The collection / 21 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

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—and the creative scenes therein—played an important role in the identification and contextualization of a sound or aesthetic. 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”)

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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02Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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03Undated

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").

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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04Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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05Undated

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

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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06Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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07Undated

That’s why all of those records from high school sound so good. It’s. It that the songs were better- it’s 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’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 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’t require the difficult task of negotiation, the heartache and uncertainty that the present does.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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08Undated

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

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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09Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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10Undated

I felt that first awareness that there’s a whole set of species whose sounds and calls you’ve never heard—the wonder of realizing that people are growing up with an entirely different sensory experience from yours. This whole country seemed so shiny to me.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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11Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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12Undated

I felt like no one was really looking out for me, that I was marginal and incidental. I compensated by being spongelike, impressionable, and available to whatever and whoever provided the most comfort, the most sense of belonging. I was learning two sets of skills simultaneously: adaptation - linguistic and aesthetic - in order to fit in, but also, how to survive on my own.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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13Undated

I was shut off from my body; I had barely thought about sexuality or longing. Up until this point, my sexual experiences had felt business like or even transactional...I hadn't been suppressing urges or denying my needs. I didn't feel like I had any, not corporeal ones. My journal entries from that time speak to depression and feelings of isolation, fears that a friend would leave, a sense that I had been responsible for my mother's departure and would therefore cause anyone I loved or needed to leave. I was still spending most of my time in my head. I was removed from my own feelings.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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14Undated

It was about having a box in the attic or basement or attic or garage, something we could return to over and over again, something that said, this is us, this is where we were last year, and this is where we'll stay, and this is where we'll pile on the memories, over and over again, until there are so many memories that it's blinding, the brightness of family, the way love and nurturing is like a color you can't name because it's so new.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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15Undated

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

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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16Undated

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 / quote

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17Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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18Undated

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 / quote

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19Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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20Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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21Undated

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.

Carrie Brownstein / quote

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