On the Many Deaths of Amanda Palmer

by Rohan Kriwaczek,

  The APT Legal Department had, in the course of preparing a defence (given the possibility that charges may not have been dropped) acquired copies of much of the evidence gathered by the police, including all of the witness statements, lists of email and web addresses, dates, times, names, and many reports by internet researchers, forensic literary specialists, theoretical psychologists, etc, together with a single photograph, credited with being the only known image of Tobias James. After an extensive period of negotiation involving suits and counter-suits on either side it was finally agreed that we would be permitted to publish an account of our understanding of what had occurred, including whatever evidence we had at our disposal, under the unambiguous stricture that no information deemed to be of a sensitive or incriminating nature be published, with specific regard to the ongoing investigation into the death of Miss Palmer and any link that may or may not lead to Mr. James. It is worth the reader noting that the Boston Police Department (BPD) has successfully demanded final editorial control and under particularly dubious and outrageous circumstances was ultimately granted full rights to rewrite the truth in annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn wherever they deem appropriate.

  APPENDIX II

  The Case Against “Tobias James”

  Following the seizure of Text Number Nine, and an initial interrogation of the Editorial Board, the BPD Internet Crime Unit (ICU) turned its attention towards tracking the author through cyber-space. The APT had, in the course of researching the palmeresque project, kept detailed records of every website a given text appeared on, and the earliest posting date, so far as we could tell, and so these, and any other related records, were all willingly handed over to Inspector Ruecker, together with our commitment to absolute cooperation.

  Internet crime investigation is a slow and tedious process. By all accounts it takes place in a small office cubicle, and involves little more than copying and pasting text into search engines and occasionally sending emails to website administrators in the hope that a lead might be stumbled upon. For four months the APT remained in hiatus, publicly discredited, with charges pending against a number of senior board members, but nothing was happening. Until we were either exonerated or formally charged we were legally bound not to publish a denial or defence against the many exaggerated rumours that were appearing in blogs and occasional newspaper articles. Our hard won reputation as an Arts funding body and arbiter of taste was clearly suffering. Finally our computers were returned and we could at least continue with running our business, but it seemed that this cloud of suspicion had made many of our former associates and contacts a little nervous, and they were no longer answering emails or phone calls, hence, in January 2008 the APT Legal Department began planning its extensive suit for compensation against the BPD.

  That was until the second round of revelations.

  As part of their investigation the BPD had hired a small team of forensic literary analysts led by a Dr. Ruth Weitz. Their job was to produce, through detailed analysis of the text, a psychological profile and notional biography of the author. Upon receipt of Dr. Weitz’s report Inspector Ruecker immediately ordered the arrest of the entire Editorial Board once again, this time on charges of Literary Fraud and obstructing the police. Naturally the majority of the report remains under legal orders, however, the specific passages that led to these arrests are neither concerned with the psychology of the author, nor the circumstances of death of Amanda Palmer, and are therefore un-restricted:

  . . . Given then that we had therefore established certain stylistic and formalistic similarities between all ten texts present in the book, we then set about demonstrating this postulation beyond all reasonable doubt. To do so we first isolated what we considered to be the main characteristics of concern within the texts (Christian religious symbolism, justified idolatry, representations of restrained or repressed violence, formalised use of English sentence structuring, bestial sexuality, psychological obsession with the subject, misuse of colloquialisms, excessive grovelling, and false moustaches) and then, utilising the Gilmore System, we devised a series of scales with which to measure and score each text on that characteristic. We then plotted these scores on simple line graphs. When superimposed upon each other it becomes clear that each text demonstrates a remarkably similar series of ratios between each of the chosen characteristics...

  . . . Inspector Ruecker immediately ordered the arrest of the entire Editorial Board once again, this time on charges of literary fraud and obstructing the police. Naturally the majority of the report remains under legal orders, however, the specific passages that led to these arrests are neither concerned with Tobias James, nor Amanda Palmer, and are therefore unrestricted . . .

  The above graph presents the remarkable similarity of ratios between specific relevant characteristics across all ten texts, thus demonstrating the single author postulation. The probability of a random series of ten texts showing equivalent similarities has been calculated at 1:3628800

  . . . it is therefore, in my opinion and in the opinion of my colleagues, clear beyond any doubt whatever that each of the ten texts were written by the same author, with only the most superficial of efforts having been made to disguise their distinctive style including sentence structure, punctuation and habitual themes. Furthermore, taken as a whole this collection of stories, poems and essays reveal therefore, in my opinion and the opinion of my colleagues, clear beyond any doubt whatever that each of the ten texts were written by the same author, with only the most superficial of efforts having been

  Despite our initial incredulity at such an extraordinary claim, thirty-two hours of interrogation later a full set of confessions had been extracted, and they certainly made for astonishing reading, at least amongst the Legal Department of APT. It seemed that every member of the Editorial Board had been “nobbled” in some way or other. A number of cases were very similar: said editor was approached and befriended by a tall slim and handsome young man whilst at a bar, in a restaurant, shopping for stationary and in one case at a swimming pool. He was, by all accounts, effortlessly charming, well-dressed and in each case went under a different name. It is possibly worth mentioning that on every occasion the young gentleman was wearing a false moustache, although the style was clearly different for each editor (this may at first seem unusual, however it must be remembered that since the huge critical success of the video for Where Did I Put My Shoes? in February 2004, false moustaches have been very much in vogue amongst Miss Palmer’s fans, often of both sexes). It has been agreed between members of the previous, now disgraced, Editorial Board and the present Directors of APT that in exchange for frank and honest accounts of what exactly had transpired no explicit details would be published, including any names. Regrettably it is therefore impossible at this stage to present any specifics with regard to how the mysterious gentleman achieved this extraordinary feat of manipulation. Very much in general it could be said that having first inveigled his way into one of various potential positions of trust, he then sought out a weakness, or insecurity of some kind that he would be able to involve himself with, thus enabling gentle pressure to reap rewards. In each case the editor in question was, it seems, completely unaware that this man was the author of the chosen text (each swears with much adamancy that the chosen text was amongst their given selection previous to his involvement—a claim later verified through meticulous cross-referencing). He had then somehow persuaded them to allow him to make the final choice (and to write the extroduction). They each claimed to feel, at the time, that it was merely a harmless delegation of responsibility, and had no idea that this same gentleman was involved in any way with other editors on the palmeresque project.

  Thus, all amongst us who retained an interest in protecting the honour of the APT were left with a number of important questions, as the following minutes from the first meeting the new Directorial Committee of the APT on 17th March 2008 demonstrate:

  Questions to be investigated and discussed at next mee
ting:

  Who was this young man?

  Were the similarities of style between the chosen texts merely due to all the texts having been selected by this single man, no doubt with his own agenda? And if so could it be that he was drawn to particular themes and sentence structures intuitively or directly, and was not, therefore, a sole author.

  Were all the encounters with the same young man, or were there coincidentally a number of falsely-moustachioed young male Amanda Palmer fans attempting independently to influence the selections for the book?’ an unlikely but nonetheless possible scenario, needs to be considered.

  Was this man the author himself or did he work for another? (If working for another then more credence can be given to the multiple young men theory as the false moustaches could merely be a ruse to make us assume that it was all the same man).

  What could be the possible motive behind going to that much trouble to influence the choices of example texts in a small book about fan literature for a dead popstar?

  What could be the possible motive behind going to that much trouble to influence the choices of example texts in a small book about

  What could be the possible motive behind going to that much trouble to influence the choices of example texts in a small

  A few weeks after that meeting the BPD ICU had their first major break. They had been tracking a blog site user known to have put up a version of Text Number Nine through a series of bogus email addresses and server relays and had finally traced the source to recent activity from an IP address at an internet cafe in El Cerrito, across the bay from San Francisco. A Digital Technology virtual stake-out was put in place and within three days was duly rewarded when the computer in booth number three logged into one of a number of associated web accounts. The local police department was immediately notified and a team of detectives were mobilised to intercept the suspect. It had clearly been assumed that once logged into his account the suspect would spend a considerable amount of time online as the officers didn’t arrive for a further fifty minutes by which time the suspect had already fled. Bob Parkes, manager of the internet cafe stated in an interview with an APT researcher:

  . . . The young man suddenly appeared startled by something he had seen onscreen, frantically pressed at a few keys, then grabbed his coat and skedaddled. He was in such a hurry he left a memory card in the card reader, and when his wallet fell from his coat pocket he didn’t even turn back to get it . . . [The wallet contained] around eighty bucks, an antique photograph and a library card in the name of Tobias James . . . About ten minutes later the cops arrived . . .

  The library card turned out to be for membership of a small local library in Colindale, North-West London, England; it is currently unknown whether Tobias James is a real or assumed name. The photograph was recently taken by a novelty photographic studio in SoHo, New York, that specialises in the recreation of Victorian style photo-portraits, complete with digital fading and stains. It was later confirmed by all who are known to have met him, that the image in the photograph was indeed that of the man who had manipulated his way into editorial control of the first edition of this book, albeit without his characteristic false moustache. Most compelling of all was the memory card, which contained a remarkable one-hundred-and-ninety-seven palmeresques, many incomplete, some fragmentary, and amongst them, all ten texts chosen for the first edition. In every case where the text was found to have been already uploaded to the internet the creation date on the memory card pre-dated the earliest known posting, making it almost certain that these were original works by a single author. However, this new evidence must have provided the BPD with new leads as shortly after the failed apprehension of Mr James all charges against the APT were dropped, and as a result, the APT Legal Department was no longer in a position to apply for copies of any new evidence that may be used against them. Hence we have no further knowledge of the ongoing police investigation into either Tobias James, or the death of Amanda Palmer. What we can be sure of is that the man who we have come to know as Tobias James did indeed, beyond any reasonable doubt, write all of the texts selected for this volume, and, for reasons unknown, went to very great effort to ensure editorial control over their selection. Any involvement he may have had in the death of Miss Palmer remains a police matter, and though we at the APT have our suspicions, they are best, at present, kept to ourselves.

  However, we are not alone in any suspicion we may have of the man known as Tobias James: in a recent edition of Rue-Morgue Magazine readers voted James number four in their top ten suspects for involvement in the killing of Miss Palmer. Although we at the APT would be the first to acknowledge that a popularity contest is rarely the best forum for judging character this does at least demonstrate that his great literary fraud has somewhat caught the public imagination, and, as they say, “not necessarily in a good way”.

  APPENDIX III

  Who Is Tobias James?—a brief biography

  Regrettably this appendix must be all too brief and none too biographical, as little, if anything beyond the evidence already mentioned, is actually known about Mr. James. However, by applying a detective’s eye to that which we do have, a certain amount can be deduced.

  Firstly, then, the hearsay evidence - from statements made by the various editors he encountered we know:

  He is in his early-to-mid twenties, well educated, softly spoken with a slight Alabama accent and the occasional hint of English affectation. He is clearly very capable of keeping up an intelligent conversation on a wide variety of subjects, from Science and the Arts to pop culture and politics, always generously topped off with a compelling and occasionally frustrating sprinkling of trivia.

  He spoke at length to a number of editors about his travels around Europe, particular time spent in England, Norway and Albania, and was apparently very convincing in this, suggesting that such a trip may well have been taken.

  He was very careful not to answer any questions about (or make any reference to) his family, and was, by all accounts, a master of the subtle subject change.

  He often made the claim that he was a poet, albeit as yet unpublished.

  The false moustaches he wore were always of the very highest quality, made from real human facial hair and virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. One editor states that Mr. James had mentioned that his moustaches were made to measure by Proctor & Gladwin, of London’s Saville Row. They have refused to “pass comment on any specific individual customer account”. They did, however, acknowledge that they have “in the past, and upon occasion, supplied bespoke moustaches to certain clients”.

  Then we have the evidence of the wallet and its contents. Let’s start with the wallet itself. It is a finely stitched eel-skin wallet, designed to be kept thin and free from any excess of documents or notes; a very tidy and organised man’s wallet. There is no place to keep coins. Inside it is modestly stamped E. Goodrich & sons, a Cambridge maker of gentleman’s leather-ware. The wallet’s most notable feature is however on the outside, which is embossed with an elaborate gold-chased monogram. The APT faxed a tracing of the monogram design to E. Goodrich & sons enquiring if they had any records of who it may have been made for and received the following reply:

  . . . Normally this is the kind of design we would only recommend to a rich elderly uncle purchasing a present for a beloved young nephew; in any other context it would be deemed vulgar and inappropriate. But I do recall that this order came from America, from a Pennsylvania dealership I believe, and you never can tell with those Americans; they just don’t quite seem to get what’s what . . .

  It is also interesting that the monogram puts the J before the T which could indicate a name of James Tobias, however we have since learnt that had the wallet indeed been purchased by a rich elderly uncle for a beloved young nephew it would not be at all uncommon for the initial of the surname to be placed first, as English etiquette, and therefore sadly American pretention, traditionally demands.

  Now let us consider the lib
rary card. It is a standard membership card for a small local library in Colindale, Borough of Barnet, North West London. To become a member all Barnet libraries require two utility bills in the members name as address verification, and further research has revealed that a Tobias James held accounts with both EDF Energy and British Gas from February 16th, 2006 to August 21st, 2006, registered at Flat B, 5 Ableton Drive, Hendon. We have also learnt that Barnet council employees are much more open to flattery and persuasion than English gentleman’s tailors, as we were able to easily acquire a full list of the books borrowed by Mr. James:

  The Little Book of Sayings of Oscar Wilde edited by Alexander Noble.

  Who’s Who in British History, Late Hanoverian Britain, 1789-1837.

  A Macabre Miscellany by Geoffrey Abbott.

  The Vulgar Tongue, Buckish Slang and Pickpocket Eloquence by Francis Grose.

  The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson.

  Origins of the Popular Style, The Antecedents of Twentieth Century Popular Music by Peter Van Der Merwe.

  An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin by Rohan Kriwaczek.

  Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolano.

  British Mousetraps and their Makers by David Drummond.

  My Secret Life, The Sex Diaries of a Victorian Gentleman, Volume One, Early Memories by “Walter”.