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.

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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

Nagual Art @ NTNS / To Repel Ghosts @ Dark Winter

Nagual Art appears on Not The Normal Shit Radio's new compilation, The Best of NTNS Radio 2007.

The compilation is free to download, and features the Nagual Art track The Whisperbox, from their album A Landscape Built by Whispers.

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ALSO
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To Repel Ghosts is featured on this year's ambient holiday compilation from the excellent netlabel Dark Winter, available now for free download!

Dark Winter Holiday Compilation - A Candle's Golden Glow

"When the sky is dark and the temperature is low, comfort can be found in a candle's golden glow..."

TRG offered their arrangement of Silent Night from their 2005 album All Is Calm. Also featured are Last Nights of Paris, Ambage, Datua 1.0, Bunk Data, Larry Johnson, Mystified, Gothick, Ka-baalim, Jeffery Letterly, Zenith, Samsa, Mikrodepresja, Ryu, and Gurdonark.