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I once walked through an exhibit in a large American museum that displayed First Nations artifacts in old dioramas, with mannequins that hadn't been changed since the 19th century.

The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, actually, was an effort to put something on the mall in Washington so American tourists could walk through America, and in their minds everything on the mall would be American.

I love going to museums, especially the Met, because there's always room for discovery, or the Neue Galerie. It's a great jewel box.

What would I put in a museum? Probably a museum! That's an amusing relic of our past.

I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music.

We don't intend to always keep this necessarily African oriented. Originally I had hoped to have African American Indian of this area, and the Appalachian of this area, but at the same time, just as we have the Haitian room, we will always have room for another exhibit.

We talk about theatre museums filled with old costumes and things. What we also need is a theatre museum of the old routines on videotape. We are only the custodians of those techniques, and they should be preserved.

I remember that Martin Hannett once had an idea of making a record and burying it in his garden so that one day someone would dig it up, like a time capsule.

I want to bring back the human encounter into places where material things have a prime status. In a museum, you're supposed to look at things and not talk to other people.