That could have gone better.

News? No News.

This is not a post about the missing airship Jane Guy, I am sorry to say. Since I last wrote to you on the topic, leads have been followed and lost, sightings have been reported and debunked, and little if any actual progress has been made in the investigation. Some of these episodes might make interesting reading when the time comes to tell the full story, but they are not news.

The fact is, there is little enough news coming out of the Institute at all right now. Winter is the time when we settle down to the orderly, indoor task of transcribing and collating data accumulated in the more temperate seasons (for budgetary reasons, each department's yearly reports are due by the end of March). By Spring, some of this tedious industry will yield breakthroughs. Everything else will simply be absorbed into the cavernous Institute archives, to accumulate dust while it awaits the whims of a future researcher to bring it back into the light.

But a lack of anything interesting or relevant to write about has never yet been an impediment to blogging, so I shall forge ahead with this update undaunted.

Let's see, what's been happening... Well, my lab assistant-slash-webmaster (i.e. the Luddite) has been snatched away from me and reassigned to Central, after I let slip word of his coffee-making prowess. We have been forced to fall back on our own inferior brewing skills, which hurts, but on the plus side, the website might get updated a little more often. Oh, and speaking of the website, we are changing servers, so expect the site to be down for a while sometime in the next 24-48 (all music will still be available at archive.org).

I'll be honest, I'm making this post mostly because I'm bored and lonely. My staff has the afternoon off, and I'm just pottering around the lab tidying up loose ends on various projects and trying not to think too hard about tonight's presentation. Oh yeah, I'm speaking at a fundraising dinner tonight. I need to sell the idea of the Outreach program to some of our oldest and most secretive backers (it's a black mask affair, natch), and I don't expect to enjoy myself very much. These things are creepy enough when you're not the center of attention, and by now the prospective donors will have heard the tale of the Jane Guy. It's funny how some of the most eccentric and bizarre people can also be the most conservative and intolerant. Or maybe it's the money that does it. In any case, wish me luck.

=PD

This is Rumor Control.

Sorry I've been out of touch for a while. A lot has happened, but contrary to popular rumor This Plague of Dreaming is still operational.

Here are the facts: There has been a serious shakeup at the Plaguedream Institute. In brief, the Dept. of Exploration tried to take advantage of the Jane Guy situation to get this blog gagged and the Outreach program shut down--and This Plague of Dreaming with it. There was the usual drama, the furniture got kicked over, and I had to call in some heavy favors from some very strange and difficult people, but finally Central got around to granting us a provisional license to operate (pending the results of the Guy inquiry).

To Repel Ghosts put in a timely and unexpected reappearance at the height of the interdepartmental dustup and spoke eloquently (if ironically) about the need for greater transparency, both within the Institute itself and in our relations with the public. I admit that I am not entirely sure of their motives, but I can't fault their results: TRG are known, insofar as they are known at all, for their adherence to a strict policy of reticence and subterfuge, so their sudden clarion call for openness seems to have made a strong impression on Central, and may have been the deciding blow in the skirmish. Under the circumstances, it should hardly be surprising that, immediately following the council decision, these champions of accessibility retired to a lengthy closed-door meeting with representatives of the D. of E. (details classified, naturally), which culminated in the typically abrupt departure of one of the group aboard the Anodos (destination--need I say it?--classified). The remaining members of To Repel Ghosts, meanwhile, refuse to speak about their extended absence, or their arrangements with Exploration, and have simply returned to work as if they had never left.

This is what I have to put up with.

Anyway, back to business: we are currently in contract talks with an exciting new musical artist. Watch for updates in the near future! In the meantime, we continue to appreciate your patience and support.

Don't get caught.

=PD

News Flash!

Dear readers, the Plaguedream Institute has just received a radio transmission from the lost airship Jane Guy! The brief encrypted message cut unexpectedly into one of our regular communication channels shortly before 11pm last night, at the height of a powerful electrical storm, and was repeated at five-minute intervals until our antenna was damaged by the high winds. The auxiliary receiver was powered up as quickly as could be managed, but the signal could not be recovered.

The Dept. of Exploration, who continue to presume their sole authority in the case, have not yet released the decrypted message (to Institute-wide consternation), but new orders were immediately flashed to the Man-Cub, and the crew of the airship Anodos has been placed on alert (the D. of E. denies that there is any connection between these events, but you can guess what I think of that).

I will continue to report what I can, when I can.

=PD

Little to report.

My seasonal duties around the compound have required my full attention lately, and I have consequently been neglecting this blog - inadvertently leaving some of you, I am sure, hanging in suspense. I can reassure you that you haven't missed anything of substance, though the mystery continues to deepen merely as a function of passing time. The investigatory team on-board the air-clipper Man-Cub is pursuing some tentative leads, but it is too early for me to report on what they may have found, except to say that it was not the Jane Guy.

Spring is always a busy time at the Plaguedream Institute, even when we don't have a vanished airship not on our hands, as it were. Even with everything that's going on, I hope to be able to bring you some news more pertinent to our musical pursuits in the near future.

Lastly, I am relieved to say that we have received a message from To Repel Ghosts, informing us that they are well and will be returning to the compound as soon as they have completed their current activities (neither of which I doubted), and that they will be bringing with them a new musical artist for our roster (which is news to me, and remains to be seen).

Stay on the beam for news of upcoming releases!

=PD

Brief and Unilluminating Update

In the early morning of the 22nd, after being delayed by heavy weather, the air-clipper Man-Cub reached the last logged position of the missing airship Jane Guy. There was no sign of the lost ship or its crew, nor any clear indication of what may have happened to them. Some scraps of metal were found on the ground nearby, but they were determined not to have come from the Guy. Weather reports from the time of the disappearance do not indicate any hazardous or unusual conditions, and discrete inquiries among the local residents have turned up nothing (though many of the people interviewed appeared red-eyed and haggard, and some complained of sleep disturbances, a frequent marker of PDI operations in the vicinity).

The last transmission from the Jane Guy has also been declassified, though it is not at all clear what we are meant to glean from it. I reproduce it here in its entirety (minus call signs and other radio arcana):

when shall the laurel and the vocal string resume their honours when shall we behold the tuneful tongue the promethean hand aspire to ancient praise alas how faint how slow the dawn of beauty and of truth breaks the reluc

Analysis quickly revealed that the text is taken from the opening of the Second Book of The Pleasures of Imagination, by 18th century poet Mark Akenside. The message was delivered in clean code with a steady and unhurried hand on the key, but was cut short mid-line and mid-word. Whether the poem was intended to convey specific information which they dared not transmit openly, even encrypted, or whether the Guy's radio operator was just being inscrutable (a propensity which I have been led to believe is endemic to the vocation), we do not yet know. Akenside's poetry is not unknown to our technicians, though it has not been found to be particularly active under laboratory conditions. Further experimentation and field testing is, no doubt, indicated.

Once again, if you have any information concerning the whereabouts or fate of the airship Jane Guy, I ask that you contact the Institute without delay. I will continue to post updates as they become available.

=PD

Breaking News

Four days ago, the Institute lost radio contact with the airship Jane Guy in the midst of a coded transmission. After repeated attempts to restore contact failed, the Dept. of Exploration dispatched the air-clipper Man-Cub to the Guy's last logged location (not without a certain smug air of step-aside-we'll-handle-this, if I may say so). It may just be a down transmitter. But if it's not, the Dept. assures us that crew of the Man-Cub is trained to handle "these kinds of situations." Updates will be made available as soon as they are declassified.

If you have any information pertaining to the whereabouts or fate of the Jane Guy, please contact the Plaguedream Institute immediately. Your prompt action may prevent disaster.

- - - - -

In other news, the members of To Repel Ghosts have been on unofficial (and unauthorized, dammit) leave since the completion of their recent album Partisan Songs. I apologize to any and all correspondents who have been awaiting responses to their queries while TRG are away. I have been trying to get them to forward me their login information so that I can take care of administrative tasks like approving MySpace Friend requests, but in the meantime I respectfully ask for your patience.

I suppose I can't blame them for cutting loose once in a while - they're unnaturally wed to their research, and I'm sure it takes its toll - but a little bit of notice (or a contact address, or something) would have been appreciated.

=PD

Work continues, as usual

Winter - meteorologic, if not astronomic - has arrived at the Plaguedream compound, and most of us were relieved from our usual morning duties to chip ice off everything. The automatic de-icer on the auxiliary transmitter tower froze up (yeah...), so I spent the pre-dawn hours up in a lineman's harness with a blow-dryer and a really long extension cord, thawing out the delicate coils on low heat. Not how I planned to spend my Monday, but it did turn out, on balance, to be to our great benefit, since my unusual vantage point revealed a worn insulator that, left to itself, could have burned out the entire unit, at a cost far exceeding the minor annoyance and windburn it took to find it. That's how it goes around here (and good thing, too, despite any grumbling at the time).

(Apologies for the minutiae, but I still have my feet in a warm-water bath as I type, so it's on my mind.)

More relevant to you, dear reader, I am pleased to say that To Repel Ghosts are putting the finishing touches on Partisan Songs, to be released very soon (assuming that the server difficulties of our long-suffering file hosts, the Internet Archive, are resolved promptly - stay tuned). The engineering stage of the album proved trying for all of us at the Institute - TRG's methods are not without their hazards - but things have quieted down since they went to post-production, and what I've heard of the album sounds like it was worth the damage to the studio facilities (which was extensive but, fortunately, mostly cosmetic).

Lastly, I would like to reassure the many listeners who wrote to us concerning the Noel Towers album that what you are experiencing is perfectly natural, and that the psychosensory effects, though unsettling to some, are ultimately beneficial, and will become less noticeable over subsequent playings.

Watch for more news as the month progresses - we have some good things in store!

=PD

All Caught Up, and Other Tales

The long, dull transfer process is complete! Everything before this post has been copied over from the old plaguedream livejournal; this post and everything after is new and exciting!

Briefly, for those of you just joining us: This Plague of Dreaming is a nonprofit netlabel, and also forms the musical arm of the PlagueDream Institute. While much of our research is classified, that which has been cleared for public consumption can be downloaded free through our website or directly from the Internet Archive.

As those readers in New England can attest, we've lately had an early breath of Autumn. The nights have been cool, and the light has taken on that peculiar silver gleam. It won't last, our prognosticators assure us, but it has inspired a spike of (un)seasonal activity around the compound.

This past week was also the mugwort harvest at the Institute. We picked before flower, since it's not a propagation year, so the oil is stronger in the leaves (is it ever!). The first celebratory round of early brew is still reverberating, and many of us are still waking up each morning haggard and spent, days afterward. The fumes from the drying rack are causing the usual problems, but a favorable wind has so far kept most of it away from the village.

In label news, we will soon be hosting a new album from our German allies [Esc.] Laboratory, so watch for that in the next few days!

=PD

General news and whatnot

Hello, friends! I'm writing this update from the bunkhouse, since maintenance is smudging my office following last night's "incident." The Threshold People have kindly allowed me to crash with them (I can't stand the smell of sage, and won't be returning until my office is well and truly aired out), so I'm looking forward to a very long, popcorn-fueled night. Anyway, to business...

In June, I announced that our tenth release would be our label compilation. As you have seen, of course, we decided to release Terra Lucida as plague010 instead. The compilation has been postponed for a short time while we release work from several artists who have been waiting for us to get our act together (to be painfully frank). Watch for it before too much longer!

Next up: Nagual Art - A Landscape Built By Whispers

In other news, I do finally have a new intern to help out with the website. Unfortunately, he's an anarcho-primitivist, so he really hasn't been an awful lot of help with the technical side of things, but he makes Turkish coffee like he was born to it, so he stays. I'm also pleased to announce that the sheep mutilations have ceased, and the perpetrator has been dealt with, which will hopefully put an end to the unwanted attention the Institute has been receiving from the local farming community.

Finally, the crew of the airship Jane Guy would like to apologize to the former residents of 114 Broad St. Medville, Arkansas, for the late-night emergency ballast drop. Our accounting department will be in touch.

=PD

In response to a question, a clarification:

An anonymous correspondent has questioned my recent report of Mr. _____'s unfortunate incarceration, wondering if I had mistakenly typed "15 years" when I meant "15 months," a more likely, though still somewhat immoderate, sentence for the crime of orchid smuggling.

Indeed I did not. Mr. ____'s sentence has been set at 15 years, and if I may say so frankly, he was lucky to get that. The orchids in question were more-than-commonly outre, as were his methods for obtaining them, and while I am not at liberty to elaborate, I might state euphemistically that the laws of Man were not the highest of those which were contravened in pursuit of his epiphytic prize, and this no doubt contributed directly to the unconventionally stiff penalty which he faces. Let us then consider "orchid smuggling" a convenient label under which to subsume a nested series of offenses the exact nature of which is unlikely to come to light, and allow the matter to rest. Further inquiry, my good Anonymous, will not profit you.

=PD

The state of things at the Institute

Summer is upon us here at the PlagueDream Institute, deep in the hoary hills of New England, bringing with it swarms of fireflies, the heady scent of night-blooming flowers, and an infusion of new talent: oneironauts Fabrizio Torri and Nagual Art have joined our ranks. Watch for new music from them in the coming months!

In the meantime, work is underway on This Plague of Dreaming's tenth album release, a compilation featuring label artists present and future, as well as featured guest artists.

In other news, the head of the Institute's Exploration unit was just sentenced to 15 years for orchid smuggling*, and in the resulting departmental chaos, our Outreach service was able to slyly requisition one of Exploration's much-coveted airships. Watch the sky over cornfields and lonely hilltops near you for the disco running-lights of the Jane Guy, and the throbbing sub bass which will announce another of their impromptu fly-over raves (for such lucky locals as awaken from their beds to follow the music into the night). I wish, sometimes, that I could fly out with them, but my work is here at the Institute.

Finally, I must apologize for the infrequent nature of updates both to this blog and to the main website - with new converts and wild-eyed pilgrims wandering into the compound every day, you'd think Personnel could spare me one to act as webmaster, but, alas, they retain them for their own darkly-hinted purposes. I suppose I shouldn't complain, as construction on our new subterranean facilities is progressing ahead of projections, but it still leaves me to maintain the department's web presence "in my spare time," when I'm not coordinating work in the lab. Grumbling aside, look for updated information (and a snazzy website redesign) in the near future.

Until the next update (whenever that may be), keep watching the skies, and don't get caught.

=PD

*the PlagueDream Institute categorically denies any knowledge of Mr. ____'s unlawful activities, and resents the implication.

website update

My candle's burning low, but at last the website update is complete.

(Check out our new artist pages at www.thisplagueofdreaming.net.)

It's late, and the tech staff have long since retired to their dormitories, leaving me to finish the update alone, after hours. From my window in the PlagueDream Media Center I can see across the moonlit compound to the bunkhouse, where blue TV flickers light up The Threshold People's window. I Bury the Living? The Killer Shrews? They're probably asleep in front of it by now, the movie rewinding and repeating endlessly on their hulking old VCR and influencing their dreams.

The shades are down on the secretive To Repel Ghosts, but every now and again they light up with a bright spray of sparks, and I can hear the ancient oscillators warble and howl. (TRG find the privacy of their room more conducive to their arcane pursuits than the main laboratory, and they keep ungodly hours.)

Somewhere out there, perhaps, Sypha Nadon gazes with intricate apprehension at this same gibbous moon. His relentless and harrowing explorations, though of vital importance to us all, offer him little comfort in the small hours of the night. For some, sleep is not a refuge.

My work for the night is done, and my candle gutters in its own wax. I am about ready to expire, myself, so I'm off to my bunk.

Dream well, plaguedreamers, and don't get caught.

=PD

What's Going On at This Plague of Dreaming?

Today is mugwort harvest time at the PlagueDream Research Facility. The Queen of Dream-Herbs grew fast and thick this year, even choking out our mint crop (if you've grown mint before, you may well be incredulous, but it is true) - far more than our drying equipment can handle at one go.

Our entire permanent staff has turned out for the harvest, and we're making it a (minor) Autumn event - tea and sweaters, and the Legendary Pink Dots on the outdoor stereo. The weather is chill and clear after a week of rain.

In other news, both To Repel Ghosts and The Threshold People are moving back into the studio (they've brought sleeping bags) to start work on follow-ups to their recent TPoD releases.

That's all for now - I'm heading back out to the fields!