Hi Boston, I’m home. What’s happening?
Hello loves,
A personal announcement so important, I even put some goddamn on lipstick for it, people.
Let’s make this official.
Hi Boston.
I’ve moved back home.
Sorry for all the vague-posting lately but it’s been a…strange summer.
After almost twenty years of non-stop travel and hotels and couch-surfing and tour busses, then living out of a suitcase in Aotearoa New Zealand for two and a half years (after getting waylaid there in 2020 when COVID hit), then living in a bit of a temporary stone hallway in Woodstock, New York, for two years…I’m finally back to home base. Safe and sound here in good ol’ puritan New England and ready to freak out the locals.
Ash just started school here (4th grade!!, if you can believe that) and he’s doing great.
I can’t tell you how good it feels to get us a membership to the Museum of Science, a library card in Lexington, to take Ash to the beach at Plum Island, and to be able to order a cake from Toscanini’s, where I worked scooping ice cream on and off for five years. To show Ash where his mom was a street performer for so many years. To get tickets to see the Red Sox at Fenway.
To feel the brick beneath my feet.
I’m home. I feel solid and safe here, and my family is here. My career started here, my band started here, my life as an artist took root here.
All my old families. My blood and my art family, my old-school queer and drag family, my science family, my poetry family.
I’m going to mother a lot, and I’m going to write a lot now that I’m finally home.
I’m excited to be talking with the MIT press about some upcoming hijinx, and I’m still an affiliate at the Berkman Klein center at Harvard…I’m looking forward to learning from everybody working over there to make the internet a better place.
I am tuning my old piano. We are ready to ride.
My longtime arts collective and house, The Cloud Club, is under construction after the sad (but beautiful) passing of its longtime art-father, Lee. We are rolling up our sleeves to protect the legacy of the buildings and the vision.
It’s hot black coffee + pumpkin muffin season and I live a five minute walk from a Dunkin so watch yourself. The song of Boston. How ah you honey I’m good how ah you.
My patreon is still the best place to stay in touch with me and to support my work and my staff. I’ll be working with Substack and you can follow my writing there if you don’t want all the extra content and constant patreon posts.
TBH, The last dozen years or so have felt a little like a dream. Not always a good dream. Sometimes a surreal nightmare. So many people died, so many confusing things happened, so many things felt uncontrollable. In the words that my sister friends Victoria and Tia got match-tattooed on their arms after their good friend died: That Was Weird.
But I am going to write my way out, and I am starting feel the tingling awakening of my old self, my true self…and a new self. All the old powers I’d forgotten about, all the joyfullness I watched slip away, it’s all re-emerging slowly in new shapes, slowly, like flowers reaching up to the sun from the cracks in the concrete. It’s fall but it’s spring.
And….you???
It’s been a second, dear hometown. What’s up? How are you?? What happened while I was gone? Anything interesting? Hahahahaha.
It looks like Man Ray has opened back up. I will goth dance. Café Pamplona is gone forever and I weep.
What else? Where is everybody going for music, eating, coffee-ing, playing, exploring? How’s Michelle Wu doing? What’s bad? What’s good?
Tell me everything.
Tell me how it’s been, tell me what I need to know, and don’t be shy. Where are my gays hanging out, where are the house parties, where do we kayak, where are my people with kiddos, my weird solo moms and dads…where is everybody LIVING NOW? What’s happening in JP? Allston? The burbs? Lowell? The cape? Where did people flee during covid? Who is living in a lighthouse and wants to invite me over for chowder and tea? So many questions.
If you see me: you know the drill. Say hi and if you need a hug, ask. I’m open for business. If I’m with my kid, use your head. I love being connected. But if I’m kissing a boo-boo or looking like a harried mom who can’t talk, gimme a second. Ash is shier than I am. Give him space. You’re my village. Have my back.
I’ve got three big shows coming up in the area: this Saturday (Sept 21) at the Acadamy of Music in Northampton (solo piano), and then Nov 1 & 2 with for a two-night stand with my band – The Dresden Dolls – at Roadrunner in Allston, with our old friends Gogol Bordello from NYC.
I’m about to announce a patron-only event/gathering/Q&A for Northampton at Iconica coffee shop for late Sunday morning the 22rd – details coming.
We are nearing sold out in Boston, there’s about a thousand tickets left. Please spread the word and help us sell em out.
Speaking of Roadrunner…in the words of our local hero Jonathan Richman:
I’m in love with Massachusetts.
Radio on.
Let’s fucking do this.
Xx
AFP
PS super gay Red Sox shirt care of Brendon
PSS All the upcoming tour dates, tickets at amandapalmer.net
SOLO:
Saturday, Sept 21st: NORTHAMPTON, MA – ACADEMY OF MUSIC
Thursday, October 17th: FAIRFIELD, CT – SACRED HEART COMMUNITY THEATRE
Saturday, October 19th: TARRYTOWN, NY – TARRYTOWN MUSIC HALL
Then….with The Dresden Dolls
Saturday October 26 & Sunday Oct 27th: WOODSTOCK, NY – BEARSVILLE THEATER
Friday November 1 & Saturday Nov 2: BOSTON, MA – ROADRUNNER