MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017--part 77)
scent of the day: Ambergris Nicotina, by Elkhaldi
very literal: ambergris and nicotine—not even as a synonym for tobacco, the nicotine here is like those brown orange fingers of a chain smoker and the brown orange walls of a smokers home. My dad loved deep-sea fishing and had those fingers. It is hard not to make him the image of this scent.
Luckily the carob and fruits do not take this very gourmand. I was worried about a big showing of chocolate like in Kasturi Cola, which disappointed me on that front. But here the carob, especially with the linden, comes off more in a seminal direction of spring plant fornications.
The fig and plum are not obvious. The simply work with the oud, a fruity thai and a barny-hay hindi. In fact, most of the notes really combine into a sludge whose best representation is the poop-water color of the juice. It is hard to say, with all the notes, it is well blended. Maher himself said it was a risk, which is why no more than 4 bottles were made. Or maybe my bottle has been passed around too many times—the perfume equivalence to roast-beef labia.
That said, the perfume does nail the title—the musky combo of patchuli-spikenard earthiness (tobacco) meets salty-skin at sea (ambergris). And it swings up there right with Tabacarum (Sultan Pasha) and the masterwork of blending that is Tabac Dore (Bortnikoff). Indeed, just speaking about the aroma—while not as unique and special of a tabacco as Fleur Tabac OG—I think it bests Tabacarum and Tabac Dore in terms of photorealism. That photorealism, however, might be exactly what it is compromising its projection, though. Because tobacco materials, with all these ouds, can be weighty.
I wish the salty-ocean side of this were bigger. More ambergris and pehaps some salty-sebum reinforcement with costus, one of my favorite vegetative animalics (used phenomenally in Opus 7, Rake and Ruin, and Iris Ghalia Trifecta. Just more costus I imagine would have resulted in a better balance. Because with the hindi oud and spikenard and hay and resins—the earth-bender side is dominating, even with the airy-dewy help of floral like linden blossom.
Ambergris Myanmar was much more perfumery and ebullient, fruits and florals restrained by lanolin but swilled by stunning aquatics. Both suffer from attar-like projection it seems. Nicotina is way more masculine, though—even bringing booze elements, which makes it even more appropriate for my dad. But the pizzazz of Myanmar opening was incredible. Although Myanmar drops of a cliff it seems, its opening might be the best in my collection.
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 77)
are you the root that finds the water or the leaf that catches the light?
lifting weights in the front yard
reduced to a “sweet-thirteen after-party favor”
by repeating it, are you preserving the memory of your tragedy or laundering it?
opening up about your pitiableness but to someone whose own situation leaves him in no position to criticize
in trouble for saying the thing everyone thinks
racing home to stop your wife from reading your suicide note
the days of the substitute teacher wheeling in the TV and VCR cart
a partner that wanted to leave you from the very beginning
fingering yourself on the towelable kitchen tile
kids sketching bomb damage
scholar of Chaucer and serial rapist
another day off wasted in wearied anguish of having to go back to work
poetry in the pocket of an SS soldier
not the ferocity of his attack but the panic that powered it rendered him defenseless, out of steam
the look of a room—bedroom, kitchen— as viewed from a remove of inhuman angle through transparent walls
muscular monks
but how else to cultivate excitement in this zoo of cut-off domestication than risky behavior: affairs, gambling?
trying to out-train a shitty diet
partners so one they take the medicines prescribed to the other
when big cattle start dying of thirst, it is hard to deny who falls next
booed to tears dancing for change on the subway—we all start somewhere
feeling you are doing something worthwhile— and definitely not anything cruel—in helping the senile unscramble memories for an afternoon
wasting life in hope to write the great verse
nostalgia for some moment where you were nostalgic for some other moment
a being who created us to worship him is not worthy of our worship
beneath all the layers Alzheimered away was resolute racism
a being that needs constant reassurance that he is number one above all others— could it ever be worthy of our worship?
a being angry for our not believing in him, even when the shortage of evidence rings in our ears— could it ever be worthy of our worship?
a being for whom a greater sin than raping babies is believing that good works alone can save you— could it ever be worthy of our worship?
