a meek wave from florida (and south africa patron-only presale) (Patreon)

i'm still having a hard time. i'm sorry i haven't written in a while but i've still been in a pretty dark place, slowly recovering, and it's gonna take me another few days to emerge. it's weird, the patreon, because i still have thing-life and show-life moving along...i have shows to announce, and a podcast to put out, and a surprise cover song coming out later this month, and i have to write to you about them all and Do All The Things that i do when i put something out...put together artwork, write text explaining everything, keep the engines running and all that. but it's nice that i have such a direct line to you, because i don't gotta bullshit anybody. 

even though i'm saying "hurrah hurrah i'm coming to south africa", i'm saying it from bed. but goddamn it feels better than it used to. i remember being in the dresden dolls when i'd be in the depths of despair, and we would have whole albums coming out, or whole tours going on sale, and it was like i had three lives: The Real One Happening (hey amanda your lover just died in their sleep! you gotta deal!), The One On My Blog (where i could talk about "my friend dying", but not real talk about the lover part for fear that it would make people's lives complicated, but at least i could talk about grieving a death of a loved one) and then The Worky Promotional One (sitting down on the same day to write text saying "POLAND! THE DRESDEN DOLLS ARE COMING ON TOUR TO YOU!!!!" and mention nothing about the fact that i was between sobbing jags as i sat down to write).

i suppose that latter part of me still exists on social media. you'll notice that on facebook and twitter and so forth i won't be posting: HEY I AM IN A REALLY DARK PLACE & WOW ABOUT TO TOUR SOUTH AFRICA HOORAY, but at least here...i can. i feel, at this point, i must, because this particular portal - the patreon - has started to take shape as the place that is closest to The Real One Happening to Me.

i didn't really know the patreon was going to turn into this, that things were going to morph in this way.

i thought it was going to be a place for releasing material with constant financial support, i didn't think too hard about how my blog was going to morph into this safer, more personal place with what felt like a better, closer, conversation with all y'all. i didn't think a lot about anything, really, as usual. 

i am appreciating more than i could have imagined.

reading through all of your comments on the last post really helped me through a very rough time, and it's a constant reminder to me that the things really do come around. i haven't been creating anything, i've just been in hell, but somehow i've been floating on all of the love and goodwill that years of creating have floated to my doorstep. and it also keeps me inspired for the future to know that you're out there, reading, listening, caring, knowing that i'm going to take all of this dark and somehow, some way, transmorph it into something that will go back out into the universe in some way that might continue the conversation. i've never understood, until now, how much i need that to get through the dark. i mean, i knew. but, yeah. in the last few days i've been feeling that the floating-ring-life-saver that is the very possibility of Making Art From The Dark is what is keeping me from sinking, from drowning. and call me an egotistical artist, but having an audience for that art is the air inside said life-saver. if you weren't out there, the life-saver would be theoretical, imaginary, un-blown-up.

i promise that when i get back in action, i'll find better metaphors.

.......

so with that, greetings from sarasota, where i am waving meekly from florida, where we are visiting helen, the same helen from "a mother's confession: a song with footnotes", who survived the warsaw ghetto and made ash a blanket with her old, old, beautiful hands.

next month she will turn 100, and we won't be here to celebrate with her (not that it would have mattered, she wrote a very helenesque letter to everyone in the family telling people to not be annoying and try to make a big deal out of her 100th birthday because she was tired and it would just make all this hassle for her and it was just a number and please could people just lay off and stop with the symbolism and just visit her whenever and for cry-eye please nobody throw her a surprise party or anything idiotic like that.

so we are here to just say hello and have an ash-visit and tell her how much we love her.

every time i see her i wonder if it'll be the last time.

..........

and with THAT, i announce my south africa dates.

i came exactly three years ago for my epic house party (and it was epic) outside joburg...

and i swore i would come back. i'm coming back. neil and ash and i are going to be in cape town for the better part of february. if you're a patron in CAPE TOWN, PLEASE wave me down here in the comments and tell me where you're from, and what you do, and IF YOU WORK IN A GOOD COFFEE SHOP OR YOGA STUDIO or know about anything else that's going on in cape town...i'm keen to explore and hang out and meet and if there's enough of you in cape town i'll try to have a little patron-only coffee shop hang or park meet-up or whatever. 

while i was in joburg last time i did a huge ninja gig on a week's notice....1,000 people attended. 

photo by panchia photography 

it was a free gig, and i have no idea what kind of fans/sales/whatever i'm going to see when i hit these cities...it's always strange being me, with no album out, going to brand-new cities and putting shows on sale, not knowing what size venue to book and whether i'm going to get 200 people or 2,000. so as usual, if you're in south africa or have friends in south africa, PLEASE please spread the word about the gig.....i need you.

here's the details:

cape town
spier amphitheatre
february 17th
all ages

TICKETS:
https://online.computicket.com/web/event/amanda_palmer/1217046277/0/84852020

patron presale starts january 11th at 10am SAST time with the password justaride
public on sale starts at 10am SAST on january 12th


johannesburg
the fox junction
february 23rd
all ages

TICKETS:
https://www.ticketpros.co.za/portal/web/index.php/event/e7488402-f813-0437-206f-5a5389da236d

patron presale starts january 11th at 10am SAST time with the password justaride
public on sale starts at 10am SAST on january 12th


more soon.

reading the comments, as always.

i love you.

x

AFP 

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

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