Once upon a time last Saturday, two members of the Library staff attended the Boston Book Festival in order to witness the keynote address provided by Amanda Palmer in conversation with Neil Gaiman.   The talk was primarily focused around the paperback release of Palmer’s book The Art of Asking, which is hereby highly recommended, and was followed quickly by the news that the audiobook (read by Palmer, as well) was nominated for a Grammy in the Spoken Word Category.

 It has taken a week for both attendees to overcome their gleeful, emotional reaction to the event and assemble their thoughts in (somewhat) rational fashion.  For those of you who would like to see the interview, and understand what we are going on about, here is the link to the Patreon site: http://www.patreon.com/posts/3646070

So, without further ado, here are our thoughts regarding Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman, and the brilliant event they created for us all.  In the course of their adventures, our correspondents decided to adopt literary pseudonyms, because it sounded quite fun.  If you get the reference, you probably shouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.

The crowd:

Lady Pole: The crowd was somewhat surprising. As a somewhat regular Boston theatergoer, I know that Boston crowds tend to be pretty reserved, but considering Amanda Palmer is a little less mainstream, I expected a bit of a more active crowd. Everyone was so well-behaved! As the moderator said, they were all really attune to social cues.  You could have heard a pin drop! I found this astounding even for such a bookish crowd. There wasn’t any low murmur or people talking amongst themselves. Clearly they were all rapt with attention (as I was, so maybe it’s not so surprising?)

Arabella:  I’ve haunted the Boston Book Festival for years, in part because it’s one of the few ‘big, social, crowded’ events I can attend without wanted to curl up in the corner and hum quietly to myself.  The BBF seem to be somewhat unique, in so far as it tends to attract introverts and The Bookish.  Thus, when people do talk to each other, they tend to be around a bookcart, and are apologizing for trodding on people’s toes, commenting on how much the enjoyed the book that another person is holding, or asking if this seat it taken.  Otherwise, it’s kind of like a library, in the sense that everyone is there for the books and stuff.  So I was right at home nestling in amongst the bookish.

Amanda Palmer:

Lady Pole: I feel badly saying that I was surprised at how incredibly articulate she is, but I was. I knew she was impressive and artistic, but initial impressions of her nontraditional artistic path somewhat belies her depth. She’s thoughtful and engaging and I was extremely impressed by how seriously she took the audience members’ questions. Clearly the PR aspect of this event worked on me because I immediately borrowed the audiobook version of “The Art of Asking” from the South. I’m genuinely excited to hear what she has to say in the book after hearing her talk about it at the BBF.

Arabella: I, too, knew very little about Amanda Palmer beyond the cursory, and was genuinely awed by her coherency and thoughtfulness, and especially how honest she was in front of a crowd of strangers.  Not the kind of “here are my intestines” honest, but a “here is my soul” honesty that was as inspiring as it was touching.  I usually come away from these events going “man, I wish one day I could do something half as cool as those people”.  After hearing Amanda Palmer encourage everyone to create something and to take risks because life is just too short not to, I came out thinking “I have to go do something wonderful now!”

Neil Gaiman:

Lady Pole: I could gush excessively as to how delightfully charming and British he is, but then I run the risk of being completely fan-girlish. Instead, I’ll talk about how he is clearly a seasoned professional at this book-tour thing. He kept everything running smoothly and on-schedule but still casual, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to segue into audience questions.

Arabella: I will admit to having very similar thoughts upon seeing Neil Gaiman walk on to the stage as I did the first time I saw Stephen King in person: “Holy cow, he’s real!”  Once I was able to overcome this, I was also really impressed with how incisive his questions were; he stated early on that he knew the book nearly as well as Amanda, which could have made question-asking difficult, but instead, it allowed them both to get right to the heart of the book as quickly, and yet as sympathetically as possible.

The chemistry:

Lady Pole: I think my favorite part of the whole night (aside from the song) was the chemistry that Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer have together. They are clearly very much in love, but there’s an air of mutual respect that’s almost palpable. They’re attentive when the other speaks. It’s nice to see such engagement that seems to be equal on both sides.

Arabella: I couldn’t agree more.  The only thing I can add here is that when they brought their surprise guest (Maria Popova of Brain Pickings), to discuss her Afterward to the paperback, which is a tribute to love and the uniqueness of not having to ask, once you’ve found Your Person, both Neil and Amanda reached for the other’s hand.  Which just made my heart happy.

The song:

 

Lady Pole: Holy cow, the song! I’ll be honest, Amanda Palmer doesn’t have the best voice I’ve ever heard, but I don’t think that’s the point. I think she went into music because she had something to say and felt that was the best way she could get her message across. And the message in the song she sang was beautiful. She sang about self-doubt and acceptance and in her vulnerability it didn’t matter whether the notes were perfectly in-tune. I found the official video of the song on YouTube and it was still good, but the live version still gets me a little misty.

Arabella: Yup.