The Last Vestiges (ROUND 6)
scent of the day: Abu Madyan, by Ensar
an autumnal-spice woody fragrance with maple boozy spanish leather undertones (styrax and saffron), as well as some hints of bitter cowboy coffee, that together bring it into close proximity to the absolutely stunning Cochise by Havenhollow.
The biggest difference between the two fragrances is that Abu Madyan has no direct pine or cedar whereas Cochise is glutted with pine cedar. I say “no direct” because Abu Madyan does actually have a coniferous feel—this being a function of (a) thyme (medicinal and woody enough to give me associations with pine resin) and Tasmanian pepper (mountain air and brisk enough to give pine forest associations), plus (b) the general forest feel (rooty-soil vetiver, which boosts the sense of under-leaf aroma, plus herbal-tobacco liatrix, which is like an autumn meadow in a bottle), plus (c) the sap-resin adjacent combination of smoked-toffee labdanum and varnish-tar styrax (the key constituents of the rugged spanish leather falconer glove in both fragrances, especially Cochise).
The additional differences are as follows. (1) Abu Madyan puts way more emphasis on herbs (bold-savory thyme plus bitter-earthy oregano). (2) It adds in oud (a matchstick-snuffed-out-on-saddle Kakojan oud, which from a specific place in Assam). (3) It add in what seems to me like a garam masala mix (sharp-biting black peppercorns, barky-sweet cinnamon, citrus-green cardamom and perhaps even smoky-black cardamom, pungent-warm clove, earthy-nutty cumin)
This is right up my alley. This is called an indian-kitchen fragrance. But it is ways difference than the loud cumin style like in Aziyade and Jubilation 25 (Woman) and Fate Man and many Prins like Arsalan. It has an indian flare but at the same time very American autumn—the vibe of the whole Havenhollow house. You know how when in the 1970s you had all these Italian directors like Lucio Fulci doing these horror movies based in the states and how they presented the goings on here in a sort of warped way, colored heavily by the Italian ethos and the Italian stereotypes of the US? Well, one might think of Abu Madyan sort of like if an Indian perfumer tried to do an olfactory homage to Fall in the American northeast but inadvertently filtered all the key parts of that stereotype (leather and conifers, hayrides and pumpkin spice) through an Indian lens.
*Let’s workshop this poem about a pocked-marked meth head (eyelashes loaded up on mascara like one of those NASCAR redneck slores) out for cash from her mother, who watches her toddler each day
The Last Vestiges
Happy Meal box battered (fries stiff, having clocked a night’s share of miles), the meth-mouth mom sighs at the door. Into her childhood home she whirlwinds (“Hey my big boy!”), scooping up the TVed toddler in a centrifugal hug too dizzy to meet her prom gaze over the fireplace. Unlike that pit reek cartoonified by curbside Febreze, that fluttering cheer cartoonified by curbside mascara (and a toke in the mirror) wilts in on itself. More cash must be coaxed out of Granny.
She does that teen sway, one foot behind the other— men, smoking against the car, framed in the window, pocked by a war with what she calls “crank crickets.” Too fast the day approaches when—against the fixity of that reek, too contagious to stand—the transience of that cheer, no less contagious, will flare so bright that the boy, his fingers fretting the toy’s contours, will understand the necessity of becoming immune to hope at a level of consciousness before his time.
