A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes (ROUND 4)
scent of the day: Pleasure Pavilion, by Amphora Exotica
First wear. Take my words with grain of salt.
Whereas in Vespers you are met with a lovely saffron-vanilla oud, here you are met with a fermented-orange oud. The oud seems, although this is merely my first wear, cheesier whereas in Vespers it was more barn—a barnyness that gives an antique feel that this one, resembling the upbeat youth of Hayati’s glowing vanilla-citrus sandalwood, lacks in comparison (albeit only in comparison). This has a bubblegum aspects, albeit orange-floral bubblegum, that brings this into connection with Bortnikoff’s Sir Winston (I ger that with Hayati too) and especially L’Heure Exquise. For anyone who missed out on Bortnikoff’s L’Heure Exquise before it became neutered into its mass-market state now, here is your opportunity to experience something very close.
It is not just my nose that experiences the overlap. My head does too. (1) Both rely heavily on a dual-origin oud base: Bortnikoff’s is bent more cola with his Indonesian oud, especially with extra clove and tolu, whereas Sundar’s is bent more into animalic territory with his Indian. (2) Both utilize similar white florals: (a) Sundar uses orange blossom whereas Bortnikoff uses neroli (the steam-distilled version of the same flower for a more high-end hotel feel) and (b) Sundar uses tuberose whereas Bortnikoff uses Jasmine (both boosting the female-crotch angle I love to nuzzle into). (3) Both feature high-viscosity resins: Sundar used uses labdanum and beeswax whereas Bortnikoff uses tolu, myrrh, and styrax—three elements, especially the a really fungal myrrh, that would have taken Pleasure Pavillion to the next level (but what do I know?). (4) Both utilize Ambergris to provide longevity and a radiating oceanic warmth: Sundar adds musk that, a few hours in, brings out a radiance feel that might even compete with Ensar (a wild feat not just because Ensar is great but because Ensar uses performance-enhancing drugs in his compositions) whereas Bortnikoff, on the other hand, leans more into the balsamic class (similar to what we get in Ormonde Jayne’s Tolu). (5) Both have a forest-floor dankness limned with mint (nothing insane like TRNP’s Aguru, but there): Sundar uses regular patchouli whereas Bortnikoff uses what Ramsey likes to call Persian patchouli (cypriol).
There is an overall difference in vibe, of course: Sundar’s is more regal animalic, especially with his castoreum and deer musk, whereas Bortnikoff’s is more gourmand and spicy (in a slightly girly way), especially with his cocoa and cardamon and clove and the cedar-menthol glow. But the bigger difference is the I-know-not-what that seems, to my mind at least, rooted in intent. I don’t know the intent of course, but Bortnokiff’s composition—even in the woodcap era—seems aimed at making an oud fragrance that would insist on being honored by the greats of french perfumery whereas Sundar’s, at least when we bracket the name (I personally feel it is unfortunate) and the seemingly mandatory rose (which does have a citrus-leaf presence here, sneaking as the orange recedes), seems bent on honoring artisanal heads. Sundar’s approach speaks much more to me philosophically. I stand with Nietzsche in the idea that to have style is to be exclusionary. My own writing is not meant to be universal. Sundar’s approach also speaks to me specifically when it comes to perfumery. While I still appreciate the master blending techniques of trained perfumers (like Vinchon-Sphener, say), my heart is with art artisanal. Sundar is coming out like Nas did back when I was young: he was speaking to his specific project housing (yes, it took off, but that was cherry on top). Sundar is perfuming like he’s got something to prove to us in the Facebook groups. And that is exactly how I like it.
This release comes at an opportune time. Ensar’s house is under fire after people have run reports on his sprayable perfumes, reports that apparently show what any of us with trained noses already knew: that he uses synthetics. Synthetics themselves are not a problem, at least not for me. The drama concerns the fact that Ensar apparently insisted from the very beginning that he never uses synthetics—a tension perhaps resolvable with enough clever wording (wording I am in fact prepared to provide in my defense of Ensar). I have nothing against synthetics. Prin is perhaps my favorite perfumer and he uses synthetics up the wazoo. And I might come out and say that despite having like 30 Ensars and 30 Borts and nearly 20 Areej’s with smatterings of other artisanal brands (Jinx, Pinoy Sirun, Pineward, Havenhollow, Katana, and so on), Schoen’s Montabacco might be the best thing I have ever smelled and might very well be—for all its iso e super—my number one fragrance of all time. That said, Amphora is a house that walks the walk—so the narrative goes and so my nose says. Unlike Ensar, unlike Jinx, unlike pretty much everyone else—this house, that is to say, is 100 percent natural according to the definition of “natural” many of us have in mind. So now is the time to strike.
The way in which Sundar’s house is 100 percent natural should not be underestimated. You can glean the significant by looking at the comment I wrote yesterday on the Ensar board. In response to the lab report buzzing around on the Facebook groups like perfumery’s version of the Epstein files, Ensar Telegrafi himself responded that the report is merely for his sprayable perfume—not for his oil. And he even breathed a public sigh of relief, a sigh of relief since he has dealt too long with haters who claimed his oils had synthetics. Someone responded to him and said “Well set us all at ease, end the drama by answering one question: Do you use synthetics or not in your sprays?” Ensar never replied. But I did—in effect, on his behalf. My response was as follows.
The answer is implied. And the answer is YES. But with bad actors looking for a gotcha (salivating to make more out of his quotable admission than perhaps need be) it is understandable why he refuses to say more, why he won’t connect the dots—especially when they are so easy to connect. His compounded perfumes, in line with pretty much all compounded perfumes you will ever get, can be expected to have synthetics.
His compounded perfumes—not the pure oils, but the sprayable perfumes—are therefore not 100% natural in the strict chemical sense, where “natural” means extracted directly from biological matter (plant/animal/mineral) and “synthetic” means produced by chemical synthesis (regardless of whether it exists in nature).
If the GC report is correct and representative, they would also not qualify as 100% natural under an ontological definition of naturalness. A substance is natural, on this definition, if (a) it exists in nature as a molecule and (b) behaves identically in olfaction and biology. Even though on this view essence matters more than provenance (in which case even lab-derived linalool would still be “natural”), Ensar perfumes still would not count as natural. After all, chemicals like galoxolide or iso e super are not merely lab-derived versions of molecules found in nature but genuinely synthetic constructions.
That said, there remains a coherent and defensible functional sense in which his perfumes can still be described as natural: synthetics, where present, are used in small amounts to support (stabilize, better express) natural materials rather than to replace or dominate them. From this functional perspective, the fragrances remain clearly 100% natural. Claiming 100% natural on this measure is still a robust claim in a world where synthetics are the protagonists in most perfumes on the market.
Amphora, however, can be said to be 100 percent natural in the more robust sense we all know and love. If it is not 100 percent natural in the strictly chemical sense (gathered only from real plants and woods and animals etc), then the perfumes are 100 percent natural at least in the ontological sense: any chemicals, even if lab derived, can be found in nature. That is pretty big. Few other houses can be said to do that.
A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes —for my Grandma, Barbara A. Istvan (1939-2015)*
Anyone who has hummed beneath Becky on an escalator (“Mm hm-mm”), let alone craned past his wife’s beach slaps before the sarong drew shut, has beheld—even if the blaze hides behind all the nasty smoke—traces of self-play taken too damn far: liver lips perfect for shadow puppetry (alien slugs, ET undulants), as much tuckable frill as Ray Finkle; a weighty number, deli-rippled roast beast of Dr. Seuss technicolor, that would have Georgia O'Queef herself rubberneck—and rubbernose even, can you blame her?— like a botanist before an uncatalogued jungle flower. It would seem a lie given her 5ft frame of bird bones—
straight insanity. But yeah, bitch gets real mean with it: The Gut Puncher™—that suction-bottomed black fist, its silhouette in the spook-the-shit-outta-ya shadows mistakable for a toppled lawn gnome, cornstarch dusted like a diaper rash and stowed under the bed quivering siren calls of elastomer stink with each Amtrak rumble. If only we could see it pummel that brown eye, that one surviving gullet whose involuntary “grip” still afforded a semblance of violation sensation (that hole edged now, when off duty at least, with little lips all its own: demonic slanders to God), we would believe. If only we could see
what—after each puckerless plop of retraction—reposes at such Beldar Conehead limits of sunlimned dilation, no time under the Cinderelli-Cinderelli glow of Disney would be needed to translate the magpie’s mad chatter at the uncurtained window of her exhibitionist kink: crazed pleas to come perch upon the perineal ledge, that calamari of scar tissue glistening even when dry; pleas to peck at intestinal breadcrumbs like an oxpecker, that scavenging symbiont to the Serengeti rhino—deeper and deeper, like a child gathering flopping fish and other slimy currency in the majestic drawback of a tsunami sea.
* There is a deep tradition of bawdy humor in my family—the Istvan clan, the Last of the Mo’Beacons. Obscenity kept affection alive and distracted us from hunger pangs. Grandma—and old-school banger of pots and pans out in the street (which funny enough was one of many things that made my visits to Sangre Grande in Trindad, twenty years ago now, feel like coming home)—liked to sing, for example, the Istvan twist on the ditty uniting noncontiguous trashlands across America.
Of course, I have elevated the familial vernacular into something that would give even Cormac McCarthy pause. And it has come at a major price. It secured my alienation from my native kith and kin, who not only—like the rest of us—do not read (a fact that speaks to the Quixote-nature of my vocation, alienating me from most of the world) but also in several cases cannot read in the literal sense. However much I elevate the language into literary platinum, and however many degrees I have earned that might otherwise distract a populace so mired in genetic fallacy that they judge art by its maker, the humor does reveal my class position. And that—along with my insecure posture, and hand jazz while speaking, and eating like I am in jail, and using “sorry” as a conversational filler, and treating service staff as peers instead of ignoring them in good manners—was one of the things that alienated me from the academy, one of the things that made me vulnerable to cancellation even before the tides of TDS cancel culture put everyone with my options—yes, even the most kowtowing ally—on probation.
But I honor my grandmother by carrying forward, as my late father did before me, that torch. With them it was all oral. But I have taken the written approach. I have followed the lead of the great writers who have become—stuck in the overlap of various no-man’s lands, more and more hated, can you blame me?—my true family, if only out of the same necessity that makes people on a deserted island start talking to coconuts. That—along with a tad of Nietzschean self-mythologizing (yes, I am not blind to what I do)—really helps to take the edge off in a world where now even those who check all the boxes (politically correct, the right color, the right gender, the right cadence) are alone, everyone staring into their phones. It prepared me early, before the phones took over. I am grateful for that. And yes, gratitude—trite as it is to say—is another thing to add to the take-the-edge-off arsenal.
Chaucer is a good example of someone in my soul tribe, my astral family. It is sad that my people will never know The Canterbury Tales, even though their own toilet humor amounts to twists of what Chaucer already wrote there. Take The Miller’s Tale, for instance. A parish clerk named Absolon tries to woo a woman named Alison. Absolon comes to Alison’s window at night, begging for a kiss in the dark. Instead of her face, Alison sticks her naked backside out the window. Absolon, expecting a romantic moment, “kissed her naked arse / full savorly.” He only realizes his French mistake when he feels her pubic hair, which Chaucer describes as being like a beard.
When I first read that, back in my undergrad days at Stony Brook, I thought immediately of a story my dad often told me—I had to be no older than six the first time—about a guy who goes into a whorehouse. The mistress of the house says the man can visit every floor he wants, except the top floor. The man sees that it is getting sweeter—tighter, warmer (whatever)—on each floor. So by the time he gets to the last permitted floor, he knows he must hold out his jing for the musky paradise soil—what we might call Jannah in the language of Russian Adam—that must be one floor up. But when he opens the door from the stairwell, everything is pitch black. He feels around until he finds a hairy patch. He unloads in only a few strokes, like a horse—pent up as he was. When he is leaving, the mistress says, “You didn’t go to the top floor, did you?” He says, “Nope.” But then all of a sudden a midget with a beard runs out and goes, “Yes he did—ptuah ptuah. Yes he did—ptuah ptuah.” I tried to tell my dad about the Canterbury Tales. I even tried to get my dad to read the fucking thing. Part of me believed—with these totally naive eyes, the same eyes that would believe his promises to quite drinking—that he could.
Totally ridiculous, I know. But I have always been this way. And most of you who read my work, a rare few to whom I owe many thanks, likely feel the same way. That is what Obama meant by his campaign slogan: “the audacity of hope.” I talk to my cats like children. Deleuze would hate me for it. He would call me “disgusting” for it. But I do. I sit them down and tell them where they went wrong and where they went right and why they can’t get this piece of meat: “There’s too many seasonings, my men. Daddy can’t just wash it off this time.” I rationalize my continued way. What else am I going to do when, like Martin Luther said when he nailed the 95 Theses up in 1517, I cannot do otherwise? I rationalize my native style by saying that, in the case of the cats, some inadvertent good comes from the talking (same with talking to plants), even if they do not understand. Perhaps with age and disconnection I have grown funny, like Radagast. But I do believe the cats do get it, especially over time, more than skeptics might think. Deleuzian becoming runs both ways. Cats can be “lifted”—or “moved,” since “lifted” speaks to the arborescent-hierarchical model, whereas “moved” is the more Deleuze-friendly rhizomatic-lateral term—to a more human level. They know “no” and “chicken.” My cat Fille knows just what to do when I say, “Let me get that belly, babe!”
By the way, the Becky I have in mind is the character Becky, a woke white woman from my story “Arlo.” You do not need to know the story to enjoy the poem. Nor do you need to know that my writing is perhaps the only thing stopping me from de-mapping as many instantiations of her type before I de-map myself. In the early morning twilight sleep on the day that I wrote this poem, I had been dreaming of a bird at work on a rhinoceros anus—an image we all know. I realized I had no choice but to follow it where it led. So I took some of the imagery surrounding Becky’s use of The Gut Puncher™ and crafted a poem that would have my grandma laughing—and yet, tragically, would never have her laughing even if she were still alive.
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)
