SOUNDTRACK: AMANDA PALMER: The Art of Asking (TED Talk, February 2013).
Amanda Palmer is Neil Gaiman’s wife. She was the singer in The Dresden Dolls and has a solo career. I actually don’t know that much about her music.
But I linked to this TED speech after reading Gaiman’s book.
In this talk, Palmer talks about asking for things and how it’s hard to ask, to beg., but how it makes for a real connection, especially between musicians and fans.
And she talks about crowdfunding–she’s going to give away all of her music but she’s asking for help from fans along the way.
It’s a pretty inspirational talk–how asking for things helps you connect with people. It also made me feel a lot better about Palmer, who I’d heard negative things about.
Check it out here.
[READ: June 5, 2013] Make Good Art
As with David Foster Wallace’s This is Water, this book is a short speech padded out to 80 some pages. The difference is that while This is Water is a rather boring-looking book, this title was designed by Chip Kidd, fabulous designer extraordinaire. So every page looks interesting. It’s not so much illustration as design—with shapes and text twirling and twisting upside down and what have you.
As with most inspirational works, this book is indeed inspirational. But it is especially so if you are an artist or an aspiring artist. Because this speech was given to the graduating class of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts in May 2012. You can watch the whole speech here as well. http://vimeo.com/42372767
Gaiman explains how he never went to college and never even really had a career, he just had a list of things that he wanted to do: write an adult novel, a children’s novel, a comic, a movie record an audiobook, write an episode of Doctor Who. And how he set about achieving these things is pretty great.
So some advice from Gaiman:
1. It’s better not to know the rules so that you’re not afraid to go beyond them. If you don’t know something is impossible, it’s easier to do. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 