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I've learned to really enjoy video games. It's really toxic to have in your house, because it's really distracting.
Carrie Brownstein
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With Portlandia, I don't think our intention is always to find something funny. Sometimes the humor comes from taking something really seriously. We're okay with making somebody feel uncomfortable or uneasy.
Carrie Brownstein
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I've realized that I have a lot of different loves, and I want to pursue writing, but I can never divorce myself from music.
Carrie Brownstein
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To really be tortured by a song, it needs to be more than just something you don't like or don't get; it has to make your skin crawl by getting under it. Strangely, that last clause could describe provocative or daring music, as well.
Carrie Brownstein
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No matter what people are struggling with, or based on whatever. Sexuality, ethnicity, economic status, size. I don't wish smallness for anyone. It's a terrible place to live.
Carrie Brownstein
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I think we as people struggle for what is meaningful in our lives, and I think that modern, contemporary life is as easy as it's ever been, for many, many people, and the amount of physical exertion, for most people, is less than it's ever been. I think that there is something about the ritual of making things more difficult that people find meaning in.
Carrie Brownstein
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You can't bury a part of yourself that's so innate to who you've been, even if it's not for the sake of anything other than a pure enjoyment of it.
Carrie Brownstein
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I think short-term goals are important. Trying to set a missive for yourself for the entire year can be daunting, and it can feel too easy to fail or fall short of that.
Carrie Brownstein
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The enemy of any artistic statement is to create something that no one cares about, in the sense they have no opinion either way.
Carrie Brownstein
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I think one of the reasons I haven't been doing music is because I think that some of my performance, like, needs are being taken care of in other mediums.
Carrie Brownstein
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"We can't name it, but we can sing along." That is my ultimate relationship to any art form, but especially music.
Carrie Brownstein
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From a self-conscious standpoint, it's hard to see myself on a screen in a way that isn't just me playing music or doing something silly.
Carrie Brownstein
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The natural world operates by its own set of rules. The animal world, all the places that are feral and ungovernable, that's where I find a lot of inspiration. There is just as much beauty there, but there is also decay and violence.
Carrie Brownstein
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It's very common to think that we're always evolving, that we've changed so much from our younger selves, that within decades we've transformed into these different people. We like to think that. I feel in some ways that I am still so much my younger self. There are ways that I'm different: I feel like I'm wiser and kinder. But I think a lot of the impulses are still the same. I learned that.
Carrie Brownstein
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With Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.
Carrie Brownstein
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I think proteins are really good for your brain. And your brain is where comedy comes from.
Carrie Brownstein
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A lot of music for me was about - I mean aside from the fun and challenge of writing and being really good friends with my bandmates - getting to perform.
Carrie Brownstein
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After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise.
Carrie Brownstein
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Twitter is sort of version of labeling, except with 140 characters instead of a labelmaker. It's the way of calling things out for what they are, wearing badges. Twitter is like the new Scarlet Letter.
Carrie Brownstein
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I think closing-off is the most detrimental thing we can do as people. Also, the idea of not judging oneself.
Carrie Brownstein
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I think that the intentions are genuine in the search for authenticity, but it can tip over into absurdity so quickly. I just start to wonder, like, what authenticity even is, and whether we can even start to define it in such a globalized world.
Carrie Brownstein
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It was writing about music for NPR - connecting with music fans and experiencing a sense of community - that made me want to write songs again. I began to feel I was in my head too much about music, too analytical.
Carrie Brownstein
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I grew up outside of Seattle, and have lived here my whole life, and I think that there is a culture of questioning, and guilt. Almost an "anti-ambition." Like, an awareness, and then a subsequent guilt. But sometimes that progressive, liberal guilt is really obnoxious, too - in some ways, I think it's better to just own it. It's weird, that actually, the acknowledgement of privilege or the enactment of guilt can be as obnoxious as anything else. It's a never-ending rabbit hole. We're really in a rabbit hole right now, with this conversation. We're just spiraling down into the void.
Carrie Brownstein
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Rock Band is more like Stairmaster than it is like rock 'n' roll - it's the same steps with different degrees of difficulty.
Carrie Brownstein
