“The posters were required to be uniform in style and were to feature a ‘special and handsome’ typeface making them difficult for the enemy to counterfeit.”

I.
Where, O where
Hath gentle Peace found rest?
Builds she in bower of lady fair?—
But Love — he hath possession there;
Not long is she the guest.

II.

Sits she crown’d
Beneath a pictured dome?
But there Ambition keeps his ground
And Fear and Envy Stalk around;
This cannot be her home!

III.

Will she hide
In scholar’s pensive cell?
But he already hath his bride:
Him Melancholy sits beside—
With her she may not dwell!

IV.

Now and then,
Peace, wandering lays her head
On regal couch, in captive’s den—
But nowhere finds she rest with men,
Or only with the dead!

Samuel Warren, “Peace,” from Ten Thousand A-Year

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Sleep Whale – “Summer Sick”
Houseboat

Mostly into instrumental post-rockish stuff, yet not falling into the usual traps of that sort of music, Sleep Whale is the rare post-rock/organic electronica band that creates something that is both original and listenable. Good instrumentation, good rhythm, and being perfectly happy to just make something nice and beautiful makes for good music.

From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night — from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight — from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love — suddenly as from the woods and fields — suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation — suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death, the crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger-roar of his voice.

Thomas de Quincey, The Vision of Sudden Death

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Mice Parade – “Logic (Parts 1 & 2)”
Ramda

Mice Parade has always been a bit difficult to nail down. More recently, Adam Pierce (of whose name Mice Parade is an anagram) has been collaborating more and creating more easily palatable music, but it still has a lot of the old feel to it. Ramda, Mokoondi, and The True Meaning Of Boodleybaye will always be my go-to albums for him, though. “Logic” definitely starts out slow, but let it build and form itself the way it’s obviously meant to. I find it has a nice payoff if you just let it do its thing.

The divisions between all the different stripes of desperado and the regular run-of-the-mill inhabitants were so fine and subtle that it was nearly impossible to identify a decent man.

Mark Helprin, Winter’s Tale

Ah! what a vulgar thing does courage seem when we see nations buying and selling it for a shilling a day. Ah! what a sublime thing does courage seem when some fearful summons on the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some tumultuous crisis, from which lie two courses, and a voice says to him audibly, “One way lies hope; take the other, and mourn forever!”

Thomas de Quincey, The Vision of Sudden Death