In 1994, Jim Jarmusch revealed plans to "do a book", still not finished, at least never published.
"I have been writing a little book. Do you know this little publisher - Hanuman Press - that does those little tiny books? There is a Burroughs one about painting and guns, there's a Patti Smith one. They asked me to do a book. I haven't finished it yet, but I've been writing just little anecdotes of things that have happened in my life, not related to films at all, but just stupid little things that have happened that I think are maybe funny. As a kind of like memoirs, but in a random order." [Danny Plotnick, The Village Noize, 1994]
In an interview in Uncut magazine in 2003, Jarmusch mentioned writing essays "sort of to amuse myself":
"They [the former members of The Clash] are amazing people, very rare, who together made something incredibly rare. I'm writing a series of essays, sort of to amuse myself, a sorta Battle Of The Bands thing. One is Duchamp versus Warhol. And one is The Clash versus The Sex Pistols. The Pistols, like The Ramones, were to me about reduction, and reducing rock 'n roll to its absolute essentials. They were masterful at that. They created one record, basically. In the pantheon of rock 'n roll they are perfect in their ability to reduce rock 'n roll to that degree and to have that kind of emotion and anger in it. I love them for that.
The Clash, on the other hand, to me were so incredibly open to everything. Rather than reduce music to an essence, what they did was take anything that flowed in to their hearts and souls. They grabbed onto that essence and used it and made it part of themselves, whether it's rockabilly or dub or reggae...so I find them almost diametrically opposed, in a way, to the Pistols. They just opened their hearts to the universe and anything that is real or moving to them became part of them. That's what The Clash were always, continually doing. Whether they pulled in fragments of English folk tunes, or elements of hip hop, stuff like that."