What Makes American Music American

From boingboing.net, this video: Bernstein on What Makes American Music American:

"In this clip, Bernstein sums up how America's melting pot of cultures distilled many different kinds of music into quintessentially "American" music. Too often we try to ignore cultural differences and pretend they don't exist. Pointing out the things that are particular to a group of people is seen as "impolite". I prefer to celebrate all of the ethnic cultures around me here in Hollywood- Hispanic, Asian, Black, Middle Eastern- it's all more interesting to me than the plain old white bread people I grew up around. As a cartoonist, the differences between all of us are much more interesting than the similarities. Viva la difference!"

Obviously, PSR doesn't deal with music at all, but I think some of this applies to American art and literature as well. Plus, aren't all the arts are deeply interconnected anyway?