David Byrne being interviewed by the fantastic Stephen Colbert:
Colbert: I have a theory about artists … that they are afraid of being ordinary .. because they mistake ordinary for what is common between all people…. but artists think they can’t want that because it’ll make them like ordinary people.
Byrne: It’s a kind of neurosis that you have to be … that you can’t like ordinary things.
Here’s the link:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/220270/march-02-2009/d…
It reminds me of something I was reading recently about ‘cool’ – can’t remember where. About coolness being a non-place—a place of absence—in which the things one can’t do (in order to save face as a ‘cool person’) overwhelm the spirit of listening and attention, and the possibilities of what one can do.