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2005.10.21
[Inside_Dierdre:_Reason_#_9,759 Why_I_Love_Trent_So Much_It_Hurts]
So, I read this totally enchanting interview with dear, dear Trent, and it contained the following paragraph of quoted material on the topic of what kinds of things spawned all his years of silence:
...also, it's just been me fighting myself all this time, because I've been afraid. I'm afraid I suck or I can't write songs anymore or I don't have anything to say or was just lucky that I got this far; I fooled people. I listened too much to that, and I wasn't rational enough to put it in its place, to know what that voice is, what its agenda is. And, I just feel free of that. I'm waking up feeling like I don't have to lie to everybody, as an addict, and also waking up like I can sit down and write, and, hey, it might suck. So what? The next one might not suck, and it's not going to be the end of my life if it does.
People, I swear: the love will eventually break me.
I mean, let's just start with the part where the man who recorded The Downward Spiral could possibly think, for even ONE MINUTE, that he got into our hearts so fucking permanently by fooling people. Jesus H. On the one hand, that's just depressing, because if Trent, with his incredible, gloriously beautiful creativity and perfectly callibrated effectiveness as an artist can possibly be fighting the delusion that he has "fooled people", what hope is there for a mere aspirant such as myself? On the other hand, it's so inspiring to think that obstacles can be removed or reimagined to reveal something as staggering as Trent Reznor's current chapter, and With Teeth, which is the first record in 10 years (since The Downward Spiral?) to take up residence in my heart in that way that makes it feel like it's become part of my fucking DNA.
Gabriel made the point, in his criticisms of Trent's new most beautiful song ever, "Non-Entity" (arguments for and against can be found in the comments following that link), that it felt unfinished, structurally, and inconclusive; but my feeling was that the song's power, and the force of Trent's gorgeous performance, lay precisely in his willingness to break out his spray-painted boom-box and give his full and considerable emotional committment to something that was not polished to his usual hermetically sealed, obsidian perfection, and was also ABOUT being in a painful, difficult moment of clarity and process, surrounded by self-wrought destruction and sadness, and not having a fucking stranglehold on all the answers. There is nothing harder, or more courageous than that, and there's no other way to begin to engage with the truth in oneself or in the world.
Trent's greatest strength as a performer has always been his ability to make REAL what he is saying, and the fact that he thinks thoughts like these, and moreover, can sit down at a piano for 3 minutes for a goddamned MTV telethon and make that happen is just...
FUCKING HELL. I admire him so much.
Trent, really. I love you. So not kidding.
Posted by Dierdre ~ in inside_dierdre | Permalink
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Comments
I can't bear to do another Haiku right now, but I'm glad you're still here expressing your love for Trent.
I mean, it's really not hurting anything. It's a part of you.
Keep yourself D.!
:)
Posted by: bex | Oct 21, 2005 5:36:26 AM
That was a good interview...I do enjoy when he's being candid despite the fact that every single journalist asks him the exact same questions and then comes up with a stupid pun in the title like "Reznor's Edge." (groan)
I find it comforting that he too is plagued with self-doubt even in his success. But on the other hand, is there ever going to be a time when one is not plagued by self-doubt? Cause I was kind of hoping that day would come when I write the Great American Novel...
Posted by: maise | Oct 21, 2005 7:19:24 AM
Maise, you could not be more right about the incredible lameness of ONE MORE GO on the "Reznor's Edge" express.
I am hoping that one day the self-doubt will subside and I will finally have the personal force to see my fucking projects through, and mount my brilliant one-woman show.
I wish the journalists would ask him about his work, a little bit. I'm all up to date on the biography. I want to know how he thinks about his work. I have about 1,000,000 questions.
Trent has a hot ass, and no doubt Baal is right to say he obviously smells good, but it's THIS kind of thing that makes me want to make out with him until I can't remember my name, date or serial number.
He is just SO DAMNED GOOD.
Posted by: Dierdre | Oct 21, 2005 7:34:18 AM
Trent: 9,759
Michel: -3
You know it's true, Dierdre.
Posted by: Jane | Oct 21, 2005 7:41:51 AM
This was an excellent interview. Trent is a fucking inspiration himself. To not be afraid to allow your vulnerabilities and imperfections show, to face the world with a new outlook, and to do it on your own two feet is a marvellous accomplishment. We should all be as bold and brave as Trent. (hint hint, Dierdre...)
Posted by: Buttercup | Oct 21, 2005 11:09:47 AM
This was an excellent interview. Trent is a fucking inspiration himself. To not be afraid to allow your vulnerabilities and imperfections show, to face the world with a new outlook, and to do it on your own two feet is a marvellous accomplishment. We should all be as bold and brave as Trent. (hint hint, Dierdre...)
Posted by: Buttercup | Oct 21, 2005 11:11:31 AM
Jane, please.
Buttercup, just what are you trying to say?
Posted by: Dierdre | Oct 21, 2005 11:29:30 AM
It should be obvious since I even said it twice! (sorry about that, NINternet problems@work) Maybe you need to read some of your previous posts about this smelly old French dude you're marrying. Unless of course he is STINKING FUCKING RICH. Then I take everything back, and bow to you in reverence.
Posted by: Buttercup | Oct 21, 2005 11:38:23 AM
Whoa, kids, let's take it down a notch. She totally does NOT have to dump Michel...that would be as crazy as stuffing all her NIN into the garbage disposal.
Posted by: maise | Oct 21, 2005 11:41:25 AM
If that's what you're implying, anyway...
Posted by: maise | Oct 21, 2005 11:45:34 AM
I'm not implying anything. I thought I was being as subtle as a brick across the forehead...look, if D can't have her cake and eat it too, then what's the point of being in the relationship in the first place? Nobody should ever have to compromise themselves to be with someone else. If someone/thing falls in love with you, it is because of who you are, not who they want you to be. If D is in a relationship with someone who is trying to change her, then that's not love; it's a power trip and a mind game, and she needs to get the fuck outta there already...
Posted by: Buttercup | Oct 21, 2005 12:29:58 PM
Well, I agree that he shouldn't be dictating her musical tastes, and the comment about "hysteria is for women"...UGH!
But I just feel uncomfortable advocating that she reject real, requited love when I've never even met her or her fiance...
Posted by: maise | Oct 21, 2005 12:40:09 PM
What if Michel would allow him and Dierdre to have an open marriage? I've been spending some time with some friends with such an arrangement and it fucking RULES for me.
Posted by: Gabriel | Oct 21, 2005 2:23:17 PM
Fuck that, Maise. It's perfectly obvious that Dierdre doesn't love Michel.
I'm with you, Buttercup.
Posted by: Jane | Oct 21, 2005 5:35:49 PM
Oh, and Gabriel? You are a chaunch-ass motherfucker.
Posted by: Jane | Oct 21, 2005 5:41:06 PM
Gabriel, ew. I've watched enough episodes of Real Sex on HBO to know that swingers are always FUGLY.
Posted by: maise | Oct 21, 2005 8:16:43 PM
You guys, I really appreciate your concern, but I hope you understand that I have to try to live my life, instead of selling it short to live with my dreams of perfection. Obviously, I totally disagree with Michel that Trent is hysterical, but he is right that I can't give my sweet everything to the project of our life together if I'm always thinking of another man, even if he is little more than a lovely dream to me.
It's going to be like surgery, but I have to cut it out.
Posted by: Dierdre | Oct 22, 2005 3:00:54 AM
there should be enough room in a person's life for marriage and fantasy. Deirdre, what you right rocks so don't give it up, the internet would be a poorer place without your tr obsession.
Posted by: M | Oct 22, 2005 7:50:19 AM
Oh by the way, maise, hysteria is, by definition, for women, since the origins of the word comes from the Greek "hystera" meaning uterus. Men, by definition, cannot be hysterical. And if they can, then they can fucking get PMS and cramps and migraines and get morning sickness and stretch marks and go into labour.
But back to Dierdre...in your very comment responding to ours up there, D, you show that you're compromising yourself. Shit, don't make me agree with Gabriel. When I was married, and even now with my current Boy, my men completely understood my needs to be a TR fangirl. Nobody has ever told me to stop being a fan, because no man I have ever had a serious relationship with wanted/wants me to compromise who I am just for them. It's called RESPECT.
Plus I get to use the threat "You know, Trent would buy me chocolates and flowers and sing to me and write me poetry and take me out for nice dinners." to which they normally respond, "Well then I guess you'll have to run away with Trent." at which point I head to the closet and pull out a suitcase and...well I usually end up having really good sex and dinner for the rest of the day.
Posted by: Buttercup | Oct 22, 2005 9:12:56 AM
To break from what everyone else is discussing...
What will Trent Reznor do when Nine Inch Nails U.S. tour ends on November 20th? "I might play theaters by myself, with the piano and some electronics," Reznor reveals to the smoking section. "Just try something that's the antithesis of the shows we're doing now." No way! "This arena tour is spectacle, it's bombast," he continues. "But as a musician it's not like an improvisational situation - primarily, we stick to the script. I have a newfound confidence, a combination of being sober, getting older and being a little more comfortable in my own skin, and I wouldn't mind creating a new environment where the sound is more spontaneous." Reznor also adds that being lucid 24/7 has fired up his songwriting - he hopes to drop a new NIN album in 2006.
I think Trent's been reading dictionaries and thesauri in his spare time. It makes me giggle. Then again, anyone actually using "big words" in a conversation makes me giggle.
Posted by: Kim | Oct 22, 2005 9:31:27 AM
Damn, I'm surprised he didn't throw a "pertinent" in there.
Posted by: emerald527 | Oct 22, 2005 10:02:10 AM
Me too, Em.
Posted by: Kim | Oct 22, 2005 10:25:20 AM
Well, I'm not exactly "lucid" at this particular moment, after a night out on the town, and little too much positively lovely french red, but this is just too much.
Trent, it seems, is truly trying to kill me, but you know what? If he really starts touring theaters alone with a piano and some electronics, I swear that all my Trent Reznor related dreams that don't include him making sweet, hot love to me night and day will have come true, and I will be prepared to die in perfect, transcendental bliss the moment I have seen it.
Because, OMFG: that would be the dreamiest thing EVER!
Posted by: Dierdre | Oct 22, 2005 4:32:27 PM
I highly encourage Trent to engage in such musical experimentation in Chicago.
Posted by: maise | Oct 22, 2005 4:45:07 PM
I highly encourage Trent to do whatever he fucking wants...
IN MY BED.
Fuck. Did I just say that?
Posted by: Dierdre | Oct 22, 2005 4:50:41 PM
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