Neil Gaiman is, most of the time, my favorite author, running neck and neck with Terry Pratchett, always staying just above a constantly churning scrum of damn-near-favorite authors who move up and down in the rankings as their works come out. Amanda Palmer, his wife, is a punk-cabaret-performance-artist-manic-Goth-ukelele-playing online phenomenon known for, among many other cool things, whipping up ninja-gig impromptu concerts at a moment’s notice. For either of them, a Florida appearance is by way of being a comet-sighting rarity.
Friday night I was at Bike Week in Daytona Beach, surrounded by bikers and dancers and fans of both. Saturday I was at MegaCon, delighting in thousands of costumed people, amazingly talented artists, and celebrities. Saturday afternoon I left straight from meeting Wil Wheaton to drive to Mount Dora, where I took photos of my friends in the band Just Twistin’ Hay for an Irish festival. And while they were on break I checked Twitter, where Amanda was plotting a ninja gig at the Ringling College of Art & Design in Sarasota, all the way across the state. I anguished over this for about five minutes before giving my Sunday MegaCon wristband away and texting Teresa that we were going roadtripping.
We left with plenty of time, which evaporated after we got stuck on I-4 for an hour and a half behind what we discovered later was a very bad accident. I dropped Teres off at an outlet mall per her request and caught up with Tampa-based friend Julie Kitzmiller, who had been texting me with show updates. “AP is singing now!” I arrived just as Neil was finishing reading a new story he’d just finished and hadn’t yet named. And here’s what I saw.
They were delightful. Funny and witty and perfectly as ease and so obviously in love with each other you could see it across the street. They sat in huge chairs and she sang and he read and they answered questions and laughed a lot. He told the story of his bachelor party (which I’d heard) and she talked about her hen party (which I had not). They both talked about how to avoid carpel tunnel, and how to become a writer (spoiler: Write), and whether Neil had ever wanted to be anything else (no). They shared cookies that had been brought and Amanda agreed to help one person apologize to a long-lost friend (which she did, here).
Here’s part of the Q&A:
I’ve been to a lot of concerts, big and small, and even more author readings. Most have entertained me in varying degrees. Some have completely blown me away. Some were fun but almost immediately forgotten by the time I hit the parking lot. As different as they are in style and art, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer have one major thing in common: hearing or reading or watching their work makes me want to write. It makes me want to create something. It makes me want to share my work with others the same way. They make art look so damn fun that you can’t help but want to try it. It’s peer pressure in the very best way.
And they love their fans as people, rather than fans. When they wrapped up, with her triumphant rendition of “The Ukelele Anthem” — which cannot be performed in any way but triumphantly — they remained for another 20 minutes administering hugs and posing for pics and petting a beloved rat and explaining how badly they needed to leave while still posing for more pics. Julie got a hug from Amanda after thanking her for a wonderful birthday present. She hoped for a pic with Neil but while we got within touching distance there were just too many draws on his attention. But she ended up next to them in the group shot, so there’s that.
It is worth noting that it was indeed Julie’s birthday, I haven’t seen her socially in years, possibly decades, and it wasn’t until after I sent her the heads-up about the gig that I remembered she is in fact the person who, some 30 years ago, bought me the first 10 issues of “Sandman” and forced me to read them.
At one point I saw Amanda with her hands on the face of one boy, telling him intently that he needed to contact her. I do not know the particulars, but I know that they had been working their way to the exit when she stopped cold in the middle of the swarm of people to do this, to connect hard with whatever this boy was saying to her. Neil posed for self-shots again and again and again and even as he protested their need to leave he would follow up with “OK, one quick one.” It wasn’t a case of fans holding them back; both seemed honestly reluctant to leave. This was my first Amanda Palmer ninja gig but I’ve been to Neil’s signings before and unless circumstances absolutely forbid it he always stays however long is necessary to see each person who came to see him. Neither ever seems to see a celebrity/fan relationship. More like a temporarily-first-among-equals thing.
(Also, if you get the chance to see any kind of event at an arts college, do it. The 400+ students and fans there were polite and appreciative and it seemed like half of them were sketching everything that happened. Cool art has already been produced.)
There are many pics besides mine (here and here and here) and you can see us in a few of them. In the 9th photo here I can been seen to the right of Amanda, in the blue shirt and cap. There’s a reason I usually stay behind the camera…
A long drive there and back for a short payoff, but well worth it. We reacquired Teresa — who had been trying on $300-marked-down-from-ungodly shoes at Saks and enjoying the same sort of blissful experience I had been, in her own way — and took Julie to dinner before heading home and collapsing.
Now I have a few thousand photos to go through. And a renewed urge to write something.
ADDING: Just created a Storify for the event. Check it out!
Isn’t the whole point to make fans feel like they feel like they’re people and not fans to keep them fans? I like that Teresa bailed to try on shoes from Saks – and that you let her – cute!
“Neither ever seems to see a celebrity/fan relationship. More like a temporarily-first-among-equals thing.” They are successful performers if you believe that.