After the 9/11 incidents, Islam has become a big question mark among westerners, especially Americans. The mass media constantly raise the issue of relationship between Islam and terrorism.
Well, the most important thing about Islam is that we have to differentiate between two kinds of Islam. The first one is the institution of Islam... second, the culture of Islam.
Many occasions I've sat down with Israelis to say, where do you see your country in 10 years time, and work me back, so we can figure out the synergies and the connections between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. No Israeli has ever been able to answer that question.
Classic romantic love is an emotional attraction between two individuals in which they may share a heightened awareness of mutual adoration. Erotic love, traditionally, has been described as shared sexual attraction.
At some point, a flash of sustained clarity reveals the difference between what someone would have you believe is true, and what you know from the depths of your own heart to the peaks of your soul to be true. What happens after that is up to you.
When a film is good, the lines between single-screen and multiplex blur.
I think there is a difference between connecting with a character and supporting and believing their policies.
I've moved around so much my whole life, and I've gotten so used to being the Other in situations - the foreigner, the outsider. The first time I've ever felt like there was no separation between me and the other elements was in music.
I do see music as complete refuge. It's a universal home, complete common ground between everyone; it comes from a place that has no nation and no boundaries around it.
I'm no ethnomusicologist. There is a connection between the five-note scale used both in traditional Chinese music and the blues, but I don't really understand it. All I know is, whenever I play with Chinese musicians, we seem to belong to the same musical gene pool.
