Perfume

Persephone now has 24 notes. I stopped and I remembered Grenouille recreating the latest hot scent, Amor & Psyche, for Baldini (he had it perfect), knowing nothing about what he was adding or why (he could tell by the smell of the bottles, but he couldn’t name a single aromatic). He finished, Baldini is stunned that this nobody, straight from a terrible job at a tannery, was able recreate a perfume he himself had tried and failed to recreate. Grenouille says, “Amor & Psyche is okay, but I can make it into something truly great.” He proceeded to add a great amount more aromatics. Baldini, already stunned by the simple recreation of Amor & Psyche, had Grenouille leave, then he came downstairs to smell Grenouille’s more complex creation, and is transported to paradise, where he and his wife are still young, spritely, and very much in love.

I realized, as I did with Daphne EDT and EXT, that you really want to weave a strong aromatic blend, thick, dense, with plenty of complexity and lasting power. I consider some aromatics as “perfume blood,” if you will. I certainly included most of those in Persephone, things like ambrette, styrax, labdanum, ambergris or Africa stone, rose, jasmine, rosewood, and petitgrain, etc.; I’ve found it’s possible to use these same aromatics to make very different perfumes. The trick is how to balance all these aromatics. As Mandy said in a video I saw once, when asked how many drops to add, “Figuring out what proportions work [how many drops, though now I use weight] is exactly what a perfumer does.” She knew she couldn’t say exactly; of course it’s a matter of an experienced perfumer to figure it out.

Persephone wasn’t working the way I wanted it to, not turning into what I think of as a professional-caliber scent. To that end, I went over the top with Persephone EXT, making it more complex, adding things I know don’t necessarily need to be there (poplar bud, rhododendron, geranium, etc., in addition to the things I think of as perfume blood), all in the name of weaving a deep, thick, dense cloud of aroma. With each section, I divide it in half, and work on it until it makes sense to the perfumer in me. It worked with Daphne EDT and EXT (22 notes); I’m hoping it will work with Persephone EXT (24 notes). I might need to make a couple of changes. I blame the character of Jean Baptiste Grenouille for my belief that, in natural perfume anyway, the more complex and dense the perfume, the greater the chance that it will be synergistically greater than just the sum of its parts, that it will in fact be sublime, or divine, if you like.

Politics

“I am nearly 75 years old. I have lived through four wars, spent my childhood in two US internment camps, and watched a nation go from segregation and Jim Crow to electing an African-American president.

“The promise of true equality in America remains unfulfilled, but with each moment like today, I know that we can be a nation that lives up to its ideals. And I can’t wait for all those wedding invitations.”–George Takei (known as Sulu from Star Trek) on the Ninth Circuit Prop 8 ruling on gay marriage

Poem

Take That

When I was at community college,
I once tried hard to get a girl named
Mercy. Mercy was super fine and way
too much for me, just too much
woman for me to handle, honestly;
nevertheless I tried to get her to dump
her dysfunctional boyfriend.
We made out a couple of times, which,
in retrospect, probably wasn’t the best
thing; this woman had just the right
curves in just the right places, and
she turned me on somethin’ fierce. So,
when she told me she wouldn’t leave her
boy, it was particularly painful. But that
same day, for some odd reason, she made
some racist comments, berating “Asian
drivers” in general. Partly because I’d
had so many Chinese friends, mostly
because I know right from wrong, I
made my displeasure at what had been
said quite clear. A couple of weeks later
I started taking an anatomy class; by
chance, a woman I’d long admired as
the finest at school, a Cambodian girl
named Nikki, sat down next to me
every day. Naturally, I tested the waters
and gladly found them to be quite warm
and receptive. Once, while I was still
courting Nikki, we made our way
slowly down the school’s central stairs;
as I beseeched her with assurances I
would be the best lover she could possibly
have (there was, indeed, a time…), Mercy
passed us on her way upstairs. She said
Hello, but it wasn’t until some time later
that I realized the poignancy of the
circumstances: a girl named Mercy
who’d said No to me and then fell out
of my good graces even more concretely
with absurd and juvenile anti-Asian
remarks watched as I clearly, and,
I must say, ultimately successfully,
begged a beautiful Asian woman
to be my girl. Certain memories
never fail to bring a smile to my face.

Quotations

1. The more I know about people, the better I like my dog.–Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) Note: Mark Twain is fictitious, and comes from Clemens time working on steamboats; “mark twain” was something said so the captain was aware where a given boat stood; I think it means to say “mark twenty feet.”

2. The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.–Einstein

3. The epitome of the human realm is to be stuck in a huge traffic jam of discursive thought.–Chogyam Trungpa

4. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,–Dwight D Eisenhower

5. Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.–Shakespeare

6. Your heart is my piñata.–Chuck Palahniuk

7. The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.–William Somerset Maugham

8. I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.–Mother Teresa

9. A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.–Nietzsche

10. A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.–Honore de Balzac

11. Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.–CS Lewis

Peace, love, and may you live in fragrant delight

Perfume

The last try of Artemis, instead of continuing with the CDP (which was looking futile), I went in nearly the opposite direction and made an extrait de parfum (EXT from now on). It finally smells like lavender; whether or not it’s a “powdery lavender,” my goal, we have to wait at least two weeks to see. I ended up including lavender (of course) and tonka in the base, frangipani in the heart, and lavender EO and–out of nowhere I realized linden-blossom EO would work perfectly. There’s a little bit of cedar to offset the rest of the flowery aromatics. That’s one of the ways perfumery is alchemical: often it’s exactly the combination of lovely aromatics with bad, even foul odors which yields something which is “greater than the sum of its parts.” Artemis EXT has 12 notes altogether.

The second-to-last version of Persephone EXT is oh-so close to being just right; I think the last one, with gardenia, will be even closer to perfection. I’m excited. It promises to be something sublime. With Hestia and Artemis, that will make for 24 perfumes altogether; again, a number I can wrap my head around. I will be finished then with the creative part of natural perfumery; now it’s all business, which I never wanted. I’d prefer to be only creative when it comes to natural perfume; I have an extremely hard time selling myself. With luck, my PR people will do all the selling part for me, at least make it easy for me to do business. I always want mainly to be creative; I need agents to do the selling for me.

I know I could be one of the best natural perfumers the modern world has yet known. As with writing, the trick is to make an impact, somehow, in the world of authorship, and in natural perfume. Up to now, I’ve spending every last dime on aromatics and other materials (maxed out _two_ credit cards); if I don’t start making money soon, making good money, I’ll have to throw in the towel as far as natural perfume goes. I’m really desperate. Someone please come help! If someone wants to take the reins on the business I started, that would only make me happy. For now, I must be content with meager spending money, and not much hope Just like writing: I know I’m really good, I would go so far as to say truly excellent–but, again, I’m afraid of selling myself like that. Would that someone could come along and sell my writing and perfume for me. I’ve long known that selling is not one of my strong points; creativity, though, is virtually overflowing.

Poem

I think this is one of my best pieces.

Rugby

Rugby, North Dakota is dead center,
smack dab in the middle of North America,
sitting quietly, little known,
with all the states writhing around it,
all the corn fields, the trailer parks,
the mountains, the ghettoes,
the dwindling forests, the endangered
species of the participating citizen,
the poets and beatniks and punks,
the bank robbers and pimps,
the ministers and governors and
their many misguided congregations,
the cities of trash and forgotten lives,
the ghost towns and war zones,
all stretching out, acre upon acre, from its
epicenter, cruising and riding,
lying and stealing for miles and miles and
miles. Occasionally, some tourists stop in
at the main bar at the center of town.
Danny, the bartender in residence
for decades, has a little speech he gives
every once in a while to passers through,
a speech about how being at the very
center of it all means Rugby is the actual
heart of America (and Canada too,
for that matter), how being the heart
means at any given moment you can
catch a whiff, on Rugby’s streets,
of the essence of us all,
can finally really swallow what it’s
always meant to be born and raised,
or to come to your fruition,
in a country of mongrels and dissidents,
of atheists and Bible thumpers,
of militia men and hippie girls,
of skeptics and shamans,
of black, of white, of brown,
of pain, of endless love, of boundless hope.
Very few actually know it, but even just
the idea of Rugby, North Dakota somehow
manages to keep America America,
when she forgets herself who she really is,
when she ignores the fact that she really does
still have a heart, a heart still beating
despite the bastardization of all her dreams,
still pounding in the face of all her shame.

Quotations

We’re all just walking each other home.–Ram Dass

Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.–Christian Morganstern

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.–Vincent van Gogh

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.–Friedrich Nietzsche

At home I am a nice guy: but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.–Muhammad Ali

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.–Maya Angelou

I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.–Alexandre Dumas

I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.–Rosa Parks

Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.–Picasso

Peace, love, and may you live in fragrant delight

Perfume

As I used gardenia recently in Persephone (got some from another pro?), I searched for more. Not only did I find gardenia (at http://www.victorie-inc.us/), I also found they have pomades of lilac and lily! in addition to gardenia and honeysuckle, which are relatively common. I’m determined to make a lilac and a lily absolute. The trick is washing away the fat. I think the idea is to rinse the pomade in a certain amount of alcohol, then do it again and again. Once you’ve got the alcohol fully imbued with the respective aromas, I think you can distill it to get an absolute. I never thought I would actually find myself wanting to make lilac and lily absolutes.

These two scents are like the holy grail for natural perfumery, at least in my mind. But the actual aromatic extract of a given material never smells quite the same. Orange blossoms as the aroma floats in the air will literally double you over at the intenseness and gloriousness of the scent, which is nearly a perfume in itself; orange-blossom absolute is not nearly as overwhelming or glorious. Same with osmanthus; many people have never smelled osmanthus blooming on a tree, but it’s equally as stunning and profoundly overpowering as orange blossoms are, while osmanthus absolute smells wholly different and not as sublime. There’s an osmanthis tree outside the traditional Chinese Garden in Portland, OR. I used to go sit under the tree when it was blooming to soak in the delicious aroma.

I have hopes for Persephone, at which we made three or four attempts. I have a feeling this last attempt will be just right; maybe I’ll have to make a few adjustments to the formula (Tami said after smelling the one before this, “This is starting to smell like a perfume”). I hope this latest iteration will smell _even more_ like a perfume. It’s an extrait, so it will be quite strong. Also, out of nowhere (not quite; I’ve been working on the formula for some time), I’m ready to introduce Hestia CDP; Hestia has sandalwood and ambrette, jasmine and magnolia, and cedar and fir on top; 15 notes altogether). If I succeed at Artemis CDP, or possibly some sort of liquid Artemis (my would-be lavender perfume), that will make for a total of 24 perfumes. That sounds like an easy number, a number I can wrap my head around, a number with which I’ll be able easily to deal.

Poem

By Charles Bukowski

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Politics

“Boy, these conservatives are really something. They’re all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from contraception to nine months. After that, they don’t want to know about you. They don’t want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food-stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born, you’re fine; if you’re in preschool, you’re fucked.”
–George Carlin

Quotations

A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.–John Steinbeck

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.–Stephen King

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.–Theodore Roosevelt

A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts is a society that chooses and _deserves_ the Police State Dictatorship it is going to get.–Ian Williams Goddard

Life isn’t stable. Stability is unnatural. The only stable society is the police state. You can have a free society or you can have a stable society. You can’t have both. Take your choice. As for me, I’ll choose a free, organic society over a rigid, artificial society any day.–Tom Robbins

There are only two choices: A police state in which all dissent is suppressed or rigidly controlled; or a society where law is responsive to human needs. If society is to be responsive to human needs, a vast restructuring of our laws is essential.–William Orville Douglas

It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.–Bruce Schneier

A functioning police state needs no police.–William S Burroughs

A police state finds that it cannot command the grain to grow.–JFK

We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you’re looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York.–John Kenneth Galbraith

Poem

By ee cummings

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is more mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

Citizen Mix

January Fidgets

1. What’ll I Do, Lisa Hannigan
2. Call It What You Will, Joe Pug
3. Oh My Darlin’, Katie Herzig
4. Fall Like Rain, Martin Sexton
5. Character Piece, MyNameIsJohnMichael
6. The Bunker, Beirut
7. Silverado, Black Dub
8. Just Takes a Little, Amy Stroup
9. Hymn #35, Joe Pug
10. Midnight Serenade, Katie Herzig
11. Between Us, Peter Bradley Adams
12. Every Night of the Year, MyNameIsJohnMichael
13. The Canals of Our City, Beirut
14. I Want You Back, The Civil Wars
15. Bedside Manner, Dawes
16. The Other Side of Love, Amy Stroup
17. Hymn #101, Joe Pug
18. Dreamer, Brianna Gaither
19. Sing, Black Dub
20. My Love is My Love, Peter Bradley Adams
21. Daisies and Pews, Katie Herzig

Peace, love, and may you live in fragrant delight

Perfume

I’ve decided to give up on Artemis CDP completely. Unlike I expected, the jojoba oil and beeswax did nothing to soften lavender; in fact it did just the opposite–it actually deadened the smell of lavender. I think I’ll have more luck with a liquid of some kind, maybe even an extrait de parfum (EXT)? I have two extraits, Anthea and Daphne, which will be matured by Valentine’s Day; we’re making a big deal about that fact, and I already have three people, by way of Ca Fleure Bon, who will get to choose between the two and will receive a 5ml vial of whichever one they choose. I was also interviewed by PATCH, a local organization, which you can find if you look for perfume in Land O Lakes; this a new service from Google.

Lord’s Jester Creations are Heaven-Scent

I have hopes for Persephone. After the last try, on a first whiff, my assistant, Tami, said, “This actually is starting to smell like a perfume.” One thing forgot I even have is gardenia; I think it will go perfectly with the poplar bud/hay/tobacco/styrax base, the fruity heart, and the citrus top with cypress and fir (15 notes altogether). Never know until you try. Unlike synthetic perfumes (there are actually people who play with synthetics as a hobby!), natural perfumes take time to mature, for the aromatics to blend fully with the alcohol, for it to become the perfume it wants to be. As I’ve always said, natural perfume is a waiting game. From the time I realized I’d have to make an oil infusion of ambergris (for use in CDPs), for which I had to wait six months, I’ve known natural perfume as a waiting game.

Poem

I do actually have a tattoo of Richard Hugo on my left shoulder. I’m certain he’s watching.

By Adam Gottschalk

Dear Richard,
I’ve thought about your presence on this earth
so many times I’d be a sissy not to write.
I find your voice coming out in my own work
sometimes; oddly, not so much in these letter
poems you inspired me to write, more so
in the everyday poems that come like sneezes.
I’ll write a line and look back at it and say to
myself, “Gee, I think Dick would like that one.”
A friend of yours told me 10 years ago that
you showed up for readings, much to
everyone’s surprise, with no books or papers,
and could speak for hours on end without
skipping a beat. All these years now, I’ve thought
of you every time I’ve endeavored to do the same.
Your poems are perfect, Dick, magically
balancing the vital intimacy so critical to
worthy poems with the lyrical and slightly
inexplicable nature of poeticism.
I’ve often thought that you’d find it quite
perfect too that the White Center where you
were born is now an entrenched Little
Cambodia. No more bars for mill workers
or all-night diners for those on the graveyard shift.
Cambodian restaurants and signs written in
languages very few people on this earth can
actually read. How fitting a defeat. How
uncomfortably perfect that the very designs
our nation started from change its very face
more and more every day. I miss not having
you with us anymore because I’m just so certain
you’d help me, help all of us, make sense of
all the messes we’ve made somehow, or at least
learn to laugh at them while we try to clean
them up. At the very least, I take comfort in
knowing that you left so many ideas and
beautiful notions behind, so many ways any
of us can learn more about ourselves and
our many various conditions. Until the day
I die, Dick, you will be the only poet who
ever sits on my shoulder, frankly saying,
“Yes, good,” and “No, bad, very bad.”
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart,
for that guidance, Mr. Hugo, and thank you
for having made the world so much richer
while you lived.
All my love, Adam

Politics

“What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party? I’ll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did conservatives do? They opposed them on every single one of those things, every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, “Liberal,” as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, because I will pick up that label and where it as a badge of honor.”–Lawrence O’Donnell Jr.

Quotations

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.–Cicero

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.–Marilyn Monroe

Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way you live.–Gianni Versace

For those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our education system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.–Charles Bukowski

Here’s all you to know about men and women: women are crazy; men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.–George Carlin

The woman who appeals to a man’s vanity may stimulate him, the woman who appeals to his heart may attract him, but it is the woman who appeals to his imagination who gets him–Helen Rowland

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.–Thomas Jefferson

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.–GK Chesterton

An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.–Nancy Milford

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.–Alexis de Tocqueville

Citizen Mix

Paul Tullis hipped me to Black Dub, who are featured here. It’s notably Daniel Lanois guitar (former producer for U2 and others; everyone was stunned when he came out with his first recording, Acadie (1989); he has another great album, Shine (2003)), Trixie Whitley vocals, Brian Blade drums. Ms. Whitley sings with a great deal of soul! Surely is the most soulful tracks I’ve heard in the past few years. This band sheerly rocks!

Half-Ass December

1. Enough, The Autumn Film
2. Love Lives, Black Dub
3. Nantes, Beirut
4. Way to the Future, Katie Herzig
5. City Noise, Jill Andrews
6. Brand New Day, Joshua Radin
7. Invisible Choir, Kris Delmhorst
8. An Artist’s Critique, Natalie Prass
9. Save Me, Ryan Adams
10. I Believe in You, Black Dub
11. The Gulag Orkestar, Beirut
12. Best Day of Your Life, Katie Herzig
13. Mended, The Autumn Film
14. You Got Growin’ Up to Do, Joshua Radin with Patty Griffin
15. Sweetest in the Morning, Jill Andrews
16. Tavern, Kris Delmhorst
17. Watch You Grow, Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers
18. In My Life (The Beatles), Bill Frisell
19. Surely, Black Dub
20. Brandenburg, Beirut

Peace, love, and may you live in fragrant delight

Perfume

I’ve made two attempts at Persephone, which I’m making at the behest of John Reasinger, my great friend and champion of Lord’s Jester every way he can, reviews. copy, blogs, perfumery networks, friend to friend, etc. It’s not quite right yet; I’ll need to do some out-of-the-box thinking to make it work. I’ve beefed up the formula a bit, adding fir, geranium sur fleur (rose), and more cypress; I toyed with the idea of adding ginger lily to the mess, but decided against it, because I’m not very familiar with the nature of ginger lily. I removed orange essence; I made the last test batch without cypress, but I thought that thinking outside the box might mean adding more of something I don’t care for on the face of it. Cypress is one for which I don’t particularly care. Not like jasmine, hyacinth, linden-blossom essential oil, etc, all of which are nearly perfumes without having to add anything. But I’ve used these delightful aromatics in several complex, successful perfumes.

Persephone is yet to be perfected, a dark and fruity perfume, as is Artemis, my would-be powdery lavender perfume. I don’t think I have enough energy to add these to my line, but maybe so. If either turn into something profoundly good, I’ll definitely add one or both. After the two extraits are released, I’ll have 21 different perfumes. That’s good round number (though in fact it’s an odd number); still it would feel complete if I only offered 21 perfumes, fulfilled, whole, established. Not all willy-nilly. One extra maybe, which would make for 22 perfumes. I have hope for Persephone, not so much for Artemis. The idea of Artemis is a good one (powdery lavender CDP), it’s just not looking good. I will try at least once more with Artemis, and several more times with Persephone–until I get it right!

By the way, my father helped me realize that my percentages are only theoretical. When I say 3%, it’s actually 2.91%, 5% is actually 4.76%, 7% is actually 6.54%, 11% is actually 9.91%, 15% is actually 13.04%, and 25% is actually 20%. Those all fit in their respective categories. As I have it, EDCs are anywhere from 2-5%, EDTs are anywhere from 4-8%, EDPs are anywhere from 8-15%, and extraits are anywhere from 15-30%. The more concentrated the perfume, the more the theoretical percentage becomes more than the actual percentage is in fact. The thing that Pop realized for example if I make a 25% extrait, 3/4 is alcohol; that means the actual percentage is lower than the theoretical percentage. Not that these facts really make a difference; no one’s ever complained that a given perfume wasn’t strong enough. Just the opposite in fact: people are generally impressed at how strong even my colognes are. But now at least I can say what the actual percentage is for each strength.

Low Life:
Lures and Snares of Old New York
© 1991 Luc Sante

“The Sporting Life/ Saloon Culture: The saloon looms large in the history and folklore of New York. But its origins are concealed in the murk of the Dutch and English past where things like taverns were neither licensed nor regulated and anyone could sell grog informally. Both before and after the Revolution, there were countless inns and taverns and wineshops and breweries and rumshops; the saloon did not begin to acquire its mythic character until reform came along to complain about it, and in the 18th century the voice of reform was still pitched rather low. Even in 1786, a year before the end of the Revolution, there were those who complained about the city’s estimated 800 taverns; since the population, according to the census of 1790, was 340,120, this works out to one groggery for every 425 inhabitants; which is not an extraordinary number.

“By 1826, the count had been reduced to 600 taverns, but this takes in only legitimate taverns and fails to account for the hundreds of tippling shops and other quasi-clandestine outlets. In 1870 there were, indisputably, 7,071 licensed suppliers of liquor by the drink in Manhattan, but again, the count fails to include the proportionately vast number of illegal dives, blind tigers, needled-beer cellars, and the like, which flourished mostly in the slums. An 1897 survey, which more sensibly attempted to list every place of sale and consumption of alcohol, but limited itself to the district bounded by East Houston and Hester Streets, and the Bowery and Essex Street, found 237 dives, and blind pigs (illegal dives and innocuous fronts), or one for every 208 men, women, and children.”

Poem

By Adam Gottschalk

311

No less than 311 prisoners in Italy
serving life sentences have co-signed
a letter to the president requesting
that they be “killed just once”
instead of dying a little bit every
single day. Recently, Italy, home
of the Papacy, asked the UN to
consider tabling the idea of a
worldwide moratorium on
capital punishment. Now 311
of their own men want death
instead the tiny fractions of lives
they’re stuck with now. Three
hundred eleven would rather not be
here than be forced to know of the free
ways of the outside world that will
forever be well beyond their reach.
What are any of us right-minded,
self-righteous people supposed
to think now? Day is night, wrong
is right. Our efforts to remove death
from the list of things civilized
folks are involved with are failing
worse than ever. We think
we know what people want, what
anybody wants out of life; we
don’t. We think we know what
lifers want; we don’t. And we
spend our lives thinking we might
have an inkling what women want;
we don’t. Our confusion, just like
our murderous ways, has sunk to
an all-time low. The scariest thing
about the Italian prisoners is
that I feel exactly the same way.
How come I can’t tell the difference
between serving a life sentence and
simply living out my days? I reckon
it’s because I’m a prisoner in my own
body, staring out gloomily through
the bars, remembering tearfully
the passionate way my life once was,
unable now to live my life as the man
I used to be. And I’m not even
middle aged or what they might call
“older.” I take a small bit of comfort
in knowing at least 311 men out there
are in the same lonesome boat, albeit
a different boat completely.

Quotations

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable.–Madeleine L’Engle

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.–CS Lewis

Love is not love until love’s vulnerable.–Teddy Roethke

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.–Joseph Addison

A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes–and it will come–may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.–Jane Smiley

Everybody in Spain is sick of me. But in America, there’s curiosity about the new kid on the block who doesn’t speak English very well. The attention makes me feel vulnerable, which is something I hadn’t felt in a while. But I like it.–Javier Bardem

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.–Goethe

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them.–Oscar Wilde

Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.–Benjamin Franklin

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.–Helen Keller

Peace, love, and may you live in fragrant delight

The human animal is adapted to, and apparently can thrive on, an extraordinary range of different diets, but the Western diet, however you define it, does not seem to be one of them.–Michael Pollan

Perfume

I the last installment I mentioned macerating chopped ambergris in fractionated coconut oil (FCO). Fractionation simply means they distill coconut oil, which, under normal circumstances, is solid at room temperature; FCO is liquid below room temperature. It can also be used to dissolve aromatics in alcohol! I’ve seen a few aromatics on White Lotus Aromatics that read “30% in FCO;” you’d think that would be difficult to dissolve in alcohol–it’s not.

This reminds me of Turkey Red oil, which dissolves in water! The question of whether Turkey Red is natural or not to me is a reprehensible question. Why would adding sulfuric acid to castor oil make it suddenly unnatural? As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly natural. I can’t wait because now I can make perfectly natural bath oil, fragrant, and it won’t make rings around tubs–it dissolves in water! From Wikipedia: “Turkey red oil, also called sulfated castor oil, is made by adding sulfuric acid to vegetable oils, most notably castor oil. It was the first synthetic detergent after ordinary soap. It is used in formulating lubricants, softeners, and dyeing assistants.”

I’ve decided that Anthea extrait and Daphne extrait will be my next, and possibly final, additions to my line. I will start work soon on a perfume my friend, John Reasinger (who wrote all the copy for my website), is behind; it will have a dark base with poplar bud, patchouli, and hay, a fruity heart with raspberry and orange flower, and a citrus top with cypress and patchouli. 17 notes altogether, as it stands now. It’s called Persephone and will be in extrait form; John loves intense stuff. If it turns out well in the end, he said I’m welcome to sell it to the public.

Poem

We are Birds

How does one person amorously meet
another? I realize the phenomenon is
a relatively straightforward one, but it’s
been so many years since I found myself
wrapped up in it I can’t even remember
what it was like. I have no hope it could
ever return again, the life of loving
a woman. I sit in coffee shops and bars
wondering why, after two decades,
my soul mate, the woman of my dreams,
has yet suddenly to appear, as if brought
to me by a magical wind. I wonder why
my dreams have yet to make it clear what
sort of woman is the woman of my dreams.
I sit and don’t face the fact that I’m a
fool in countless ways, especially still for
being hopeful. I sit and wonder if
I have the right look on my face for
falling in love, if a person who can’t hold
a regular job could ever meet a woman
of substance, if I smell bad. Really, I
wonder if I give off this certain scent
which repels both women and men.
Like any animal who marks his
territory or places odorous warnings
to stay away. In fact, I know I’m
a bird; I know that we are birds.
We flutter around each other in
circles, always in flight, rarely setting
down, only ever briefly staying,
rarely touching. We are birds;
some of us find a flock and keep it.
Others lose our way and stay lost,
forever set apart by our natures.
I am a bird; we are birds.
I am one who lost his way.

Quotations

The human animal is adapted to, and apparently can thrive on, an extraordinary range of different diets, but the Western diet, however you define it, does not seem to be one of them.–Michael Pollan

What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick!–MP

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.–MP

Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.–MP

People are fed by the food industry which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the healthcare industry which pays no attention to food.–Wendell Berry

Only the very wise and the extremely stupid do not change.–Confucius

Where there is love there is life.–Gandhi

We are able to answer the question, ‘Why have we no great men?’ We have no great men chiefly because we are always looking for them. We are connoisseurs of greatness, and connoisseurs can never be great; we are fastidious–that is, we are small.–GK Chesterton

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.–Marian Wright Edelman

Without deviations from the norm, progress is not possible.–Frank Zappa

Peace, love, and may you live in fragrant delight

I mistakenly wrote in the last installment that frangipani was an important ingredient in Mrs. Younger’s custom perfume. It’s not; I plan to include frangipani in Artemis concrete de parfum (CDP from now on). I’m hoping to make a powdery lavender CDP. I’m hoping diluted tonka-bean absolute will make for something powdery (Jane Cate of A Wing and a Prayer Perfumes told me that to make her perfume Epione she used tonka tincture which she’d made herself; that perfume is quite powdery, and I’m hoping the diluted absolute will make something powdery (I can’t think of a better term, but people must understand what we mean by powdery? Smelling like talcum powder, but only at the edges of the aroma). Epione is an eau de parfum, so I wonder if tonka will have a similar powdery-giving effect in a CDP. Frangipani, to me, smells fuzzy in its floral nature; I’m hoping this will enhance the powdery effect of the tonka.

Much to my surprise, John Reasinger said Daphne extrait is “better than Caron or anything coming from Paris” !!! It’s funny, because I didn’t think much of it when I first smelled it; I liked Anthea extrait better, but John has a better nose than I do–I’ll often send him perfumes I’m not sure about, and I trust he’ll be honest and frank. I say I send him stuff I’m not sure of, but then that’s not true. If I thought I made something terrible, I wouldn’t dream of sending it to John; I’d prefer he only smell the better things I have to offer. Still, it’s good to know I have a friend who will smell samples, good and bad, and give me sincere feedback about them. John recently has been getting much attention from blogs; my, does he deserve it. I encouraged him to blog for Ca Fleure Bon, which is the fifth most popular perfume blog.

Artemis, my lavender CDP, still needs work. It’s almost there, but I know what I did wrong: I added too much lime essence and not enough lavender (CO2 in the base and EO on top). You’d think I could just make something simple; I’m afraid because I’ve had so much trouble with lavender alcohol perfumes. I took out the frangipani from the formula; I have a simple 8-note CDP to make. It promises to be excellent, but I won’t know for sure until the CDP has matured. Natural perfume is a waiting game. I let my alcohol perfumes rest a month, the CDPs more like two weeks. When I first got into natural perfume, I realized ambergris tincture wouldn’t work in CDPs; so I bought raw ambergris, chopped it up, and macerated it for six months in fractionated coconut oil (FCO). I still have two bottles of it left.

Ms. Youngers loves her custom perfume! She said she’s wanted a custom scent for years, and Rhea is exactly what she was looking for. She was impressed, as many others have been, with my obvious talent, especially at making custom perfumes. I have a particular knack, a finesse, a facility, when it comes to constructing custom-perfume formulae. Some of my best perfumes, moreover, if you ask me, are solids, Anthea, Aphelia, Selene, Rhea; with liquid perfumes it tends to be more difficult for me to see the big picture. Some are only just now becoming what I wanted them to be all along, Chronos EDP, Ares EDP, etc. I think I’ve said before on this blog I feel Ares EDP is the essence of me; if you could distill me (in some absurd universe), Ares EDP is what you’d get.

Still working on a lavender perfume, which I’m calling Artemis. The one solid we made smelled too much like Rhea, which isn’t bad necessarily–I’m just hoping for more of a lavender aroma. I’ve tried to make liquid lavender EDPs; I’ve found lavender can be a difficult aromatic with which to work. I’m hoping the solid form will make it easier on the nose, more pleasant, not stinky the way liquid lavender perfumes can be, at least in my own personal experience. I’m determined: I think this represents a major hole in my line: no lavender perfume? Any self-respecting natural perfumer should have something which smells like lavender; however, that’s only my own personal radical notion.

John Reasinger’s copy for Chronos EDP:

The Myth: The personification of Time itself. Chronos was the second oldest of all beings (according to Hesiod) after Chaos, from which all things rose. Time cuts down all men, no matter how rich, or how mighty, eventually. It has seen the rise and fall of man, of empires and the birth of the universe itself. Somewhat of a mystery to the ancient Greeks, they named him but did not worship him in temples or with festivals; though they were keenly aware of his presence and his power over them. Somehow, Cronus (the titan father of Zeus, Poseidon, etc), lord of the Harvest, who ruled the world in the Golden Age became confused with Time itself. Now we have Father Time who carries a sickle (symbol of the harvest) and symbolizes the end.

“The Fragrance: A thick green balsamic opening, redolent with warm spices (both smooth and sharp), permeated by an amazingly clean and pungent woodiness catch your attention immediately. As the fir needles and spices fade, but never quite disappear, an extremely sweet floral bouquet greets the nose. Built around the immortelle flower (and its delicious aroma), this covers one like a warm cloak of flowers, woods and spices woven together seamlessly. Roses, jasmine, magnolia and ylang all dance, joining their aromas like a chorus of voices, celebrating the sweetness and beauty. Drying to an earthy blend of moss, orris, and resins kissed with woody musk, here is where Summer meets Autumn. Days, though still long and sunny, grow cooler and shorter. Time marches on. A scent for those who like sweeter scents, and love the crunch of leaves underfoot and the feel of an earthy forest wind.”