It's hard to get hot over a painting; there's no equivalent for teenage obsessiveness. Art obsession is ideology. Ideology can be made sexy, but it's easier in music.

I was very aware of performers who have a persona, whether it's Siouxsie Sioux or Patti Smith or Lydia Lunch, and I'm just this middle-class girl coming from a more conventional upbringing, this California person. But in a way I felt like it's important to represent the normal.

I can't think about whether I'll disappoint Sonic Youth fans. It's not like I want people to be disappointed, but I just can't control that.

I think that certainly, whenever you have a new band, the first record always has a certain energy to it before you know what you're doing. I think some of the early Sonic Youth stuff was maybe like that.

Bad writing as a conscious goal is liberating for students: They are freed to be creative in a new and different way.

I think there's a deep impulse in most humans to do creative stuff, whether that's music or art, photography or writing. Most people at some point in their life say they want to do something creative - they want to be an actor, a director, a writer, a poet, a painter or whatever.

Street art, unlike graffiti, adds to the environment and is a positive experience for the artist and community.

Reading is how I became an actor because I didn't grow up in a house where there was an awareness of film or theater. I also grew up in a house full of teachers, so reading was big in our world.