NIN Oeuvre Blog: Just Like You Imagined
Editor’s Note: This entry originally appeared on the blog Ten Thousand Lies on June 1, 2007, long before GHOSTS brought back the instrumentals in the big way that I’d been hoping for.
Having read about Trent Reznor’s background quite a bit over the years, I’ve always imagined that he was the kind of guy I would’ve wanted to hang out with in high school, but would’ve been too intimidated by to approach. He seems to have been, at least partially, the quintessential band geek. A piano player from an early age, and a member of the marching band in high school, he was the kind of talented kid I always dreamed of being, or of being around (figuring I could absorb some talent by osmosis to keep for myself). But it was that level of talent in someone that scared me away most of the time. “Why would he want to hang out with me?” I would think. “What do I have to offer?”
Anyway, all of this is my way of beginning to say that, if I had known Trent in high school, Nine Inch Nails is exactly what I would have expected him to do with his life. Maybe not something so dark, necessarily. But I would have expected him to go on to great things in his chosen field, because I have a tremendous amount of faith in the talented people I come into contact with. And hell, if he went to my high school, there’d certainly be a precedent for him going on to success. CHS alums have gone on to supervise background design for The Simpsons, to produce films based on novels by authors like Jonathan Lethem, and, of course, to write and release rock and roll records (there’s at least a couple of them: 1, 2). Nobody’s done anything quite so big as to write a song with the lyrics “I want to f*ck you like an animal” in it, and then to gain worldwide fame for that song, but I’m sure that’s only a matter of time.
The music I might’ve expected him to go on and write, given his piano background, his training in multiple instruments, and his interest in computer engineering (he did one year at Allegheny College, studying the subject) is best represented in the many instrumentals he’s produced. And among those, one of the most memorable is the song, “Just Like You Imagined.”
After initially hearing this song as part of the massive musical experience that was The Fragile, I have only recently come to love it as an individual song, thanks, in no small part, to its prominent use in the trailers for the recent film 300. It builds from a repetitive piano and guitar line into an honest-to-goodness wall of sound without ever losing it’s sense of purpose. I marvel at this because, as someone who’s tried to write a few songs of his own in the past, I’ve always struggled with the idea of building to a chaotic conclusion while remaining interesting, while keeping the sense of song intact.
And watch Trent explain how to play the song correctly in this rehearsal clip found on YouTube. I love watching him break down a song (I love the idea of anyone explaining so directly, yet so democratically, what each individual person’s part in a song is, probably because I felt so lost during my days playing in bands).
“Just Like You Imagined” is the kind of song that Trent isn’t yet writing again, now that he’s sober. It’s a song that only could have survived the birthing process back in the Fragileera, where his sense of aimlessness (I’m guessing that he felt aimless here, based on the descriptions of alcoholism and drug abuse we’ve heard him give since getting off the sauce) seemed to make him more open to creating seemingly tangential pieces, and figuring out where they fit later. Nowadays, I think a song like “Just Like You Imagined”, a perfectly wonderful instrumental, albeit a short one, would get incorporated into a song with lyrics, maybe a song that was just missing that one last thing.
Trent’s laser-like focus in recent years has brought us albums like Year Zero, his best since The Downward Spiral, and it’s the result of finally getting clean, so I won’t complain too much. But I do miss the instrumentals, and I hope they come back some day in a big way.
Topics: Nine Inch Nails
Geek Force FiveCast 012 (Video)
It’s April 28, 2008, and today I’m geeking out about the woman who married me seven years ago today.
Today’s Geek Force FiveCast is a clip from my wedding ceremony, which took place on April 28, 2001. Specifically, it’s a clip of the first dance, which was not planned or choreographed in any way. My wife was and is a dancer, but I’ve never had very many moves of my own. I decided to surprise her that day by putting a little bit more into the dance than we’d probably discussed. The result, as you’ll see, is two parts funny and three parts rot-your-teeth sweet. Enjoy!
Synchronicity: Syncing Contacts, Calendars, and Other Data Between Computers
Since bringing my iMac home from the Apple Store just over a year ago, my day-to-day computing experience has been pleasant and almost entirely absent of frustration. Yes, I still use a Windows laptop for work, and yes I spend more time on that slow-as-molasses Dell P.O.S. than I do on my Precious, but just knowing that I have an iMac to go home to at the end of the day has made days spent with the Dell significantly more tolerable.
But there is one thing missing. There is one thing about my present technology situation that drives me crazy, and that is the lack of synchronization. In short: I want all of my contacts, calendars, and e-mail easily accessible and modifiable from any computer or device that I want to access them from. I really don’t think that this is too much to ask, and I really don’t think that I should be paying extra for this kind of service.
Currently, I use IMAP and Google Apps For Your Domain to keep e-mail in sync and I use a service called Plaxo to sync data between Mail, iCal, and Address Book on my Mac and Outlook 2007 on my Dell. Plaxo is a relatively good service, but it’s prone to data duplication issues and the plugin that’s required on both ends is a system-hog. It’s free, which is cool, but I hate having to add something onto my system to make it do what I want it to do. I feel like the system should just do what I want it to do, with a minimum amount of effort put in by me.
So, I’ve begun to explore other options. The most obvious option is the one that appeals the least to me. Like so many people, I could start working entirely out of a browser. If I used Gmail and Google Calendar exclusively for all of my mail, contacts, and calendar needs, I wouldn’t have the problem I’m having now. But I like using a desktop client, and I like the way Apple’s Mail.app works specifically. And, more importantly, I can’t stand the way Gmail looks. I tend to get headaches if I stare at it for too long.
The Mac Address Book application does have the ability to sync with an online contact application natively, but that contact application is Yahoo’s. Putting aside Yahoo’s uncertain future, I find this option less than ideal because of the sheer bloatedness of their application and the clutter of its interface.
I got excited about Microsoft’s Live Mesh when I heard about it the other day, but it’s unclear to me how it would work with calendars and contacts. And, of course, it’s PC-only at the moment.
Apple’s .Mac service would seem to be a viable option, as would Spanning Sync, but each of these products violates what I believe to be a cardinal rule: thou shalt not charge extra for data synchronization.
Which leads me back to where I started, to what I’m stuck with: Plaxo. In the end, it seems like it’s probably the only option that makes sense for me right now. If I could actually edit the contacts and events that I can sync to my iPod (when, iPhone, will you finally be mine?), then I probably wouldn’t even care about having data synced to my laptop. But I can’t do that, so I’m stuck with what I’m stuck with.
Anyone out there have any thoughts on this? Do any of you use any of these syncing products? What have your experiences been like?
Topics: Apple
Apple Store Boston - Coming Soon!
I had a total moment of geek overload this morning. I was listening to Nine Inch Nails, thinking about last night’s new episode of Lost, and then I came across this sight: the scaffolding coming down in front of the soon-to-open Apple Store on Boylston Street in Boston. I’m obviously a little late to the party, as ifoAppleStore apparently had a post up about this yesterday, but I’m glad that I got to first experience the awesomeness of the scaffolding coming down in person, rather than experiencing it via the Web.
Lost 4.09 Countdown: Day 7 of 7
A new episode of Lost is less than an hour and a half away, but I’m not sure I’m going to still be awake when the awesomeness arrives. It has been a very long week, and while I have no doubt that I could stay up until 10, when the show starts, I have serious doubts about my ability to stay up until 11, when the show ends.
Then again, if I rely on iTunes to deliver me an electronic copy of the episode before I have to leave for the bus tomorrow morning, I might be sorely disappointed.
Decisions, decisions…
