leaving their management, and leaving their record label. In their own words:

This newsletter, I Think We’re Alone Now, will be a place for us to document our progress; an artifact as we rebuild. We’ll do our best to share the most authentic of our communication and collaboration, using voice notes, annotations of lyrics, personal essays, video conversations, and unreleased music.

https://teganandsara.substack.com 

I've been loving watching what they write.

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PATRICK Q. WRIGHT, who many of you will recognize as the amazingly talented and top-hatted violinist who joined me and Edward Ka-Spel on our "I Can Spin A Rainbow" tour a few years back, has just released a new CD...

AND if you get the physical CD, it also comes with a bonus DVD with ALL THE TOUR FOOTAGE, including backstage stuff and interviews with fans and all the good stuff.

Go get it here:

https://patrickq.bandcamp.com/merch/asylum-relapse-cd-dvd-of-behind-the-scenes-on-tour-with-amanda-palmer-out-now

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ART BEGETTING ART!

This was shared on the shadowbox (and I also noticed it tweeted) by patron Robyn Lees...

This one is from @theartistwade on instagram...

and finally, some MACHETE TATTOO ART from @acyjonestattoo on instagram...

(and if you're into that sort of thing, there's a bonus TATTOO PROGRESS VIDEO here (don't worry, it's just drawing the design, no needles :))

https://www.instagram.com/p/CY927anJSaM/

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THE PATRON COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD!!

One of my most beloved patrons, Thomas Herlofsen, has just released a book of poetry - the English translation is available to download free here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G1DF56FkF643SiMRqsFbvq4ca6hCcC-u/view

(including a poem inspired by a lady called Amanda, WHO COULD THAT BE)

I'm so proud of you, Thomas.....

thank you for sharing this with us.

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Don't forget - if you have anything you want to post to our bulletin board - be it an ask, a request, an advertisement, anything at all, send it over to patronhelp@amandapalmer.net !!

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Last But Not Least....here's the poem I read you in the video...from "The House of Belonging" by David Whyte. And massive thanks to Bijan for sending it to me. 

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

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