Taking a Twitter Break

February 14, 2018 Matthew Gaudet

I loved Twitter a couple of years. I think the trick really was that I found a group of people to follow that constantly were linking to or talking about fascinating things.

I learned a lot from Twitter. It's been an important part of me learning about a number of topics. An important way for me to listen to people I wouldn't normally interact with.

I need a break though.

Twitter is too stressful. It too angry. Most of all, it's not healthy for me. Twitter has eaten far too many hours of my life, and I feel constantly like it has displaced other things in my life I'd rather do more of. There's also a performative aspect to it that grates; I don't feel genuine always on Twitter.

So it's time for me to take some time away. Let's see what happens if I take a month (31 days) away from Twitter. A couple rules for myself: No browsing the timeline. Links to tweets and threads are OK if coming from friends.

Now seems as good a time as any. Perhaps better than most, as I'll be headed to a cottage with some friends.

If you need me? Email me.

Mansur Brown

February 14, 2018 Matthew Gaudet

I've been loving Mansur Brown's stuff lately

TriForce joins Brownswood Recordings and Gilles Peterson in the Brownswood Basement for a special session, featuring new track 'Walls' from new album, We Out Here, released 9th Feb on Brownswood Recordings. Dominic Canning - Keys Mansur Brown - Guitar Ricco Komolafe - Bass Benjamin Appiah - Drums

So Much Good Music

February 6, 2018 Matthew Gaudet

I haven't posted a music post in quite a while. I think the root cause is that I've been overwhelmed of late with great music. It makes it hard to share things, because I feel like I haven't given albums or songs the consideration they deserve before sharing. That's probably a weird hangup I have.

Let me try to not let that hold me back.

All copyrights to Perfume Genius and Pitchfork or whatever.

The Perfume Genius album No Shape has impressed me every time I put it on. The whole thing is great. Give it a listen.

Album: Colin Stetson - All This I Do for Glory (2017); Track: Colin Stetson - All This I Do for Glory

The eponymous track from Colin Stetson's All This I Do for Glory blows me away.

Game Over EP on iTunes - http://smarturl.it/DaveGameOver Game Over EP on Spotify - http://smarturl.it/SpotifyGameOver Game over EP on Apple Music - http://smarturl.it/AppleGameOver Produced by Steel Banglez Co-produced by Dave Additional production by 169 & Fraser T Smith Video directed by Nathan James Tettey Video produced by Stephanie Paeplow Follow Dave: http://instagram.com/santandave http://twitter.com/santandave1 http://facebook.com/santandave1 Snapchat - davem1st Follow MoStack: http://twitter.com/realmostack https://soundcloud.com/realmostack https://www.facebook.com/MoStackGBG/ https://www.instagram.com/mo.stack/ SnapChat - MOHECO © Dave, 2017

Dave's album Game Over is 💯. You also need to listen to Question Time.

Ok, code's done compiling. Back to it.

Book: Annihilation

February 5, 2018 Matthew Gaudet

To be honest, I still don't know how I feel about Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. It was a continuously disquieting experience. I'm not sure if I'll read any more of the Southern Reach books, not because it was bad, but because I'm not sure it's my kind of experience.

Book: The Woman Who Smashed Codes

January 28, 2018 Matthew Gaudet

Near the beginning of the month, I finished reading Jason Fagone's book The Woman Who Smashed Codes, a biography of Elizebeth Friedman, a code breaker who formed a huge part of the history of cryptanalysis in America, along with her husband William Friedman.

It was a really enjoyable read, telling the story of two people and the role they played in history, with great prose.