There was a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other people’s emotions were!–much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard.

Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

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Arthur & Yu – Lion’s Mouth
I’ve had this song stuck in my head for weeks on and off. Now you can too!

It’s from KEXP’s Live album from this last year, a very good collection indeed.

The silver Swan, who living had no Note,
when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
“Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
"More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise.

English madrigal by Orlando Gibbons

Mirror Stage, a fascinating game that is hard on the eyes and very hypnotic. Stages are completed by exploration, usually involving a sort of mindbending dream logic that you don’t really understand even though you’re doing it.