Jonathan Coulton News

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** Hi Everybody
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I'm not even sure this thing still works. WHAT YEAR IS IT. I have some shows to announce, but first I have to say a thing (scroll down if you get bored).

I've been very quiet lately, and it's been nice. Somewhere in the middle of one of the various dumpster fires we've been living through these last few years, I started to become uncomfortable with my compulsive behavior around social media use. It started with me deciding to post less, because I was aware of how much I craved likes and replies, and I didn't like being controlled by some algorithm that was an expert at making me feel that way. But I was still reading, reading EVERYTHING, like it was my job. I followed a lot of reporters and politicians, which I maybe thought was going to help me solve all the world's problems? Or at least guarantee that when a problem was solved, I would hear about it right away. This only resulted in me hearing every bit of bad news very quickly, multiple times per day, flavored with all of the arguments and bad feelings everyone else in the world was having. On top of all that, some family health issues cropped up that made it feel important to shrink my
horizon down, in order to focus on a much smaller bubble of time and space that surrounds me and the people I love. (Everyone is OK now, don't worry.) So I stopped using the sosh meeds entirely. Sorry I didn't tell you!

It was a great relief. Often, a thing would happen in the world, and I would be able to imagine in great detail who was saying what about it, and what issues other people would take with what they said, and what kind of dunks were being served on the people who were wrong about the thing that happened, and how those dunks would never land in a satisfying way. I was still reading the news, but reading it like, IN THE NEWS, and so I was still hearing about everything that happened, but without all the compulsive behavior and near constant bad feelings. From what I can tell, not many problems were solved, and it's not because I wasn't constantly looking at Twitter. Pretty sure.

COVID cut off a lot of connections that used to just happen by themselves, and I took the extra step of removing social media, so I made myself a very tall, and rather dry club sandwich of isolation. It was definitely what I needed at the time, but I miss everybody. I miss your dumb jokes and your complaints and your pictures of cute animals. Not a lot of shows have been happening, and I miss those too. I'm OK, but it's been a rough couple of years, and it's been hard to really accomplish much of anything. I know a lot of people are in a similar place - I hope you're OK! I don't know what's next for me exactly, but it will be something, and it will not involve me doom scrolling Twitter seven hours a day.

Here are some things I'm very much looking forward to already:


** Shows
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Saturday Dec 31
College Street Music Hall, New Haven
Opening for They Might Be Giants
New Years Eve baby! If this show sells out, I will wear a tuxedo. Tickets (https://bit.ly/3UggXXr?mc_cid=7d349fa8d5&mc_eid=UNIQID) on sale Sept 21

Wednesday Oct 12 and Thursday Oct 13
Largo, Los Angeles
Aimee Mann And Friends
Finally, I'm a And Friend!
Tickets (https://bit.ly/3Unq0pC?mc_cid=7d349fa8d5&mc_eid=UNIQID) for one show and tickets (https://bit.ly/3UmXCUh?mc_cid=7d349fa8d5&mc_eid=UNIQID) for the other show are on sale now.

I think writing these paragraphs counts as a full day of work for me, so I'll leave it there. See you in 36 months (joke)!

-j

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