Amanda Palmer.
This name has been on my radar for years. My longtime friend Kodi has been raving about her music and her work for as long as I have been on Twitter. I kept meaning to find out who she is.. but I just never got around to it.
My journey to Amanda Palmer is a little bit convoluted.
It all started when my little brother,
TeeJay, introduced me to Doctor Who and
The Vlog Brothers. I became a huge fan of DW, and a passive observer of
Hank and
John Green. This past fall, TeeJay came into the possession of three tickets to
An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall. He gifted two of those tickets to Jesse and I for Christmas.
One of the many fabulous people included in this celebration collaboration, positivity, art, and all-around good feels, was
Neil Gaiman, a man I knew as a writer for Doctor Who.
Neil, I later learned, is both a fantastically amazing writer and Amanda Palmer's husband. Now I really needed to find out who this woman is.
So I followed
her on Twitter as well.
And then I found
her music.
And then I saw her TED Talk.
And then I was fully enraptured.
What I admire about Amanda is her honesty and the way she connects. Her tweets are conversations. Her blog entries are insights into her mind. Her music is the thoughts you won't let out for fear of judgment. But she let's it all out. She sees her fans and she loves them. She truly appreciates her fans - not in the "Thanks for making me rich" way, either. She gives and receives graciously and humbly. If more people knew had to say "please" and "thank you" the way Amanda does, the world would be a lot better off.
What do you think of Amanda's TED Talk? What do you think of her art and her following?
