Carrie Brownstein

It's important to undermine yourself and create a level of difficulty so the work doesn't come too easily. The more comfortable you get, the more money you earn, the more successful you are, the harder it is to create situations where you have to prove yourself and make yourself not just want it, but need it. The stakes should always feel high.

I felt that first awareness that there__ a whole set of species whose sounds and calls you__e never heard__he wonder of realizing that people are growing up with an entirely different sensory experience from yours. This whole country seemed so shiny to me.

Nostalgia is so certain: the sense of familiarity it instills makes us feel like we know ourselves, like we've lived. To get a sense that we have already journeyed through something - survived it, experienced it - is often so much easier and less messy than the task of currently living through something.

I never wanted to feel ashamed for striving, for desiring, for ambition. And I never wanted to judge another woman, or anyone, for that matter, for their own aspirations, even if they differed from my own

That__ why all of those records from high school sound so good. It__. It that the songs were better- it__ that we were listening to them with our friends, drunk for the first time on liqueurs, touching sweaty palms, staring for hours at a poster on the wall, not grossed out by carpet or dirt or crumpled, oily bedsheets. These songs and albums were the best ones because of how huge adolescence felt then, and how nostalgia recasts it now. Nostalgia is so certain: the sense of familiarity it instills makes us feel like we know ourselves, like we__e lived. To get a sense that we have already journeyed through something- survived it, experienced it- is often so much easier and less messy than the task of currently living though something. Though hard to grasp, nostalgia is elating to bask in- temporarily restoring color to the past. It creates a sense memory that momentarily simulates context. Nostalgia is recall without the criticism of the present day, all the good parts, memory without the pain. Finally, nostalgia asks so little of us, just to be noticed and revisited; it doesn__ require the difficult task of negotiation, the heartache and uncertainty that the present does.

I suppose we were better observers than communicators; we were all subjects to be worried over, complained about, even adored, but never quite people to be held or loved. There was an intellectual, almost absurd distance.

Even then, I could still appreciate the moment of simply making sounds with a group of people. There is another place you go to in those instances, and it feels vast, refreshing, like you're creating your own air to breathe. And even though it's never going to happen again and there's a palpable sense of mediocrity, there's still a connection that you wouldn't have otherwise, to the sound, to the people.

We would go out and play these songs and people could interpret them however the hell they wanted.

Back then, I was still just a fan of music. And to be a fan of music also meant to be a fan of cities, of places. Regionalism__nd the creative scenes therein__layed an important role in the identification and contextualization of a sound or aesthetic. Music felt married to place, and the notion of __omewhere_ predated the Internet__ seeming invention of __verywhere_ (which often ends up feeling like __owhere_)

Music felt married to place, and the notion of "somewhere" predated the Internet's seeming invention of "everywhere" (which often ends up feeling like "nowhere").

I could turn up the volume on their songs and that loudness matched all my panic and fear, anger and emotions that seemed up until that point to be uncontrollable, even amorphous.

The hedonistic lifestyle is difficult to achieve when you're still carrying your own gear. Trust me that you don't feel glamorous with a 60-pound amp in your arms it's a lot less sexy than toting a vodka gimlet and impossible to do in heels.

Over the years, music put a weapon in my hand and words in my mouth, it backed me up and shielded me, it shook me and scared me and showed me the way; music opened me up to living and being and feeling.

I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction are the mediums I find most edifying and inspiring. I watch movies and listen to music and take lots and lots of walks. Nature is a nice reset button for me, it's how I get a lot of thinking done.

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.

I'm pretty horrible at relationships and haven't been in many long-term ones. Leaving and moving on - returning to a familiar sense of self-reliance and autonomy - is what I know that feeling is as comfortable and comforting as it might be for a different kind of person to stay.

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.

I think hip-hop does a very good job of infusing comedy and humor and wit into music, a lot more than other genres.