Trent on NPR

There are very few NPR programs that trigger an immediate urge in me to turn off the radio, but heading the list has to be Fresh Air, at least whenever Terry Gross is actually interviewing guests, and not a stand-in. Gross is almost infallibly exasperating, either because she's fawning, she's unfair, or she's simply ignorant and shallow.
Still, she does tend to interview interesting people, and M. happily tipped me off yesterday to Gross's interview with someone I consider to be incredibly interesting, my favorite musician, Trent Reznor.

Gross, expectedly, doesn't know much about Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, and from her introduction and questions it's clear that she relies heavily on Wikipedia. Still, I'll never pass up an opportunity to hear Trent speak or play.
My favorite quotes from the interview are Gross displaying her usual brilliance

GROSS: "And I think, I mean that's true in the sense that I mean you really are composing. It's not like noisy noise. It's more composed noise."

Yes, Trent actually makes music.
and Trent's humor

GROSS: Let's hear another Nine Inch Nails song. And this is another kind of - another one in the canon of Nine Inch Nails songs.
REZNOR: Play a happy one just to break - oh wait, there aren't any.

The interview is worth a listen, or a read, as is another NPR interview from the time when Trent won an Oscar for the original score for The Social Network.

Some Reznor/Finch songs from David Fincher's version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are available for a listen here.
And here's the movie trailer:

Getting restarted

TDC sputtered through the winter of 2010, when M. and I were grinding out job applications largely pointless and unrequited, and during that summer as well, when we spent a wonderful if exceedingly intense three months back in what we both fondly think of as our second hometown, Ithaca, NY. Our summer 2010 experiences deserve their own blog entry.

What happened between last November and this one? I had hoped to build blogging momentum through NaBloPoMo, but I quickly fell off the wagon. We were yet again struggling (mentally and physically) with job applications on top of our regular teaching and research duties, and this time around we were also preparing for the imminent arrival of The Bean. TB made his grand entrance at the end of January 2011 and promptly began keeping us exhaustingly and exhilaratingly busy tending to his every need. M. naturally took point in terms of Beancare, while my normal work duties continued unabated, along with the job search, which thankfully turned out much more more positively this time: I landed a nice job in Salt LakeCity.

The new opportunity meant an immediate amplification of stress and disruption, of course. House hunting, renting, packing, loading, trucking, flying, unloading, unpacking, shopping, repairing, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and so forth. And a conference in the US, half the summer in Germany, a conference in Sweden, new employee orientation .... and suddenly a teaching job for M., so last minute that there was no time to find daycare for TB. Up to this point, we have been juggling two full-time jobs, one full-time Bean, and an incomplete house. What spare time we've had has been largely devoted to sleeping up to this point.

But we've made steady progress and things are finally seeming to settle down. It seems reasonable to start writing in this space again. With some effort and discipline, regular TDC blogging may even prove sustainable.

I'm still thinking about what to write about in the rebooted TDC. The old categories, of course: writings read; art and music appreciated; movies, plays, television watched; items eaten, imbibed, and cooked.

And at least as far as my contributions to the new TDC go, more soccer.

Others are still encouraged to join in!

TDC Lives

After a year long hiatus, TDC blogging resumes! Longer, regular posting to follow, along with some reorganization.