The South has a way of worshipping appearances - the suburbs are all about presentation and amazing flowers and a beautiful yard and dinner parties that impress people and having the Christmas lights just right.
I used to be something of an obsessive when it came to research. When I first began writing the Thorne novels, I would drive to a set of traffic lights in the early hours of the morning to make sure you could turn left. I thought it was important to get even the most trivial details right.
I had this vision of shooting a great white in the studio with all the edge lights I use for movie posters. I knew that I couldn't bring the great white to the studio, so I had to bring the studio to the great white.
I'm really proud of 'Bright Lights' because I was still in the mind frame of my first album when I was putting it together, but next time I want to display something different. I don't want to be as young, immature and all about boys!
I don't really know Hollywood, but living and shooting in L.A. was very motivating, inspiring. The lights, the extras, their American faces, the energy, the Orpheum Theatre. It was all very inspiring.
Unless one is planning to go shopping - basically begging to be smothered by the ravening throngs of returners and bargain hunters; an embrace as constricting as that hugging machine designed by autistic author Temple Grandin - then Boxing Day feels like a bar after last call when the lights have been turned up.
Something that I learned from 'Friday Night Lights,' sometimes if you have four or five scenes in an episode, it's not having less than having 10. It's what you do with those scenes.
In some ways any film that you do has an artificiality about it. Even when you're doing the most kitchen-sinky, gritty, realistic scene you've still got 50 people standing around watching you with cameras and lights and things.
I'd like to form a club just for fathers. Specifically, fathers of daughters. There would be lots of overstuffed leather chairs, wood paneling, dim lights. The works.
We got spoiled with 'Friday Night Lights.' Not every show is like that, and on other shows, if you try to bring that same truth or that same approach, the system of television doesn't always allow for that level of collaboration, which is unfortunate because the work would be richer.
If you have kids, you feel everything stronger. It's like someone turning the lights on in your inner room.
As much as I thought the end of 'Friday Night Lights' was a really great ending, I was one of those people who wanted to make it into a movie. Even though it ultimately didn't work to do that movie, I did work with some of the other writers and by myself writing a script for that.
When kids run up to me and ask, 'What happened?' I just lean over and whisper, 'Cigarettes.' And once I was in a car and this girl at traffic lights was giving me the eye. She could only see my head, so I decided to do a 360 in the car seat to freak her out. Her face was like, 'Whoa, what is going on?' She sped off really quickly.
Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.
When somebody doesn't use common sense, I get frustrated. When I'm driving down the highway and someone is in the left-hand lane, and they're going very slow, sometimes I just go around them, and other times I'll be in the mood where I flash my lights and yell at them, like, 'What the heck are you doing? Get the heck out of my way!'
We wanted to incorporate lights and the like to really accentuate the music. We play mostly small venues, so we don't use it overboard by any means. The most important thing is the music. I think we do a good job of letting that show.
I can get a black eye, a bloody nose. I can have a bad day in the gym. At the end of the day, I don't have a bad payday, and I don't have a bad night under the lights... I get bumps, bruises... but I don't have a bad night.
I knew early on that I was a nerd and that films were my refuge. Those first few minutes before the lights went off, and you're alone in the theater waiting, were really pleasurable.
I have always had a certain aversion to heat. And for me, the name of the game on the stage is 'beat the heat.' It's always July under the lights.
Some of my favorite records growing up were Christmas albums. The ones I liked best were the albums that you could listen to from start to finish. You could put them on while you're decorating the tree or driving around looking at Christmas lights.
There's actually a song called 'Vegas Lights,' which I wanted to be an anthem for Vegas, that represented how I felt when I went to the clubs. I felt this weird energy where everybody was having a good time, and it didn't matter. Dancing like nobody's watching. It was kind of beautiful.
I'm a firm believer that lighting affects mood, and twinkly lights on strings bring something magical to occasions ranging from concerts to weddings, though I'm fond of using them as year-round home decor.
When the days start to get shorter, I want to be in some nice brick building on the East Coast with the lights glowing in the windows. When the daylight starts changing, I want to be out West.
I think history would say that medical research has, throughout many changes of parties, remained as one of the shining lights of bipartisan agreement, that people are concerned about health for themselves, for their families, for their constituents.
I was one of those goofy kids whose year narrowed down to focus on Christmas from about September on. I guess I was like Ralphie in 'A Christmas Story,' in that I would get swept up into the anticipation of the holiday, watching the lights go up, hearing the songs in the stores, getting special Christmas issues of comics and all that.
When you listen to a Yes album, you should listen to the whole thing through headphones with the lights off.
Smile. It instantly lifts the face, and it just lights up the room.
Usually I start with a beat, I start making a beat, and my producer side is making the beat. And on a good day, my rapper side will jump in and start the writing process - maybe come up with a hook or start a verse. Sometimes it just happens like that. A song like 'Lights Please' happens like that.
I wish that the circuses that were around now felt like they did then. They're not quite as elegant or as magical as they used to be. There was something about the old tent shows, the Big Top, the canvas, the lights, the sawdust, the hay and the animals that's just missing now. Now, it's all urbanized and maybe a little garish.
Harvey and I grew up in Queens, N.Y. My brother and I shared a room for 18 years until we went away to college. When we were kids, after our father said, 'Lights out,' he also exclaimed, 'No more talking. Time for sleep.' But we'd stay up late, arguing over statistics, who the best center fielder was - Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle.
I act because I have to, because I need to find out whether I can do it or not - that's what drives me and excites me and lights me up.
Strip makeup lights just don't give you a fighting chance no matter how good looking you are. Light sconces that flank the mirror illuminate your entire face evenly.
There is a collective as well as an individual humor inclining peoples to sadness or cheerfulness, making them see things in bright or somber lights. In fact, only society can pass a collective opinion on the value of human life; for this the individual is incompetent.
Evil comes in through the cable and through the Internet. We look forward to the advent of driverless cars. But they can be hacked. You could be riding along, and some 14-year-old in Romania takes over your car, so you end up running the lights and losing your brakes or, worse, listening to Eminem. What's the purpose?
You go into any recording studio in the world, and you see candles, lights, and that Apple light from a Mac.
I was always a girl who loved animals and cared about the environment - um, I totally recycled at home and turned the lights off every time I left! But it wasn't until I met the love of my life, Philippe Cousteau, that I realized every thing we do, buy and use makes a difference in the world... for better or worse.