Real sadness is such an all-encompassing intense thing that it takes you out of your humdrum existence. If you can still function, you want to show it while it's peaking. So when people tell you to cheer up, it's not always the best thing.

I don't believe that crime, danger and poverty make for good art. That's bullshit.

A lot of cities are making a real effort, neighborhood by neighborhood, to make themselves into a place where life can be pretty good.

My favorite term for a new kind of performance is "security theater." In this genre, we watch as ritualized inspections and patdowns create the illusion of security. It's a form that has become common since 9/11, and even the government agencies that participate in this activity acknowledge,off the record, that it is indeed a species of theater.

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

Something about music urges us to engage with its larger context, beyond the piece of plastic it came on-it seems to be part of our genetic makeup that we can be so deeply moved by this art form. Music resonates in so many parts of the brain that we can't conceive of it being an isolated thing.

My take is that the kind of complexity which says we can always generate complexity from simple interactions following for example rules.