Anyone interested in the world generally can't help being interested in young adult culture - in the music, the bands, the books, the fashions, and the way in which the young adult community develops its own language.
There was a time when I was fighting with the decision as to whether or not a Hasidic man could go out and have a music career in the world and be involved in pop culture. For me, I was able to bring those two things together for quite some time.
I first came to Russia because of the culture, literature and music... and my interest in the 19th-century revolutionary spirit of Herzen, Bakunin and Kropotkin. Russia is a wonderful place to bring new clowns because Russians give back a wonderful r...
In terms of negotiating a career - I've always grown up being an insider and an outsider to different worlds, across different classes and cultures, so I have always naturally liked making films or music that puts things in unexpected places.
Cranking the Auto-Tune is so easy to do that there's almost no systemic resistance to trying it. So when someone's stuck for an idea, that's what they do. I mean, to the extent that it's been embraced by an entire idiom of club music and culture.
The ephemeral part of this work is that in music production, the sounds evolve so much faster than it used to, which means that you really have to put in a lot of work and effort in constantly designing the next sound that will move the culture forwa...
Musicians are often asked to answer for an entire culture, or for an entire movement. It's a process of commodification. It becomes packaged and summarized in a word like 'emo' or 'grunge'... or 'folk music.' I think that's just language itself, tryi...
I don't like to define my music. To me, music is pure emotion. It's language that can communicate certain emotions and the rhythms cuts across genders, cultures and nationalities. All you need to do is close your eyes and feel those emotions.
Even putting aside the Judeo-Christian morality upon which the Constitution and our nation's culture are based, the notion of forced euthanasia would contradict the long-held body of medical ethics to which all American doctors must adhere.
When I was 24 I went to Nigeria and it was such a culture shock, growing up in Australia and suddenly being the only white man in this unit full of black men.
The style of the Bible in general is singularly adapted to men of every class and grade of culture, affording the child the simple nourishment for its religious wants, and the profoundest thinker inexhaustible matter of study.
Men are more likely to be introverted than women are, but it's really very slight. But the real difference I think is in how it plays out, how it relates to cultural stereotypes.
I'm an immigrant kid who came to America from India when I was very young and grew up in New York City with a single mom and really was influenced by all of those immigrant cultures bumping up against each other.
A hundred years ago, if you had a child out of marriage, you'd be a social disgrace. Today women feel comfortable enough economically and culturally to bring up a child without a recognized commitment from a man.
My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.
In our culture, we get very much into shorthanding people. And I got shorthanded as That Guy: Jennifer Lopez, movies bombed, therefore he must be a sort of thoughtless dilettante, solipsistic consumer blahblahblah. It's hard to shake those sort of na...
I try to watch a movie a day, if not more, and through movies, I learned about so many different political themes I hadn't been interested in and cultural things I hadn't been aware of and economic factors I hadn't thought about.
Even some of us who make movies underestimate their influence abroad. American movies sell American culture. Foreigners want to see American movies. But that's also why so many foreign governments and groups object to them.
Just in the past few years - since I've been making movies, which isn't a very long time - you now have a culture that is fascinated and informed about the box office in a way that sometimes filmmakers weren't even.
I'm certainly curious about people. As a kid, I moved around a lot. I was raised in a lot of different places, and thanks to working in the movies, I've gotten to keep traveling. I've always been interested in other cultures and languages.
Alvy Singer: I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.
