HAPPY FRIDAY NIGHT…WELCOME NEW PATRONS, + BOSTON/HARVARD: a (free! all ages!) talk about A.I. THIS MONDAY
Hello loves.
Happy Friday night. What a shit week! I am so sad! I am so happy!
GO TO THE CHAT or feel free to CHAT HERE IN THE COMMENTS! Make a friend! Answer and hug a stranger! BE. IN. COMMUNITY.
I did some polls on the socials about who in America is thinking about leaving the country. It’s a wild world right now. If you missed this incredible VIDEO of the breakdown in New Zealand parliament, GO WATCH IT: https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/15/world/video/new-zealand-parliament-haka-ldn-digvid
If you needed another reason to love New Zealand….here. This is on the south island. I’m homesick.
I’ve spent the day on the phone and cleaning my goddamn house and I’m about to head over to a dinner at Harvard with some weirdo academics from MIT. I have really, really missed living here in Boston in the world of the queers and cold fusion researchers.
AND I AM GOING TO CELEBRATE BECAUSE…..jesus mary and yaysef!: ALMOST 1,000 NEW PATRONS HAVE JOINED UP in the last week or so.
SO! WELCOME!!! WELCOME!! TO YOU, NEW PATRONS!!!!: It goes fast here, and I don’t edit carefully. Lifelong art-habit.
Sorry if this is a little bit of a nerdy for the newbs….but just try to follow along.
A few housekeeping notes:
There was already a lot happening, and the election has thrown eveyrhting into a fucking blender.
I’m coming at you with a lot of posts, I know…but you can always ignore the firehose of content.
This isn’t social media. Ok? It works differently.
Patreon is a SMALL (and growing) company I have known personally and been working with since 2014.
I chose to bring my community here to hang, discuss, exchange information, art, money, ideas and what have you FOR A REASON.
I did not want to do my work in the corporate world of social media and Meta-google-youtube-etc-etc. I knew and liked and trusted the CEO, Jack Conte. I still talk with him on the phone to figure out how to run this ship with integrity.,
THE WAY THE INTERNET WORKS IS NOT FUCKING RANDOM. WE HAVE CHOICES ABOUT HOW AND WHERE WE PUT OUR WORDS, OUR THOUGHTS, OUR IDEAS, OUR ART.
This isn’t AI, FYI. This is, errrr, me, writing my own posts.
I have been blogging since fucking 2000. I’ve been writing my heart into the internet for 24 years. Suck it, AI. I have a lot of thoughts about you.
Quick for the newbs: Once a month, usually right at the end, we have the monthly “Althing” which is sort of our community newsletter and my monthly summary/report on all things work, life, AFP, Dresden Dolls and so forth.
We are always making this up as we go along!
THE CHAT IS CURRENTLY STARTING TO GET GOOD!!!!
ALL PATRONS: WE have started a check-in for all patrons at around 8am and 8pm EST in the FOREVER CHATLANDIA chat.
THE CHATS ARE OPEN 24/7/365, OBVIOUSLY, BUT
Anytime I make a post here is a good time to head over to the chat. Just take my posts and a little signal to head overt to the chats and find one another and say hi. You can ALWAYS head over to the chat. We are currently trying to figure out whether starting a discord at this point also makes sense. I am vey, very, keen to get you all off facebook. I don’t think it’s a safe a sturdy place to keep the community. I won’t stop you from using it, it’s a great tool for the moment. But please….also get ready to swim to new discussions shores as the internet continues to collapse, ok?
$10+ PATRONS: We had a poetic romp on the web chat yesterday (which is archived HERE, go listen/watch if you wanna) I renamed the $10 chat yesterday. It’s now nicknamed The Fresnel (pronounced….well, you gotta go look it up).
The chat looks like THIS on your desktop….go to the little “community” tab and VOILA:
The chat looks like THIS on your mobile app:
GO! GO! CHAT CHAT CHAT!!!!
And remember: we can use any tools we want.
If we decide that Discord is a better way to chat, or we decide to all port back over to the shadowbox forum, which is the forum the dolls (and I) have been using since, my god, 2003?…WE CAN DO WHAT WE WANT. WE ARE in “FIGURING OUT” era….espeically as facebook slides into the ocean.
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A NOTE ABOUT HOW I CHARGE FOR THINGS AND HOW THAT IS GOING TO MORPH AND CHANGE….
I have been talking about this for EONS, it seems, but the way I am going to “charge” you is heading – inevitably – to a monthly subscription. Tech reason, mostly, but also, I think there’s a singularity hitting: the old-timey patrons here realize that I have been running myself unnecessarily crazy trying to perform time-constrained productivity. I don’t work well “producing content” on a TIDY SCHEDULE that means that I can release 3-4 pieces of “content” a month.
I like to think that, at this point, I’ve earned your nebulous trust, and that you can trust that
1) you’re gonna give me some amount of money per month and
2) I’m going to use it to live, eat, pay rent, make work, and pay the staff.
This has sort of been happening ANYWAY with the intrduction of the monthly Althing/newsletter (which isn’t a pice of “content”) and my occasional “I just need to pay the bills so fuck it”-charging of certain pieces of content or writing for which I wouldn’t have usually, in the old days, pressed the button.
If your eyes are blurring and this is sounding confusing, I’ll summarize:
Instead of charging you per piece of content, I’ll be porting over to a monthly system. This won’t happen without PLENTY of warning and posts, and in the weeks/months to come, I’ll be asking YOU, my patrons, for A LOT OF INPUT AND FEEDBACK! I have one of the biggest music patrons in existence. YOU ARE WHY. I want you all to be a part of this.
………….
Think with me, okay?
You’re all smart.
……
MEANWHILE:
As we grapple with this insanity, I am doing a talk with national bestseller Dr. Joy Buolamwini AND my friend Evan Greer, trans activist and musician and fighter from Fight For The Future.
THE EVENT IS FREE AND ALL AGES! COME! And spread the word.
THIS MONDAY, Nov 18th @ 7pm
HARVARD BOOKSTORE
1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge
This is Joy’s book, “UNMASKING AI: MY MISSION TO PROTECT WHAT IS HUMAN IN A WORLD OF MACHINES” which we we’ll be discussing IN DEPTH:
You can read more and order it HERE:
I’ll be digging into it deeper over the weekend, and believe me, I HAVE TONS OF FUCKING THOUGHTS.
I’ll write a wrap-up here for the patrons, and I’ll post a film anad trasncript, AND it’ll also be STREAMING ON NPR: I’ll get you all the links on Monday when they come in.
……….
PROJECTS COMING OUT ASAP:
My talk with bestselling author Leslie Jamison is FINALLY going to be relased. We had to clean it up a little bit. Expect that over the weekend! YAY.
The Drag Queen Jesus art-card project should be ready EARLY NEXT WEEK!
THE “DEATH THING” VIDEO IS COMING….
BOSTON: I am hoping to do a livecast (with audience) on December 9th!! Also save December 13th: I’ll be doing a talk at the MIT MUSEUM with a very very exciting guest!!!
Phew.
Have a good weekend all…I’ll be back tomorrow.
I LOVE THE SHIT OUT OF ALL OF YOU!!!!
Thank you for being my patrons.
HANG IN THERE.
xxx
AFP