Letter to Amanda Palmer

Hello Ms. Palmer,

I am a fan and really like the work you do. But to be clear I'm not a rabid fan that goes travelling around the country to see your shows or buying all of your released. I did see you in the ART production of Cabaret, and (as a fellow Lexingtonian) I did see the play you did with the theater group at the high school. Full disclosure - I also admit to loudly singing along to 'Jeep Song' as I drove up Great Blue Hill everyday to my job at the time. But besides this, I'm a fairly boring guy that spends his weekends either fixing up the house, reading books, or put-putting around on my moped. I feel that I had to make this clear so that you can understand how unusual the following was for me.


I was sleeping on my couch and had this awesome dream last night. It went on for hours, in vivid detail and surround sound. My brain had decided to put on a musical, akin to 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch', or that puppet musical in that movie 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'. It was the story of a struggling dancer making her way in the gritty world of 1970's New York City, but it was also the story of the falling star of a former dancer and producer, and the decay of the city in general. There were definitely Chevy Novas on the roads. You did this amazing song about the 'shit you gotta deal with to make it in this business', while holding auditions in a 3rd floor office with slimy black mold growing on the walls of the hallway (I confirmed this by touching said mold). This story had everything: it had drama, it had suspense, it had sad songs and happy songs and songs about people being cogs in a great machine. It even had a murder mystery when one of the other dancers was murdered by WHO??


I woke up with that fantastic feeling you get when walking out of a really nice movie or rock show; I could have gone for a cigarette. But as I rubbed my eyes and reached for my glasses, the memory of it faded away. I feel like I have really failed in my description of it - but this was all I could hold onto. And this really is too bad, because I think it would have been a great show to see in real life. You know, because of the connection to today's feeling of malaise and decline - with the economy and all. It would have resonated.


I like to think that Everett's many-worlds interpretation is true and there is another world where I DID remember everything, and somehow convinced somebody to make it reality, and somebody like you got to star in it. I'm sad that this isn't the reality that it happened in.


As an engineer, I hope to have more of the dreams where I'm inventing stuff, because I know how to remember those and make it reality (or at least find out somebody else already invented it). I'd rather leave the awesome musical dreams to the professionals.


Best Wishes