For those who care/kept track/etc
Jun. 4th, 2009 08:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwritesGoing to see Neil Gaiman/Amanda Palmer last night was great fun. My only complaints were these:
a) the show started thirty minutes late and I have a punctuality fetish. I do not believe in wasting moments of anyone's life unless you have to. And since the main attraction was already there at the book store, there was no reason to start at 8:32 as opposed to the advertised 8:00 starting time. If this were a college class, I would have been within my rights to leave.
b) we weren't informed that the venue was, aside from the special tickets for the "tables", standing room only.
Now, the standing room only thing isn't a problem for me or the Boy, but we saw a lady with a cane with one of the staff of the bookstore trying to find a place to sit down and see the show, and she obviously hadn't bought one of the special tickets that accorded you a plastic chair and a table with the rough circumference of Lindsey Lohan's waistline, which is to say: very tiny.
That's one of those little ablist things that gets on my nerves, especially since it's so easy to take care of. If you can't provide for chairs for everyone - and this place could have had a little more seating - at least tell people this fact so they can make decisions accordingly. I don't know if the staff was able to accommodate the lady (I'm sure they were), but I'm sure she might have tried to buy a seated ticket or maybe phoned ahead to ask for an extra chair to be put out if they'd told people it was standing room only.
When you're not entirely able bodied, such information as "is there a bathroom" or "are there places to sit" or "is there enough room for a wheelchair" become much more important. Also, if you're pregnant or elderly, these questions become more important. Especially the bathroom one.
c) Someone brought their baby and it cried to beat the band. Eventually they left. I get annoyed at this not only because a crying baby makes it hard to hear and is annoying - but because the baby is crying because it's distressed. It's obviously very unhappy (maybe even scared or in a bit of discomfort) because the place is loud, filled with people, way too warm, there's clapping and loud music and wolf whistling and shouting. Why would you do that to your poor kid? Especially when the show runs from 8:00-10:00. I'm no parenting expert, but I think at that hour, your child would prefer being in their nice, quiet, comfy crib. Away from the sweaty, noisy, loud mass of strangers. I mean, hell, by the time we got home at ten past eleven, I was more than ready to crawl into my nice quiet bed and would have started crying if someone had dragged me out to a concert, too!
So, yeah, don't do that to your kids.
But anyway, besides these things (which were pretty minor as things go)...
Other than that the show was a lot of fun. Neil read mainly from Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, which is a book about ways in which Amanda Palmer is killed and features a lot of photography of her dead. And much of it is naked photography. He also read a short story called "Feminine Endings" about a living statue who falls in love.
Although, just to clarify. It's not a magical living statue that comes to life. Apparently there are people who's profession it is to go out and stand very still and pretend to be statues for money. I didn't know that such people existed, so the short story was a little confusing to me until Amanda Palmer explained that she'd been such a statue before. So after that, it made a bit more sense. I've never seen a living statue. I wonder how you become one, if you have to go through a company that hires them or if you need a permit. Maybe you have to interview for being a statue?
Either way, it was a good story, but not in any of his collections yet. We all got a kick out of it. Neil Gaiman's talents as a voice actor and reader get underestimated, I think. I hope one day he'll do the voice for something animated, because I think he'd be really great at it.
Amanda did four or five songs, and I thought that they were fair to middling. She did one on the ukulele, and from where I was standing on the second floor (well, balcony with shelves), I could see her boots and pink leggings. They were very nice boots. I thought they looked good on her. She sang a song to her old house via the ukulele. All I know about Neil is that he was wearing black (because I saw a bit of him, too, but not his face).
We got to see somebody bid 1300 for a copy of Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, which is not available, as Neil said, "anywhere on this continent". While I was boggled at how much someone was willing to pay, it all went to Housing Works, which is a community based organization that runs the bookstore and it helps the homeless of NYC who are living with HIV/AIDS. And I suppose I can understand being obnoxiously generous in the name of helping people out.
Then we learned that, apparently, Neil and Amanda have been dating for some time. I didn't know this. In fact, I had to look up whether Neil was still married (apparently he's also been separated and divorced from his wife for sometime).
This revelation about their relationship was gleaned from the Q and A session where people wrote down their questions, put them in a box, and then Neil and Amanda answered them.
I can't remember specifically what someone asked, but it pertained to them being naked in a bathtub together for a photo for the book (well, Amanda was naked. Neil was in a suit that someone who works for him had bought off of someone who was drunk because they needed a ratty old suit that could get wet and ruined. I think this was intended to be a much funnier story than it was.*) and whether they were going tell people they were going out. Amanda then said that they were going out. I'm not sure why that was important to ask, but now you know in case this somehow disrupts your travel plans or upsets your schedule.
* I did not find the story of buying clothes from a drunk person to be all that funny. Because:
a) I worry about whether the drunk person would have consented to such a thing if sober, and I don't like taking advantage of people who are under the influence, because it seems wrong to me. I don't think having an intoxicant in your system, depressing or otherwise messing with your central nervous system should make you fair game. Even if you were idiotic enough to take something you shouldn't have. Because whether he was just drunk for that one time or he was a decided alcoholic, you just took advantage of a person who was not completely in their right mind. What if that was his only suit (also 40 bucks? Not a fair price, especially since you're taking the clothes off someone's back!)? Even worse if he were an alcoholic, because then you just took advantage of someone with a sickness.
b) Isn't it sort of unhygienic to put on and wear a suit of unknown provenance, or of known and very undesirable provenance, for a long time. I mean, what if the man had been very sick?
c) The fact that there were no suits to be had in thrift stores or second hand stores is actually a little sad. Because having a suit to go interview in is a surprisingly important thing to have if you'd like to get a job. And if you're a person who is homeless or living in poverty, access to a cheap suit can be the difference between maybe getting a job to better yourself (or at least not end up on the street) or continuing to live in poverty. I think people underestimate how important having professional work clothes is to anyone who intends on making more than minimum wage. Even waitresses and waiters need to have some nice clothes, and the nicer the restaurant, the better their clothes need to be.
Why do I know this? Besides having a mother who has been a Human Resources Director for years, and has worked in HR nearly her whole professional career? I also know that after I got my internship with The Publishing Company That Shall Not Be Named, the editor who hired me confessed that a lot of candidates who had great resumes/great educations got turned away because they just didn't present themselves very nicely. They didn't dress well (or in the case of one person, hadn't washed their hair in so long it was actually noticeable both from sight and smell). She turned away a lot of candidates who came wearing khakis and polos or short skirts or even tank tops.
And while I'm sure most of the folks who interviewed for that job dressed poorly out of personal preference, maybe there were some who couldn't afford a suit, didn't own one.
So, clothes make the man. And can make the man get a job. I wonder if there's a charity in NYC that addresses this. There should be.
I guess I believe that the old adage: give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime is true but incomplete. You can teach a man to fish all you like, but if he doesn't have a boat, a net, or at least a rod and reel? Ain't nobody getting a fish supper tonight, son.
a) the show started thirty minutes late and I have a punctuality fetish. I do not believe in wasting moments of anyone's life unless you have to. And since the main attraction was already there at the book store, there was no reason to start at 8:32 as opposed to the advertised 8:00 starting time. If this were a college class, I would have been within my rights to leave.
b) we weren't informed that the venue was, aside from the special tickets for the "tables", standing room only.
Now, the standing room only thing isn't a problem for me or the Boy, but we saw a lady with a cane with one of the staff of the bookstore trying to find a place to sit down and see the show, and she obviously hadn't bought one of the special tickets that accorded you a plastic chair and a table with the rough circumference of Lindsey Lohan's waistline, which is to say: very tiny.
That's one of those little ablist things that gets on my nerves, especially since it's so easy to take care of. If you can't provide for chairs for everyone - and this place could have had a little more seating - at least tell people this fact so they can make decisions accordingly. I don't know if the staff was able to accommodate the lady (I'm sure they were), but I'm sure she might have tried to buy a seated ticket or maybe phoned ahead to ask for an extra chair to be put out if they'd told people it was standing room only.
When you're not entirely able bodied, such information as "is there a bathroom" or "are there places to sit" or "is there enough room for a wheelchair" become much more important. Also, if you're pregnant or elderly, these questions become more important. Especially the bathroom one.
c) Someone brought their baby and it cried to beat the band. Eventually they left. I get annoyed at this not only because a crying baby makes it hard to hear and is annoying - but because the baby is crying because it's distressed. It's obviously very unhappy (maybe even scared or in a bit of discomfort) because the place is loud, filled with people, way too warm, there's clapping and loud music and wolf whistling and shouting. Why would you do that to your poor kid? Especially when the show runs from 8:00-10:00. I'm no parenting expert, but I think at that hour, your child would prefer being in their nice, quiet, comfy crib. Away from the sweaty, noisy, loud mass of strangers. I mean, hell, by the time we got home at ten past eleven, I was more than ready to crawl into my nice quiet bed and would have started crying if someone had dragged me out to a concert, too!
So, yeah, don't do that to your kids.
But anyway, besides these things (which were pretty minor as things go)...
Other than that the show was a lot of fun. Neil read mainly from Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, which is a book about ways in which Amanda Palmer is killed and features a lot of photography of her dead. And much of it is naked photography. He also read a short story called "Feminine Endings" about a living statue who falls in love.
Although, just to clarify. It's not a magical living statue that comes to life. Apparently there are people who's profession it is to go out and stand very still and pretend to be statues for money. I didn't know that such people existed, so the short story was a little confusing to me until Amanda Palmer explained that she'd been such a statue before. So after that, it made a bit more sense. I've never seen a living statue. I wonder how you become one, if you have to go through a company that hires them or if you need a permit. Maybe you have to interview for being a statue?
Either way, it was a good story, but not in any of his collections yet. We all got a kick out of it. Neil Gaiman's talents as a voice actor and reader get underestimated, I think. I hope one day he'll do the voice for something animated, because I think he'd be really great at it.
Amanda did four or five songs, and I thought that they were fair to middling. She did one on the ukulele, and from where I was standing on the second floor (well, balcony with shelves), I could see her boots and pink leggings. They were very nice boots. I thought they looked good on her. She sang a song to her old house via the ukulele. All I know about Neil is that he was wearing black (because I saw a bit of him, too, but not his face).
We got to see somebody bid 1300 for a copy of Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, which is not available, as Neil said, "anywhere on this continent". While I was boggled at how much someone was willing to pay, it all went to Housing Works, which is a community based organization that runs the bookstore and it helps the homeless of NYC who are living with HIV/AIDS. And I suppose I can understand being obnoxiously generous in the name of helping people out.
Then we learned that, apparently, Neil and Amanda have been dating for some time. I didn't know this. In fact, I had to look up whether Neil was still married (apparently he's also been separated and divorced from his wife for sometime).
This revelation about their relationship was gleaned from the Q and A session where people wrote down their questions, put them in a box, and then Neil and Amanda answered them.
I can't remember specifically what someone asked, but it pertained to them being naked in a bathtub together for a photo for the book (well, Amanda was naked. Neil was in a suit that someone who works for him had bought off of someone who was drunk because they needed a ratty old suit that could get wet and ruined. I think this was intended to be a much funnier story than it was.*) and whether they were going tell people they were going out. Amanda then said that they were going out. I'm not sure why that was important to ask, but now you know in case this somehow disrupts your travel plans or upsets your schedule.
* I did not find the story of buying clothes from a drunk person to be all that funny. Because:
a) I worry about whether the drunk person would have consented to such a thing if sober, and I don't like taking advantage of people who are under the influence, because it seems wrong to me. I don't think having an intoxicant in your system, depressing or otherwise messing with your central nervous system should make you fair game. Even if you were idiotic enough to take something you shouldn't have. Because whether he was just drunk for that one time or he was a decided alcoholic, you just took advantage of a person who was not completely in their right mind. What if that was his only suit (also 40 bucks? Not a fair price, especially since you're taking the clothes off someone's back!)? Even worse if he were an alcoholic, because then you just took advantage of someone with a sickness.
b) Isn't it sort of unhygienic to put on and wear a suit of unknown provenance, or of known and very undesirable provenance, for a long time. I mean, what if the man had been very sick?
c) The fact that there were no suits to be had in thrift stores or second hand stores is actually a little sad. Because having a suit to go interview in is a surprisingly important thing to have if you'd like to get a job. And if you're a person who is homeless or living in poverty, access to a cheap suit can be the difference between maybe getting a job to better yourself (or at least not end up on the street) or continuing to live in poverty. I think people underestimate how important having professional work clothes is to anyone who intends on making more than minimum wage. Even waitresses and waiters need to have some nice clothes, and the nicer the restaurant, the better their clothes need to be.
Why do I know this? Besides having a mother who has been a Human Resources Director for years, and has worked in HR nearly her whole professional career? I also know that after I got my internship with The Publishing Company That Shall Not Be Named, the editor who hired me confessed that a lot of candidates who had great resumes/great educations got turned away because they just didn't present themselves very nicely. They didn't dress well (or in the case of one person, hadn't washed their hair in so long it was actually noticeable both from sight and smell). She turned away a lot of candidates who came wearing khakis and polos or short skirts or even tank tops.
And while I'm sure most of the folks who interviewed for that job dressed poorly out of personal preference, maybe there were some who couldn't afford a suit, didn't own one.
So, clothes make the man. And can make the man get a job. I wonder if there's a charity in NYC that addresses this. There should be.
I guess I believe that the old adage: give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime is true but incomplete. You can teach a man to fish all you like, but if he doesn't have a boat, a net, or at least a rod and reel? Ain't nobody getting a fish supper tonight, son.
