Go fund yourself, Amanda

You remember Amanda Knox.

She’s the young American semester-abroad student who spent time in prison in Italy for murdering her roommate. (Thanks to DNA evidence, Knox was later acquitted.)

From the get-go, the situation was the ultimate cable news spectacle, a true tabloid-palooza: pretty young (American) innocent abroad; salacious details about the personal lives of everyone involved; the seriocomic Italian justice system.

In June, Knox returned to Italy for the first time since her release, traveling to Modena with her fiancé for the Criminal Justice Festival, an event sponsored by the Italian version of the Innocence Project. (Maybe something’s been lost in translation, but is there anyone out there who’s thinking ‘nothing says festival quite like criminal justice’?)

Regrettably, Knox -  who now makes her living as an activist and author, and whose fiancé, Christopher Robinson is a poet and novelist – had to use all the money the couple had been saving up for their wedding to fund their trip to the festival (and a post-festival jaunt to the French Riviera). So now Knox and Robinson are looking to crowdfund their upcoming wedding and make it the ‘best party ever.’ A party where they “can shower our friends and family with love and celebration.”

The wedding they’re envisioning is quite elaborate – they can dream, can’t they – and the potential cost looks way beyond what the couple would have paid to get themselves from their home in Seattle to Italy and back, even with a side trip to the Riviera. But the trip no doubt made them dip into their wedding fund.

The crowdfunding is set up on their registry, where, rather than buy them Kate Spade plates or a Breville blender, you can offer them cash:

Stellar patrons can donate $500 to the wedding with Knox and Robinson saying 'when Madonna's "Lucky Star" comes on, we'll shout you out on the dance floor.'

Galactic patrons can donate $1000 and temporal patrons, who donate $2000 - $10,000, will receive a 'special video from the future, reading you an excerpt from the Encyclopedia Galactica.'

…As a reward for giving money for the nuptials, which appear to be space themed, donors will receive a copy of the couple's love poems book The Cardio Tesseract. (Source: Daily Mail)

Well, that’s not quite enough to get me to cough up, even if the poetry ‘reveals the dynamics of their private life, their hopes, fears, and dark places, from thoughts of suicide and memories of prison, to dreams of raising children.’ But maybe that’s just the me that has no interest in “dynamics of their private life.”

I do have some sympathy for Knox. It must have been terrible to be barely more than a kid, in a foreign country, accused and convicted of a horrendous crime that she was apparently not guilty of. Finally – after 4 years in prison and tremendous legal expense on her family’s part – she is released. All this in the glaring spotlights of our times. And now still living with the overhanging threat that an erratic Italian judicial system could pounce on her yet again.

But that sure doesn’t get me to want to help fund her wedding. (Her legal bills, maybe.)

I’m in no way averse to crowdfunding. I’ve tossed in a few bucks for startups on Kickstarter over the years. I’ll occasionally chip in when there’s a big, fat old drama out there – especially when it’s local and seems like a good cause. I’ve thrown in for ALS sufferers whose families are trying to keep things going even when nobody’s insurance seems to cover the the costs of the round-the-clock care those with the ALS scourge require. And if there’s a doggo in need of surgery, I’m usually good for $25.

But I draw the line at a few things, and the first thing I draw the line on is those trying to raise money for their weddings and honeymoons.

Come on, you aren’t owed a splashy wedding. You don’t deserve one. And if you can’t afford one, get married in a park and have all the guests bring a pot luck dish. Honeymoon at an Airbnb in the next town. Or try a stay-cay.

Don’t register for gifts, and by all means get the word out that cash is what you’re looking for. But when I see people registering, or tin-cupping, for their nuptials or honeymoon, for some reason it just makes me bonkers.

(I also don’t like students stemming for $1K to help fund a spring break vacation. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey – which I’ll take – GET A JOB. Fund your own damned Pedro Island spree.)

And when someone’s looking for $50K for the funeral/send off party that they want to give their loved one… I’m all out on that one, too.

As for the Knox-Robinson extravaganza, I’m not sure whether they’re for real or for surreal.

One thing led to another, and I did find myself on the registry for The Knox Robinson Coalescence, and I don’t know quite what to make of it.

No other pre-singularity union produced as much cerebral-empathic heat, or blazed as brightly through the early 21st century datasphere, as the joining of Amanda Marie Knox and Christopher Gerald Robinson.
That may be because of the threat of existential annihilation that led to their union. Scholars disagree on this point. What is certain is that on 45629.81z8.q14 Galactic Time (or November 11th, 2018, Old Earth Solar), Knox and Robinson were shocked into a matrimonial fervor by the future fact of their union. They learned their fate from a data-crystal shard of this Encyclopedia Galactica that rocketed back in time and landed in their backyard. This mind-boggling event was captured on film.

And no, I most certainly did not look at what was captured on film. Enough is enough. Or, as the Italians would have it, adesso basta. (That was mean. Couldn’t resist.)

There’s a lot of talk about timestreams and cerebral-empathic energy and looking for volunteers to help support their RSVP (Relative Spacetime Volunteer Party). Or something. I’m not quite clear if the volunteers are the invited guests and the well-wishers are the complete strangers who might want to contribute. Or vice versa.

Here’s the last line from a sample poem from The Cardio Tesseract:

Here is my literal finger finding the contours of your literal chin.

And here’s my response:

Here is my literal hand finding the contours of my literal face, while I shake my head uttering ‘go fund yourself, Amanda.’