In the present political situation, it's an interesting phenomenon to look at: what is the appeal of an autocratic leader? Why do people want somebody who yells at them? For most of us, that's so hard to understand. Who wants that? I think there are a lot of people for whom that fulfills some kind of need.
I don't understand being idle; I don't have an idle setting. I probably should develop one.
I always worry that I'm a dilettante: I know something about lots of things but don't have exhaustive knowledge of much. Take dance music: I like enough of it and its history to be able to say a word or two about this or that record, but I'm nobody's authority. I couldn't name more than a couple of good drum'n'bass acts, and I have no idea what's big in the dance world right now.
I like a lot of hardcore, but it's just a genre about which I don't have much to say. It's kind of a thing where, unless you're active in the hardcore community, what could you have to say of value about it? It resists criticism because it's not just a style but an entrance into several different worlds of ideas- political, philosophical, societal. The music is really only part of the whole scene. In that sense, the music doesn't change much because it shouldn't: It needs to be there as a signal that you're entering into a certain discursive mode, maybe.
You're not really going to know what a place is like 'til you've lived there a few years - you sort of just have to go with your gut.
What I like is horror movies, including '80s slasher movies that politically I have all kinds of problems with. Which is an interesting balance, because I have this leftist puritan strain that, well, if you like something that goes against your politics, maybe you should train yourself not to like it. But I know that I like horror movies and that's what I watch when I get a moment.
I don't really have any position to complain about my job. Yeah, every job has its moments like, "Ah, you know, it's Wednesday." But I'm blessed. I love my work.
I did a lot of music criticism. I don't think much of it was any good. I think I wanted to show off a lot when I was younger. Now I just want people to enjoy the story. If it were possible to publish anonymously, that would be awesome.
It's easy to follow national politics and weigh in on social media, but if I'm tweeting stuff about Chatham County, no one cares.
Conservative forces in the South have a lot of power - almost dynastic - dating back many years.
Our [former] governor [Pat McCrory] was supposed to be a moderate, but he found himself beholden to people who have much more draconian ideas. I think he assumed this stuff flew under the radar.
Human beings are selfish by nature. Everything that happens to a child, you immediately grab your own child and say, "I will never let that happen to you."
There are real teachers out there; I don't pretend to have their mantle.
There are stylists I really love. I'm a huge Joan Didion fan - if I wrote something that she might like, then I'd feel very proud. I want the action to move as quickly as it does in A Book of Common Prayer, where one thing bonks right into another very quickly.
I'm so disconnected from an indie-rock community that I am the hermit people used to guess I was.
I was 14 or 15 when I discovered poetry, and I pretty much stopped writing prose until Master of Reality.
I wrote short stories when I was a teenager, but they weren't any good and I kinda knew it.
As an artist, you always have to be growing. You don't just want to do what you already know people like.
If you get into a fight and somebody punches you, you get two feelings. One: That really hurts. Two: That relief in the realness of, like, Wow, this is what it is. It's not an intellectual process.
People want you to play the songs they know. I try not to reflect too much, and I don't really like to focus too much on myself.
The process of touring is always so weird to me. Once you've made the album, that's over, you move along.
While writing is a mystical process, it's also work. If you show up to work five days in a row, nobody's going to pat you on the back - everyone does that. Well, do that with your writing. Just show up. Be there for it. When you get an idea, write it down somewhere and then be a steward of that idea.
Music is a permanent art, it will always go through phases where you like it and are in tune with it, but saying that music "got bad" is infantile. The same is true with your life.
You learn to present dark things without including their ability to harm, treasuring them for what they are.
It's a cliché to state that one should think like a child, but it's clear that kids know something that the world tries to make you unlearn later in life.
