It seems I was in more of a mood to post when i wasn’t tweeting all the time. Beth hates it when I say “tweet” “tweeted” “twitter” or any variation of “twit” so I make it a point to say them often, conjugated poorly - though, by its very nature, twitter conjugates poorly so I cannot claim this is a phenomena relegated to me alone.

And twitter has fed me thoughts that I’m sure everyone has had, so I’m not going to share them. I was going to, but why waste our time/s together?

Here are some fun things!
 
1 - For Mac fans: The new Macheist bundle is out, and I’m loving it. World of Goo is worth the price of admission alone, and I’m using eventbox all the time - though it’s not part of the package, it’s actually free. Little Snapper is pretty great, but I’m primarily interested in unlocking Espresso, which is the main reason I bought the package (I’m too cheap to buy Coda which is the app I’ve been eyeing hungrily for the past year or so.) If you want to help unlock Espresso, get some kicking applications and support a charity of your choice, just grab your paypal account and go!
 
2 - Oh, and I did this! - Ed’s Site Yay!
 
3 - I was interviewed today by Brad at CMDTV for his/their live show. It was completely online and live, and you missed it. SORRY. Basically I said “listen to Crystal Castles and go to school and I<3 the internets! LOLOLOL" so you didn't miss anything mindblowing. Though I do find the notion that I can set up my laptop in my office and skype into a live broadcast on the internet to be Crazytimes. (To a person from 20 years ago that sentence has numerous words that don't make sense. Sorry to my time-travelling readers.)
 
4 - I’m following Trent Reznor, Rob Sheridan, Tom Waits, Edward Droste, David Lynch, and Chris Walken on twitter these days? That means I can (theoretically) communicate with these people! The internet is a big bag of wonderful and I’m huffing it as fast as I can.
 
5 - If you’re interested in some zipped files of some of my worship backgrounds, I’ve put some together (four sets of 30 images)
Set1
Set2
Set3
Set4
 
6 - More than any other band, I think, I keep forgetting Psychic TV, and then remembering them. I love this. I can listen, forget, rediscover, listen, forget, rediscover, listen…. and yes, the rediscovery is always surreal. It’s like a band that never actually existed, though it does. And sometimes it manages to sound so completely forward thinking, you wonder if it’s happened. You think “no, I’m not tripping on ’shrooms. Yes, ’shrooms are tripping on me.” AND THEN you realize, no, I’m in Little Rock, Arkansas.
 
7 - I’ve had SUGAR today.
 
8 - I’m using the ever-freaking-fantastic typinator and MarsEdit to put this together.
 
9 - Oh, and this is what I’ve been working on during my free time, too, instead of updating my blog:  

 
10 - I think I’m going to redesign my site?! Not immediately, so maybe that’s a foregone conclusion, and definitely not before I complete the MustardtreeArts website for the art festival, but in some sort of timely fashion I hope. Web design is about the most invigorating thing I can think of. I want to develop my skills further, and my site right now is just flat-out bulky. Thanks to Brad for the boost back into the arena. I had dropped out, and I lost my mojo. You gotta fight for your mojo.
 
11 - I promise I can write good. Not today, but maybe sometime I’ll write a good thing for you to read. Compelling literature of a sort.
 
12 - I highly recommend marriage.
 
13 - Oh, and what do you think about visiting us here? - ‘Cause you may need to, depending on how Beth’s phone interview goes. I may have a couch or a desk for sale if that’s the case. U-Hauls don’t need to carry that mess.

I hope everything. <-- I was gonna add to that, but no.

Currently playing in iTunes: A Dream by Cut Copy

Seven years ago I started pulling out my hair – giant tufts of it from both sides of my head and I watched the strands fall in scattered patterns on the table.
I experienced the beauty of temporary absence.
(After you left me you phoned,
asked to see me, then arrived at the house patchouli oil fingerprints still damp on your neck.
I’ve never worn that scent.)
In truth, the adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is the truest I can imagine - those hairs never grew back.

I have not heard a dyslexic saxophonist,
a chain-smoking bassist
a fraud playing on cheap wooden recorders hawking his talent
prostituting himself
for pity or pithy glares or passive defeatist stares (of which the latter is worse)
utter
“maybe” “maybe not”
without contemplating murder.
In that moment I wish they’d fall onto a knife
prey to a drastic and instant case of pancreatic cancer
or a collapsed lung or a swelling of the brain causing a stroke
and, if everything goes as planned, death.

I pray they’d never utter another word
giggle at another silly limerick for the duration of their disastrously snipped lives.

I prefer them frozen in a torturous fixed pose ever after that moment
one hand raised as if to swat the Quick Spirit.
I desire to end them with a sturdy blow to the eardrum.
They would never have another orgasm
eat another Sundae lunch or even breathe.

They’d go beautifully
having said one last beautiful thing
beautifully.

Dear potential future employer,
I am writing to you because I want a job.
I am a good worker.
Hire me. Please.

Dear future employer,
I would like a job at your firm.
I’m sure I’d be useful.

Dear employer,
You need a worker.
I’m a hard worker
– Me. Hire me.

Dear Sir,
(1) I am trying to get a job at your firm.
(2) You are looking for someone.
The two pieces seem to fit, so, am I hired?

Dear Mr. Sparks,
I am graduating from school,
meaning I will soon have a degree.
Don’t you want to hire me already?

Dear Rick,
let’s get to the point.
You need me, I need you.
Any more deliberation would be a waste of time.

Richard,
Not hiring me will be the biggest mistake you’ll ever make.
So don’t make it.

Sparky,
can I call you Sparky?
Anyway, I want a job. You have a spot.
When do I start?

Hey,
you don’t know me but you will want to after you see my portfolio.
Tomorrow, 9:30?

Rick,
Hire me
Hire me
Hire me
Hire me.

Dear Mr. Richard Sparks of CEI, Inc.,
I will be graduating in the spring with a degree in Graphic Design.
I am hoping for a job as a junior designer at your firm and will call your office on Monday to discuss setting up an interview.
Thank you for your time.

if you wanted to alter the country
and the atmosphere
and the general level of education
and the popular opinion of the people
and the way they spend their time and their coinage
which you’ve proven numerous times you can

if you wanted to make intelligent decisions
and if you had any scruples
and a conscience
and cared about someone besides yourself
and your cronies and your bankroll
which you’ve proven numerous times you should

if you wanted to build a less terrifying future
and your cohorts did too
and theirs did as well
and your motives were pure and transparent
and you went in with half a brain
which you’ve proven numerous times you could

you might start by admitting your potential to be wrong

You should know if you keep staring at that screen you’ll get cancer beneath your eyes.
Maybe think about turning that off and enjoying yourself. Get a glass of wine, possibly a book and a good friend, where you can both finally just curl up like pods on the couch, kind of letting your feet touch beneath a blanket, then reach over and turn on some good jazz or some Strauss/ Beethoven/Wagner or, if a harp is more your style, harp, guitar, whatever - it could be as simple as pop on the radio.
You’ll look over occasionally and smile at each other reading whichever book you came to first when you ran your hand across your shelf - that Vonnegut you started two years ago, go ahead and pick up Dostoevsky but really just hold it on your knee, balanced between the meat of your thumb and palm. Fingers loose. You won’t actually read: the music could be too distracting or the smell of lemon Pine-Sol could keep drawing you away, but whatever it is, you’ll look up lazily and make some casual comment about it to your couch partner.
She might smile and nod – she’s probably not going to be reading either, she’ll just be enjoying the atmosphere in the room: the lamps and the green teapot on the stove and the whistle of the water pipes as the tenant in apartment 303 takes a shower, dropping soap or a bottle of shampoo-conditioner mix on the cheap plastic floor above you, and the thought of “rockets falling on rocket falls,” which may or may not be the title of whatever you’re listening to, but she wouldn’t know, because she’s just enjoying the moment.
She may mention something about that, in a this-is-nothing-big-just-wanted-to-let-you-know kind of voice, but you’ll listen because you’d much rather listen than actually get back into your book you need to start over anyway because you can’t remember why Raskolnikov is lying around in his apartment.
Maybe he killed someone? …
you’d have to reread to remember.
And she might casually slide in how much she likes you and how much she enjoys spending the evening in little couch-lumps and you’ll think back to this conversation we had and laugh because who’d have thought you’d be getting more living done just sitting on the couch than in front of that deafening box?

Things are happening.

I posted some motion graphics on Flickr and some people actually seem to.. like them? Each week I try to make something that moves with some semblance of grace and poise, but most of my efforts as of yet have been bumbling, joyless exercises which leave me feeling ill-equipped for the job. My goals and my products are two very separate things - I try to keep them realistically separate to spare my ego, but I’m also desperately hoping that one day they will mesh. I’m nowhere near a pro, I’m still learning, but encouragement to keep on learning has been in no short supply these last few days, and I’m grateful. The momentum that has built, however, is the most intoxicating part of this ordeal. We’re looking at putting them up for sale, and, should it prove itself to be a true revenue stream, should/might/will be diverted to supply creative arts here and abroad.

For some reason I’m now interested in writing more regularly.
Poetry and stuff.
Maybe prepare yourselves?

The old site hadn’t changed in - what? over a year? I’m not sure anymore, but I do know that it was in need of a serious relaunch to make it more usable. This, I think, will be zachfonville.com v2.0 (now at the top of the google search listing for zach fonville, rather than on the stupid 2nd page!) It features video, more of my personal pics, and a better, more usable interface. Credit where it’s due: the theme I built this site on was Equilibrium which is a wonderful theme you should definitely check out if you’re in the market for a quality wordpress magazine-layout theme.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about the new layout and structure, or hear your bug issues. Known problems I’m going to be updating:
1. RSS mess. I need to update my Yahoo pipe, but simplepie has come along since then, and so maybe I want to go that route… we’ll see. I’ll keep you updated.
2. My about me page kind of sucks right now.
3. Well, you tell me.

I’m glad you’re here. With this revision, I promise to update more regularly and with more content, and with more thought.
That is my promise to you.
That is the promise I’m not keeping at the moment due to time issues.
For the time being, I’m going to finish slapping together this post to go back to rehearsal.
The renders aren’t done, but it looks like they’re not going to make it. Pity.

TV on the Radio put out a solid album this year. Notice I’m not ranking anything right now, but if I were, this one would come in the top three of my top ten for the year.

MGMT I really didn’t listen to the entire album but three times or so, but I’ve listened to the first five tracks enough to make up for it.

Why? I can’t recommend this wholeheartedly to everyone due to some adult language and themes, but the lyricism is magnificent and quality is top notch. If you can stomach real life for some people who are not you, this one is a superb pick.

Air France played incessantly from my work speakers for a long long long tme. It still does pretty often, bolstered by the fact that it’s right near the top of my itunes every time I turn it on. Beth laughed at it and said it sounded like it was music from Zelda. And she’s right. But Zelda rocks. So does Air France.

Hercules and Love Affair Antony Hegarty has one of the most distinctive voices in music today. And I love it.

Ratatat There’s no surprises here. If you’ve been around long at all you know Ratatat, you know if you like them - and if you do but haven’t heard LP3, I can’t say anything else except “did you not know they had a new album out?”

The Raveonettes took up the best part of the spring on my ipod (which still existed those days as it had not yet been stolen) and generated a newfound enjoyment of neo-shoegaze, and engendered a brief, but short lived excursion back into MBV and a return to last year’s “a place to bury strangers”. For weeks this was all I listened to. Loudly.

Crystal Castles - my second true addiction this year. I thought it might be a passing fad, and maybe it will prove itself to be in the long run, but holy mess this is splendid. I’ve spent days, as with GiaA, listening to nonstop Alice Glass scream/ging about herpes and AIDs Robots (and life and deep, heavy stuff) over bitglitch chiptune or whatever the cool kids are calling it these days. And seriously, I think I’m going to switch over from my Windy&Carl to Crystal Castles right now.

Portishead came back so strong and wonderfully. I was and am impressed. Never a true Portishead devotee, I had been exposed to their earlier stuff, but nowadays when I hear Beth Gibbons sing “I’m always so unsure” on “Threads” I just curl up and smile. In my chair. Which is hard to do - curling up in a desk chair.

Deerhunter / Atlas Sound I’m grouping together, because they both have the Bradford Cox fingerprint, and to the casual listener (which I become more and more as the weeks wear on) sound nearly indistinguishable. But are both fantastic. They’re not artists/albums that will hold your attention if they’re meant for active listening, though I think they reward close inspection. Deerhunter creeped into my daily rotation quite unexpectedly, where I never really made the decision to listen to it, I just found myself clicking the album each time I passed by the “D”s on my way from Crystal Castles to Earlimart. Most of the time I didn’t actually make it to Earlimart.

Earlimart This one began as an attempt to find something new and interesting to play for Beth that she’d enjoy, but wasn’t Grizzly Bear or any of the other albums I tend to play for her. I think it kind of stuck for her - she’s not sought out a copy of “Hymn and Her” for her own enjoyment, though she has mentioned she enjoys it, but it stuck with me. Like Winterpills, Rogue Wave and Miracle Fortress before it, it’s one of those I really did not expect to get so heavily into… until I was.

The Mountain Goats & Mount Eerie followed the same path as above, somehow when the track shifted from my selected M83 “saturdays=youth” to the mountain goats heretic pride, I just… listened to it. Then when that meshed into Seven Songs of Mount Eerie… I kept listening. Every time. Every day. For like a month.

M83 have not put out an album I don’t love. This one is no exception.

Holy F*** Yeah. the name. I know. But listen to it a few times and you’ll know why this one rocketed to the top of my listening queue in a matter of hours.

F*** Buttons and yes, this one too. Anytime anyone at work asks me what I’m listening to… I tell them “street horrsing”. which I doubt they’ll ever google, and if they did would probably give them incorrect results. Note: the second “r” is silent. Two of my favorite artists this year have been very unfortunately named.

Hammock / Windy & Carl / Dead Texan / Growing / This is Your Captain Speaking these are along the lines of the William Basinski recommendation I surreptitiously made each opportunity I was given last year- meaning they’re not going to keep you up during a long drive in the dark. In fact, I think they’d prove lethal - though your flaming wreckage would have a peaceful soundtrack.

Santogold had my attention for about a month and a half, but she’s died down now, so, consume knowing she won’t fill you up forever.

Muscles are annoying and are my friend. As in they’re not actually my friend, but I’m sure they’re fairly friendly. Check out the line: “Hey Muscles I love you, I wanna have your babies. Come over I’ll kiss you, don’t worry ’bout the neighbors.” Are you wooed? I am.

Department of Eagles I didn’t get a chance to listen too much. I know these guys don’t need an uninformed shout-out from a nondescript blogger such as I, but with the Grizzly Bear connection and the one time I listened to that one song, something tells me I’ll kick myself in a few weeks when I become more acquainted with it if I don’t give it a shout on this post.

The Dodos put out some relatively fun sounding music… you know, for when you don’t have enough to listen to already.
 
 
As always, I’ve missed several albums/artists I’ll realize next year are fantastic and I can’t believe I ever did without. I’ve missed some of this year’s early fascinations, and some of last years goodies I discovered but then forgot again.
 
 
 

Also, guys, did you know I’m married? A week and two days! Sweetness. I’ll write more on that subject tomorrow. We’ll just leave it at the thought: Beth is my favorite.

1. Cheap Gas

right before a quick jaunt down to Lake Charles, Louisiana, then Killeen, Texas for Thanksgving, and then - come christmas - back to Killeen, and then - come January 4 - down to Houston. We were staring down a huge payout (a one-family bailout?) to shell gas stations, which was unexpectedly and mercifully halved.
 
 

2. Top Gear

You might not have watched Top Gear yet, which is understandable, but after this post you’ll have no excuses. Apparently a US version is coming in spring/summer of next year, there’s already an Aussie version and a Russian spinoff as well. I don’t really know or care about those (yet?) but the original - the British version - is wonderful. It’s now in its twelfth season (after running for over a decade in a different format, but with the same name) and it just gets better and better. I’m sure someday its new format will lose steam, but it hasn’t yet. I’ve started working my way through old seasons when I get the chance, and it’s definitely come a long way since 2002, but I really really enjoy most of it. Beth doesn’t get it, though, so I guess there are those who wouldn’t enjoy the show - but in the past I’ve never laughed as hard and as consistently as I do when I watch more recent episodes.
 
 

3. Learning New Things

I like learning. Design gives you an excellent opportunity to tax yourself - sometimes I wish I had more time to just learn, but since I really learn by doing, I’m in an excellent position (’cause I’m doing a lot). Sometimes I just wish the things I was learning didn’t have to be displayed until I was ready to display them… but hey. Whatever.
 
 

4. Music Music and Music

I’ve not been listening to much new stuff, but God is an Astronaut has taken over my itunes. Highly Recommended.

 
 
Well, I goofed off too much while writing this and my render finished, so I’ll call it quits for the time being. Have a great time doing what you’re doing, and if you don’t hear from me again until February, don’t be surprised.