The album gives me space to imagine beautiful places and sappy romantic love. It gives me the space to imagine intentional rest that does not imply lockdown, to imagine interactions with people that don’t signal death, and to imagine a healthy, abundant sex life that I have yet to experience.

When I hear the calls to “cancel” Russian culture, I think: Go ahead and kill me, too. I have no other path, no other identity besides being an artist. I can’t change my blood, and you’ll never grant me any citizenship.

The scars of war don’t go away. They stay in our souls and our memory. They remain alive in the memory of all those who have experienced war and suffered its destruction, those who have lost their loved ones. You cannot forget the horror of this war or our tragedy simply because the world wants to pull the curtain down over it, to hide the victims and reward the executioners.

It felt insane leaving our comrades in the ditch like that. In the hands of the police. In the dry and desecrated earth, under the anger and irritation of the police and the workers and hecklers. Treating us like we’re crazy, and useless, and dangerous, too.

Eventually DCI scrubbed celluloid film almost entirely from the film industry, ushering in the most significant technological shift since the introduction of sound. The digital revolution transformed nearly every aspect of filmmaking for Hollywood and independent filmmakers. This revolution was invisible, and it was designed to be that way. Its success depended on audiences never noticing at all.