anais nin and judas and the world a diary makes:

i just read this passage in volume 2 of her diary a few days ago and copied so many of these sentences into my own notebook. what a gift to stumble across this reading. a gift to hear her voice, to hear her read and giggle.





and there's something about this, most obviously that last bit, that pairs so well with lady gaga's new video JUDAS that was released today. listening to anais read her ideas about women's creations needing to be made with their own blood, nourished by their own milk, but with the acknowledgement that she did not come to this act of creation alone (a very post-modern notion, nicht wahr?) and is not turned away from Creating by this fact, is important to hold on to when engaging with today's art, no matter what form the art takes. i think gaga is a grand example of this. she is helping to create a language which embraces the feminine, the bloodiness of being female, of Becoming a woman, Becoming a human, Becoming an artist. it is a bloody job. i listen and i look and i see that her mirror is familiar to me. there is something in this that calls to something very basic within my construction as Female. her words! confession. the honest onslaught of hidden desire, the secrets that must be kept, the truth that must be squelched... these are things a diary would contain. could a pop song be a diary entry? could it be an extension of that mode of private practice, an outcropping of a totally private world? yes. and her make-up! and when my mother died all i wanted was bright red lipstick and luscious perfumes. i wanted beauty around me. i wanted the reverie of gorgeous smells. we are called Whore for wanting such things. we are called Whore for having Wants. i watch and i listen. her luxurious references! her fake fingernails pointing, pointing, pointing! the weaponry of them, bejewelled skewers. she is a golden thesaurus! she becomes her own judas, betraying her king, betraying herself, but not shying from the work of Creation... not shying from the language that women must create for themselves. still. the awful silence will be born again tomorrow. we must scratch and scribble every day.

as i read anais nin's diaries i wonder if men read them too? do they respond to the language that is made. the caress contained within each turn of phrase, the glory and horror and beauty of exposure.

i wonder if the diaries have, again, become dangerous books? silence is thick these days and i am guilty at times of it as well. i'm trying to become less guilty. with everything i've got and it is hard, i am trying to Become less silent. i scratch and scribble and maybe i am making a world too. notebook as tool.