A Quote by Ezra Furman

Jews like to write and sing. In America, a lot of us have been eager to show that we're part of American culture. But it all goes back to King David writing Psalms. — © Ezra Furman
Jews like to write and sing. In America, a lot of us have been eager to show that we're part of American culture. But it all goes back to King David writing Psalms.
The reason I wouldn't dare to write a Western is simply because that seems to be so much a part of American culture. Maybe if I want to write a Western enough I should try to overcome that fear, but I'll certainly feel like I'm trespassing. I feel that that is so much a part of American foundation myth, it's part of the myth of America, the American vision of what America is, which people have glorified and then challenged and then vilified.
By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets.
The greatest king of Israel, King David, the author of the Psalms, sent a man out to die in battle so that he could sleep with his wife.
I think a lot of American fans or people that read about us - they think that we're trying to be a part of the American culture, like all these Swedish kids that love America. We rap in English, so I guess there's something, but we're very Swedish, actually.
There was a f**king review in f**king Melody Maker [of the first BOSSANOVA single, 'Velouria'] - 'Sounds like someone's been taking singing lessons'. Like, motherf**king A! I am the singer. Who do sing SONGS. It's like I never sang before; like I was - I don't know - reading PROSE on my previous records and now I sing. EXCUUUUUUSE me for singing
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.
I don't really identify with America, I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices.
I need to have one foot inside and one foot outside a culture to be able to write about it. For example, I couldn't write about the gay culture if I were wholly inside or outside of it. Finding that distance is always interesting. I jokingly say that when I'm in America, I write about Beirut, and when I'm in Beirut, I write about America. A lot of my friends in Beirut think I'm more American than Lebanese. Here, my friends think of me more as Lebanese.
With the war in Iraq, I had the cooperation of the Department of Defense. Kuwait was pretty eager to get American journalists in there, to show us what a wonderful place they are, and what great allies they are to America, even though they didn't actually fight in the war.
It has been estimated that of the world Jew population of approximately fifteen millions, no fewer than five million are in the United States. Twenty-five percent of the inhabitants of New York are Jews. During the Great War we bought off this huge American Jewish public by the promise of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, held by Ludendorff to be the master stroke of Allied propaganda as it enabled us not only to appeal to Jews in America but to Jews in Germany as well.
I have a lot of opinions. I express them in 'Mr. Show' very clearly, I think. I feel like both David Cross and I felt like that show reflected each of us pretty wholly.
When I was first writing about Japan, it was at the peak of the Bubble. Bubble popped, but they kept on going. Japanese street style feeds American iconics back into America in somewhat the way English rock once fed American blues back into America.
A culture-bearing book, like a mule, bears the culture on its back. No one should sit down to write one deliberately. Culture-bearing books appear almost accidentally, like a sudden surge in the stock market. There are books of high quality that are a part of the culture, but that is not the same. They are a part of it. They aren't carrying it anywhere. They may talk about insanity sympathetically, for example, because that's the standard cultural attitude. But they don't carry any suggestion that insanity might be something other than sickness or degeneracy.
I've been in America for almost ten years. I've had many parts of the American experience. I've been all over this country and seen many different parts of it. It's just that I'm not an American. I've never become an American. I'm talking about the whole thing-psychologically, citizenship, the whole trip. Of course I've definitely been influenced by America-I'm definitely influenced by the music and the culture.
In my view, immigrants today aren't any different from immigrants who have come to America throughout our nation's history. They bring new ideas, an entrepreneurial spirit and close family ties. They place a high value on education. And they are eager to achieve the American Dream. ... It's to our benefit to keep our doors open, and to keep enriching our economy and culture. I'd like to see America continue to do so.
Most American Jews came from the lower middle classes, and therefore they brought with them not a lot of Jewish culture. The American Jewish story starts with Ellis Island, and the candy store in the Bronx.
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