There's something that feels very timeless about fandom.

So many things can be filtered through fandom - joy, compassion, love.

'Beasts of the Southern Wild' was one of those films that I felt like I could dismiss because it received so many accolades, but then I watched it and was won over.

The 'New York Times' is my homepage because it forces me to go right into the news.

In the early and mid 1990s, every musician I knew was obsessed with Helium. The 'Pirate Prude' EP and 'Pat's Trick' played on repeat at nearly every gathering I attended. And we didn't just listen to these records - we discussed them, the worlds they opened, novelistic and strange.

In Olympia, Washington, many of us were writing songs that were the equivalent of bloodletting: This is the sound a wound makes; this is the screech of a scar. But Mary Timony was always more kaleidoscope than microscope, creating magical worlds replete with weaponry or sorcery.

I've always felt unclaimed.

My entire style of playing was built around somebody else playing guitar with me, a story that, on its own, sounds unfinished.

My own relationship to food was healthy. I was lean and athletic with a high metabolism. I could eat half a pizza with a side of breadsticks and wash it down with soda. I never dieted or denied myself food.

My father was hard to know and gave little indication that there was much to know. He claimed he remembered almost nothing about his childhood.

When my father came out to his mom, my grandmother said, 'You waited for your father to die; why couldn't you have waited for me to die?' I knew then that I never want to contribute to the corrosiveness of wanting someone to stay hidden.

Only in retrospect can I find clues to my father's gayness. Sometimes the dull detritus of our pasts become glaring strands once you realize they form a pattern, a lighted path to the present.

My father was a corporate lawyer. He went to work in a suit and tie. He had a secretary. He left the house before seven A.M. His professional life felt generic, like a backdrop, a signifier more than a life: office job.

My father wasn't just taciturn - it was like he didn't want to be heard.

Kissing is kind of scary.

I'm a huge Quasi fan.

Sleater-Kinney is a band that we hold close to our hearts as well; it's not something that we're cynical or jaded about. We only feel gratefulness and appreciation for other people's enthusiasm about it. We would never be annoyed by that.

With Sleater-Kinney, we have a lot of earnest fans, and we were an earnest band.

I've realized that I have a lot of different loves, and I want to pursue writing, but I can never divorce myself from music.

I'd rather do spontaneous and silly work like ThunderAnt than have somebody's film on my shoulders.

A lot of music for me was about - I mean, aside from the fun and challenge of writing and being really good friends with my bandmates - getting to perform.

There's some horrible connotations in the word 'reunion.'

One summer, when I was elementary-school age, my neighbors and I built guitars and keyboards out of scrap wood, painted them in bright colors, and formed the cover band Lil' 'D' Duran Duran. We didn't make our own noise or even pretend to play our fake instruments.

I went to a liberal arts college wherein grading was qualitative and we had to write our own evaluations.

Not even the creators of 'Rock Band' could possibly believe that playing the game is tantamount to making your own music. There is, however, a sad similarity between 'Rock Band' and some actual bands, and that is the attempt at realness.

With so much of music blurring the lines between ersatz and authenticity, at least the 'Rock Band' game is a tribute to rock rather than an affront.

In the realm of fakery, I would choose 'Rock Band' over 'American Idol' or over any of the other flimsy truths masquerading as music.

When people grow up with a family characterized by chaos and uncertainty and fragility, you look for a substitution for that.

Music was a means through which I could meet people and sort of begin the process of exploring who I was or who I could be.

Meals and eating and that sort of ritual of gathering at a table is such a part of childhood, and that was such a strange moment. It made me nervous to watch my mom cook for us and then not engage in the act of eating with us.

When I was 16, 17 years old, I became aware of music coming out of Olympia, Wash., which is the state capitol and about an hour south of Seattle. And there were bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile and Heavens To Betsy, and for the first time, I heard my story being explained to me, being sung to me.

My sister's great. She's very bright; she's very private.

I think my sister loves being an observer more than I do.

I really like sardonicism and wit. I love the writing of Joy Williams and Lorrie Moore. I like Tina Fey, Amy Schumer.

From dancing around to Michael Jackson and Madonna as a kid to having my mind blown by the first sounds of punk and indie rock, to getting to play my own songs and have people listen, music is what got me through.

Writing 'Monitor Mix' was a very edifying and inspiring few years.

From the ashes of Bauhaus, Love and Rockets transformed its grandiosity and excesses into boldness and virtuosity. Plus, it wasn't afraid of a catchy hook or two.

In the high-stakes and elitist world of music collecting and fandom, we operate from an ab ovo perspective. The seed, the first incarnation - that is the most pure, the most lauded. Minutemen trumps Firehose, Throwing Muses beats Belly, Joy Division over New Order, Operation Ivy ruled Rancid, Undertones instead of That Petrol Emotion.

Much of the music I remember from camp was unofficial: the songs a counselor would play for us on acoustic guitar or that an older camper would sing after telling us a tale of his hard-knock life. We couldn't get enough of 'One Tin Soldier' or 'Cat's in the Cradle.'

At its core, kitsch feels like something less than art; it panders to the middle and is flagrantly anti-art, though it often apes or references art. This referential, ersatz quality is why it's so fun to collect.

The value of kitsch exists in its novelty and in its connotations to more legitimate counterparts.

When real is gone, then there is no longer a litmus test for that which deviates from it. It's all real because it's all 'real.'

I'm such a big fan of 'The Bachelor.'

I have really never aligned myself with hipsterdom or coolness.

Curiosity is what keeps me open to a sense of hope. It staves off negativity.

I want to have a sense of openness and optimism, even if that means being open to things that are potentially dark.

I think that the most well-intentioned, optimistic, creative people often live for the moment, and for 'Portlandia,' our goals were always very sort of short-term and attainable.

That's so rare in the world of TV or film to have a genuine friendship turn into something that people watch, that people relate to. That's so unique.

To me, it's exciting that women are dominating the pop charts.

There comes a time as you continue to write and work on scripts and screenplays where you realize that you have opinions about the next step of the process, and you kind of want more control over the translation from page to screen.