11/25/04 - On Online Journaling

I can't help but find it just plain strange that writers of late have been asking: how does it feel to expose your inner life on your website?
What am i missing here? The way i see things I'm writing some pretty mundane observations about my everyday life in this band and
leaving the heavy shit for my own journals (to be published posthumously, of course, to save everyone a great deal of embarrassment) or
for ephemeral phone conversations and late-night conversations.

I've often wondered WHAT would happen I did indeed start chronicling my inner life for all to read. Would it make the music more
interesting? Less interesting? More or less revealing, or mysterious? When you give people pieces to the puzzle of your pysche, it can
often lead to more questions than answers.

Fuck this shit, I'm going to go to Avril's website and see how it's done.

(pause....)

Ok, so Avril's not really revealing very much. Perhaps Courtney Love's website will have some details more revealing than "We're on tour in Spain and it's awesome, the shopping here is kick-ass etc"
(must also confess I watched ALL the videos from the new record. Angry Avril!)

(pause....)

Courtney Love has no online diary on her website. Probably for the best. How about......Ashlee Simpson? Norah Jones? Fucking.....Diamanda Galas?

(pause. pause. pause.........)

This is a really deadend project, none of these women seem to be the online journal type.
Good god, is it just me and Avril?

(pause...........)

It would seem so. I checked the websites of Rufus Wainwright, Bjork, Liz Phair, Laurie Anderson, Nick Cave, David Bowie and Momus....
just the cross-section of folks that popped into my head. Momus has a great "daily picture diary". Bowie seems to post on
his message board with some regularity, mostly music recommendations. Not a lot of soul-baring going on. And why should they? They're
artists and they should be concerned with making art.

But isn't this the future?

This is art.

I really ought to go to bed. To make myself feel better about this whole process I will try to reveal some of myself. I've been listening
to Avril's new record all night. I can't tell you exactly why, but it sort of makes me feel like I am 15 all over again in a parallel universe. I'm so ashamed and
so proud of myself at the same time. I learned "Together" on the piano. We could never cover it. We can get away with covering Britney, but Avril would just
not be acceptable. It's like the difference between admitting you like porn (which is cool) and admitting you make child porn (which is not cool).

Cult of Personality/Reality Performance of Self Via Interweb as artform? I'm nostalgic enough about my own life and past to want to get away with this kind of crap.
I have kept every letter I've ever recieved. I need a bigger apartment to fit all the shit I can't throw away. I did screaming naked perfomance art in college.
I was THAT girl. Who has made their personality into an artform lately and done a decent job? RuPaul?

I'm not just saying this to be cool but the Avril record really disintegrates towards the end.


Amanda. go. to. bed.