The Art of Asking: How I learned to stop worrying and let people help
ship batches of records to our fans with handwritten thank-you postcards. The fans used my home address to order everything. They paid by personal check and we sent the CDs before the checks cleared (or didn
Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I learned to stop worrying and let people help
the early concerts were more like happenings than straight rock shows. We’d bike around town posting up flyers that read: THE DRESDEN DOLLS live THIS SATURDAY at THE MIDDLE EAST NIGHTCLUB. Doors 9 p.m. $12. ALL ARE…
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Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I learned to stop worrying and let people help
There is something about silence. One night in a candlelit restaurant in San Francisco, shortly after we got married, I asked Neil if we could just write each other notes during the whole meal. In real time, like texting, but with pens and paper. The waiter thought we were slightly strange, but by the end of the meal we’d shared a degree of intimat
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The net tightens every time I pick up my phone and check in on Twitter, every time I share my own story, every time I ask a fan how their project is coming or promote somebody’s book or tour. The net tightens when someone in the community loses her houseboat in a fire and tweets me for help, and I throw the information out to the fanbase, who go to
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The signing line is a cross between a wedding party, a photo booth, and the international arrivals terminal at the airport; a blurry collision of flash intimacies. It’s a reunion with those I haven’t met yet. There are a lot of tears and a lot of high-fiving and a lot of hugging. There’s also a lot of asking, in both directions.
Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I learned to stop worrying and let people help
SXSW music conference when Neil and Zoë Keating, my touring cellist, dragged me onto the Twitter wagon and gave me a quick lesson, showing me the little box into which you could input your 140 characters of text. I set up the account and told the fans. I twittered a few pictures. Then I dipped my toe in more experimental water, announcing that I wo
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We put a shoebox at the door of the house with a sign suggesting (but not requiring) a ten-dollar admission, and set up a bar in every kitchen, spending the rolling donation money on wine, beer, and vodka. Anybody could bring…
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Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I learned to stop worrying and let people help
People loved giving us art they’d made.
Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I learned to stop worrying and let people help
try to recall the enormity of that feeling every time I’m talking to a younger musician who summons the courage to play me their stuff. I bear in mind that I may be the only full-time musician they’ve encountered who’s ever directly said: Yes. You’re allowed to go do that. Go ahead.