"You Never Screamed?", the piece I just published on Substack. (Patreon)

Hallo loves.

This is a patron-only post. 

That means it's a safe place to comment. (I will 100% not flip this post public at a later date). If you want to chat here, share a story, or find a helping hand from a fellow patron, we're here.

I come with an unexpected offering today, and those are, to me, always the best kind.

I just - moments ago - published a piece on Substack called:

You can read it here, it's free to the public. 

https://amandapalmer.substack.com/p/you-never-screamed

.......

Please, as usual, if you wanna follow me over on Substack, do. (For the time being, I'll always cross-post everything over here, and with more of a backstory about how the sausgae got made). 

You may have seen the post here where I toy with changing the branding/name of the Substack; that's still in the works.

.......

A little about the piece.

A few days ago (May 4th), this letter to the editor was published in The New York Times. It was called:

I read it in bed. It was late, Ash had gone to sleep.

I thought I was just going to catch up with the latest on American Politics n Stuff.

Oh, fuck, man. I was so short of breath and YES, YES, YES when I read it that I dashed off my own screed to instagram along the same lines. 

The post blew up (it currently has a long novel's worth of comments - over 1,000 at last count - and I did what I often do, against my better judgement at 10pm.

I started reading them. Every comment.

And then I started crying, and shaking my little fist at the world, and wanting to hug every fucking person in those comments: not just the survivors but those bearing witness, and those offering hugs, and the whole thing was just one of those sad but beautiful moments on the internet where you remember that it can actually be a nice place where people are nice to one another. And that the internet - and the way we can write and share on it - can open up field of light and truth along with the dungeons of swampy darkness. 

So instead of doing what I'd been planning on doing, which was to wait a moment and cut and paste my thoughts here to patreon, then to facebook, and so on, I decided to take a deep breath, make myself wait (can you wait ONE fuckign day to share something you've written and feel passionately about, Amanda? Apparently - I CAN!) and sent it along to my editor/copy-editor, and decided to give it a real stab as a full piece on Substack.

This means that more people can read it, more people can share it, and instead of letting it die an instant death on social media, it now counts as Real Writing.

This is the video I did for the $5 subscribers over on substack as well, and as usual, I used the video reading to do my final-final editing pass. I always catch things when I read/perform aloud that just cannot get caught when I'm reading in my head, or even aloud to myself. I need a crowd to keep me honest.

So....I hope you read it, and I hope it resonates.

I posted it to social media as well.

To facebook here, and to twitter here, and I'll put it up on Instagram tomorrow.

I hope that if you read it, you share it, in whatever way makes sense.

This one is MADE to be shared.

Share it for the one person out there who might need it. 

Share it for the one person out there who might share it with the one person who might need it. 

Share it to fight the loneliness.

I love you all so much.

A reminder: you are truly NOT alone.

RAINN is the U.S.’s national sexual assault hotline. It’s free and confidential and 24/7. 

For the rest of the world, RAINN has a list here: https://www.rainn.org/international-sexual-assault-resources.

You may notice I riffed on (ripped off?) the NYtimes graphic for my piece. I thought that was actually kind of neat. One story leading to another - in a slightly different font. ( Left: mine, notsofancy; Right: NYtimes all fancy;)

This is the thing.

This is how it works.

All of these stories  - collected and seen - make a far more powerful scream then one person can ever make.

Please scream along.

In solidarity (and screaming....screamidarity?)

AFP

———THE STUFF I PASTE AT THE END OF THE 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 200 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. are you 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

2023 Tour Dates:

***THE DRESDEN DOLLS***

May 19th, 20th, & 21st - Denver, CO - Ophelia's Electric Soapbox *SOLD OUT*

May 26th, 27th, & 28th - Santa Fe, NM - Meow Wolf *SOLD OUT*

June 16th, 17th, & 18th - Orlando, FL - The Social *SOLD OUT*

June 23rd, 24th, & 25th - New Orleans, LA - Toulouse Theatre *SOLD OUT*

There is a waitling list for tickets. All links at: https://amandapalmer.net/events/