Pretty (Ugly Before)

Wednesday 20 October 2004

1039hrs. I have been thinking a lot about how I express myself artistically. I have been reading about Daniil Kharms, a Russian writer from the first half of the last century, an avant-garde absurdist who wrote various things but is held in high regard for his dramatic fragmentations or incidents. I think in this modern age, with access to so many different things, and MTV (in America at least) introducing to rule of a cut every 3 seconds which has influenced TV and film as a whole, that art should reflect this pattern. My writing seems to emulate this. As long as I am being true to myself, these short stories (whatever you want to call them) are easily 'downloadable'. I don't know, I'm just trying to make sense of my thoughts at the moment.

Finally got From A Basement On A Hill today, Elliott Smith's posthumous album. It's superb but incredibly upsetting to listen to. The lyrics are as dark as hell but the songs are great. It feels like you're prying in to his personal life with every line of each song, trying to figure if it paints a picture of where his head was at before he killed himself. It wasn't a happy place by the sound of things.